Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from Aaron

Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

What makes someone a royal?

This isn't a loaded or a trick question, I'm actually asking, trying to come up with

a common sense non-dictionary definition.

It's easier to start by asking how somebody becomes a royal.

Well, blood, right?

Certainly that's the first and easiest way to get into the aristocracy.

You are literally grandfathered in.

If your ancestors are nobles in a certain country, barring a revolution, you'll also

be a noble.

Although even after a revolution there were plenty of Russian aristocrats who fled the

country and settled in various European manners and hotel rooms and still called themselves

dukes and duchesses what have you without a country.

So blood, there it is.

But you can also be granted a title by a royal for an act of service or greatness.

Or you can marry a royal.

Those are two ways for a commoner to insert his or herself into an already existing system

of nobility.

You probably won't be the main monarch, but you'll still get a title.

And then there's the coup strategy.

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