Highborn - Life as a Highborn: Highborn exist on nearly all worlds in the Imperium, from the towering spires of its hive cities to the stone forts and caves of its feral kingdoms. They are the privileged and powerful of their homeworlds; those fit for governance not by the will of the people but by the providence of their birthright.While their powers and purview might differ from world to world, their function remains the same: to lead their people and control the resources and political might of their planet. Most highborn grow up being groomed for this political power, taught to govern justly by fair and even-handed peers or, more likely, instilled with a disregard for those below and ingratitude for the influence and position they have been given.Many are so ingrained into their opulent lifestyle that they have little or no notion of how the majority of their society lives. Generations can be spent in supreme if relative comfort, be that a heated cavern shielded from omnipresent blizzards or an orbiting pleasure-satellite that rides auroral clouds. Here they are content to shield themselves in the trappings of wealth and privilege, while focusing on the real threat to their existence or to that of their family: other highborn.The scale and size of the Imperium is reflected in the nobility of its worlds. Just as it has endured for millennia and covers the majority of the galaxy, so too are there noble families, Rogue Trader dynasties, Knight World Nobles, merchant cartels, interstellar corporation owners, sector lords, and planetary governors whose lineage stretches back thousands of Terran years and whose holdings comprise whole star systems or wide regions of Imperial space. It is also reflected in its diversity, with each world's ruler as unique as the world itself. Some worlds are ruled directly through Imperial agencies such as the Adeptus Ministorum or Adeptus Mechanicus, where the rulers are more the result of power plays within an existing adepta's hierarchy than hereditary bloodlines or the decree of the Adeptus Administratum.Some rulers flicker and fade, having barely made their presence known. Others form dynasties lasting the entire history of a world. Often a family or lineage can draw great power to itself, slowly but surely acquiring planetary control and resources, seeding its spawn throughout positions of influence and authority until there is no place on a world untouched by its grasp. Over the years, such great families will wax and wane in their power, so that a minor highborn might find themself recently risen up on the fortunes of their line, newly gifted with wealth and fame, or they might be lamenting the reckless deeds of their ancestors that have seen their family fall from grace, a mere shadow of what they once were.Being highborn means more than being born into power and position; it means the lifelong obligation and struggle to protect the interests of the house or clan, and to try and better them. It is the nature of political power that those that do not have it crave it, and those that do have it crave even more. Noble families thus conduct warfare with each other to garner and defend power, in battles often masked with subtlety, disguise, and innuendo but no less deadly than open combat. At such levels, mere currency is worthless, and power is traded in favours and debts. In these struggles for power, there are few rules, and should a family fall from favour they have little recourse for justice when targeted by blackmail, treachery, or murder, save to respond in kind.While born to political and economic power, highborn might also be born with little or even nothing to look forward to beyond a lifetime of idle excess and family infighting. Even among the most powerful families, there are usually dozens if not hundreds of heirs to the true positions of power, and a highborn, while afforded all the luxuries of their station, may find little with which to content themselves. This idleness can lead them in wildly different directions, either choosing to try to climb the social ladder of their family, proving themselves in the bloody politics of the Imperial nobility, or rejecting the control their family has placed upon them and seeking their own fortunes elsewhere.Those that remain find they are never truly free of their family. The ties that bind them to the home are always present, as is the taint of their family and its reputation, which clings to their name as long as they wear it. Even those that try and escape might not be able to run far enough to outdistance their noble obligations and their family's long reach, inevitably dragged back into its petty squabbles and bids for power long after they considered themselves free.A highborn not fortunate enough to have a place of real power could spend their days in luxurious indolence, or find adventure on their own in other areas of their homeworld to pass their time. Some might be ceded to one of the Imperial organisations operating in their star system or on their world, thus extending the influence of the family. Here the highborn might rise through the ranks or be as idle as they desire, putting in token effort and continuing a decadent lifestyle secure in the knowledge that the political weight of their house can protect them from any chance of dismissal.It is not uncommon for a highborn youth to be given a commission in the Astra Militarum or Navis Imperialis. While it falls to such a highborn to decide if they care to strive in their position, they might easily earn the resentment of those of their fellow officers who have had to earn their rank, at least until they have proved themselves worthy of it in some way.Those that endeavour to escape their families also often voluntarily choose to join the Imperial Guard or Imperial Navy, hoping it can take them far away from those that know them. In this role they strive to earn their place upon their own deeds and not the word of their family, but it is a dangerous game.The Imperial military forces are filled with those of noble blood, and the chance of encountering someone that recognises the highborn never goes away. Some truly cut ties with their family, becoming criminals or pirates after first stealing as much of their house's wealth as possible. Others, even worse in their family's eyes, forge a reputation for themselves as liberators and freedmen, living lives impossible for their relations to comprehend.