Imperium (Istania)
The Imperium is the highest order of nobility in the Empire of Istantium, and essentially encompasses all legitimate descendants of the first Imperator. Over the course of one and a half millennia, the order has expanded exponentially. Members of the Imperium hold assignable hereditary rights to various city offices in Παραίσθηση and enjoy a number of other privileges throughout the Empire. They are entitled to "succor and care" from the Senators and Compartmental governments when traveling and are exempt from income, property, and other incidental taxes throughout the Empire. Particularly in the modern Age of Steam, corporations and limited liability companies have begun to take advantage of these traditional immunities, and often hire individual members of the Imperium for titular positions so that they may conceal and/or launder various profits and/or avoid paying Compartmental taxes and tariffs when trading throughout the Empire. Members of the Imperium may not accept salaries from foreign corporations, however, which gives the home-grown companies a certain advantage of foreign-headed concerns.
Fortunately for Istantine stability, most members of the Imperium are well outside the chain of succession for the Imperial throne. Only direct first or second degree relatives of the current Imperator may be named as a "potential heir." There is, of course, an ongoing legal debate as to the precise legal definition of "first or second degree relatives," but this is a technical issue considered important only in the circles of legal academia and among the small circle of Imperial Recorders and Scribes.
Once named as a potential heir, a member of the Imperium must give up all other titles and possessions and join the Imperial household. Honorees may, of course, refuse to give up their personal property, outside associations and employment, family estates or personal titles - but doing so is considered treason and the individual is subject to summary execution. As compensation for this self-sacrifice, named potential heirs receive governmental allowances and support, apartments in the outter wings of the Imperial palace, and enjoyment of all outlying Imperial estates, lands, resorts, pleasure barges, trains, et cetera. The existance is pampered one, but a punishing one. Named potential heirs may not continue any sort of formal education program, must give up all military ties, and may hold no other office. Their lives are wide open; they have neither want nor worries, they are given everything, and have nothing. Imperators have often named rivals or enemies as their heirs, then assigned them to some backwater in a flowery but empty mission "until recall" and then forgotten them.
With this system in place, the power of the lineage has never been brought to bear against a sitting Imperator, and the Imperium are essentially free of the threat of Imperial purges to destroy powerful rivals and their descendants.
