The Order of Precedence is the hierarchy by which members of Kindred society are ordered. It is vaguely associated with, but not a direct indication of, the importance of someone within the community and has special importance for many ceremonial matters. Note that the Order of Precedence is related to, but separate from the hierarchy of Style, which determines how someone with multiple titles should be addressed.
In general, the order of precedence determines who goes first for example when entering a room or when being served by a servant, but it also determines who is introduced to whom and who is tended to first in an emergency.
Base order of Precedence
The base order of precedence is determined by three factors:
- Age
Rank describes the position one has attained within Kindred society by age and merit. Title follows the Style hierarchy, with high ranking Peers going before Gentry who in turn go before the lower classes. All these things being equal, the oldest Kindred goes first, where age is determined by the moment of embrace, not the moment of birth.
Changes due to circumstance
The base order of precedence may vary, however depending on the circumstances. The most common ones are listed below:
Certain rituals create gendered pairs. In this case, the order of precedence is split up in two lists, a male order and a female order, and then merged again in pairs. If there are more high ranking men than women, a lower ranking woman may end up before a higher ranking man or vice versa.
When an event is taking place within someone's estates or is being organized by someone, the host and hostess of the event will take precedence over everyone - except the Prince, who goes first regardless.
Guests in a nest - that is, those who do not normally live here but who are visiting there for an event such as a Soiree - get precedence over others in the nest, except the host and hostess themselves. This only holds within the nest itself.
At funerals the order of precedence goes by relationship to the deceased first and by regular order of precedence after.
In church, the priest performing the service goes first, similar to the host of an event.
Finally, those who have physical limitations may be given precedence, depending on the available resources. For example, a crippled Kindred would get access to a chair before a healthy kindred if there aren't enough available.