Prologue
The year is 1906. The world has change so rapidly that it doesn’t compare to life ten years ago. The English call it the “Edwardian era”, in honor and seperation to their previous monarch. On the European continent is “Art Nouveau” everywhere. Advertizement posters, newspaper articles, jewelry and porcelain tablewear. It is in fact an age of the New Arts. Loose, vivid, for ever in motion and a tad bit sensual.
It is an era of Old Nobility and New Money. German princesses are sought after marriage candidates. Kings of ancient nobel families who seek women adorned in their family history to marry their sons and povide heirs to their family. Meanwhile their own daughters are married out -used- to enforce or even create new arrangements.
Having a German princess as a bride is the ultimate symbol of power and status. It means you are important enough and established enough in society to be able and to be allowed to marry a princess.
Old nobility has titles, a name, land and possessions but not always the money that is associated with it.
New Money is an inheritance of the Industrial Revolution. Factory owners, engineers, thinkers, business owners. It has been centuries past when textiles were the money makers, carrying the world like Atlas. Steam powered weaving machines and looms provide the money, which is then spend on perfumes, Eastern luxury goods such as Chinese porcelain, Greek marble, Roman Antiques and Egyptian mummies. Travel agencies offer Grand Tours around the Mediterranean for elite prices but with a bonus feature consisting of unlimited access to antiques.
That's what New Money has. Money, capital but no back bone. Every single hard earned penny can be gone within a second. There is no back up consisting of selling lands, castles and home-made antiques like Old Nobility.
But that does not concern people. Wealth is to increase. The world is bigger than it has ever been before.
