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shadow_archmagi
2012-09-04, 12:24 PM
So, the scenario as it's always put is that Boranel is ultra beloved by his people, but he's old and hasn't chosen an heir from amongst his crummy sons, so some people think that it's time to have no kings.

I can't find any source anywhere that says whether the Bear King would be okay with being the last in his line. Given that he's depicted as an all-around pretty great guy what with being the only peaceful ruler and the first to declare Warforged people, (which is a big deal in Eberron, which has at least sixty shades of gray) it seems like he'd be in favor of more freedom, bigger freedom.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-09-04, 01:09 PM
The eberron books intentionally keep it open so the DM can decide.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-09-04, 03:19 PM
I'd be inclined to think that, in spite of being very progressive, King Borenal is still a monarch, and as such he'd be opposed, though not necessarily vehemently so, to abolishing the monarchy.

Doing so without abolishing the accompanying nobility, would divide the realm into a large group of pseudo-kingdoms that would likely either destroy each other piecemeal or quickly fall to foreign powers, because the nobles would probably refuse to stand united against outside aggression.

Monarchy to democracy is a huge overhaul if you try to do it all at once. That kind of radical change is almost always accompanied by strife.

I could see him establishing a parliament type group to limit the monarchs' power, so as to mitigate the damage done by whichever of his sons he names as his heir.

If he's clever he'll choose the weakest of his sons to succeed him under the new parliament to help cement its power. It'd likely be a time of great tension, but with some luck and the king's lanterns siding with parliament it could work out. If the majority of the lanterns side with the new king however, the tension will probably reach a breaking point and result in a rebellion/revolution.

This would make for an interesting campaign.

shadow_archmagi
2012-09-04, 03:34 PM
I could see him establishing a parliament type group to limit the monarchs' power, so as to mitigate the damage done by whichever of his sons he names as his heir.

Breland already has a Parliament and has for some time.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-09-04, 03:56 PM
Breland already has a Parliament and has for some time.

I'm not overly familiar with khorvaire's politics. I'm more fond of Sarlona. :smallredface:

What I said can be adapted to that with minimal effort though.

By increasing parliament's authority, providing he can do so, and choosing his weakest son, Boranel can begin to phase out the monarchy. Just dropping it all at once will still cause too much tension, and almost certainly cause a revolution/rebellion, but by weakening the monarchy, you get just enough tension, generally between traditionalists that believe a strong king makes a strong nation and reformists who think the monarchy is outdated, to breed a -potential- rebellion that the PC's can either aid in coming or try to prevent.

Dramatic tension is the core of good storytelling.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-09-04, 04:04 PM
I'm not overly familiar with khorvaire's politics. I'm more fond of Sarlona. :smallredface:

What I said can be adapted to that with minimal effort though.

By increasing parliament's authority, providing he can do so, and choosing his weakest son, Boranel can begin to phase out the monarchy. Just dropping it all at once will still cause too much tension, and almost certainly cause a revolution/rebellion, but by weakening the monarchy, you get just enough tension, generally between traditionalists that believe a strong king makes a strong nation and reformists who think the monarchy is outdated, to breed a -potential- rebellion that the PC's can either aid in coming or try to prevent.

Dramatic tension is the core of good storytelling.

Except the most powerful man in the Parliament is corrupt and wants to seize power for himself, IIRC.

Anderlith
2012-09-04, 04:31 PM
Actually the king wants a monarchy. He is secretly paying house Cannith to construct a warforged for him, this is why he is so avid to seen adventurers into Xen'drik, so that they can bring back ancient powerful technologies to further his real goals.

Construct & transfer his mind into a warforged body, that will never age or die.

He is in the middle of altering Sharns manifest zones so that he's soon to be warforged body can tap into the field & exert his control without leaving his throne. This is why he is first accepted the warforged as people. So that he could become one & still be legally eligible to be king.



....or atleast that's what I heard....:smallamused:

Kelb_Panthera
2012-09-04, 06:59 PM
Except the most powerful man in the Parliament is corrupt and wants to seize power for himself, IIRC.

Hmm..... I didn't know that either. Does the king?

blackspeeker
2012-09-04, 08:24 PM
Hmm..... I didn't know that either. Does the king?
Being that his catchphrase/hook is "anything but politics!" I'd guess he doesn't.

I at least haven't found any mention of him knowing, probably another thing meant to be left open for DM discretion.

Madfellow
2012-09-04, 09:17 PM
Based on what I know of King Boranel, he sounds a lot like King Robert Baratheon from the Song of Ice and Fire series. Maybe he'd take a similar tactic. If none of his kids are good candidates for the throne, he'll name someone else as his heir. Whomever he trusts most in the world. Granted, that didn't exactly work out well for King Robert in the end. :smalltongue:

Kelb_Panthera
2012-09-05, 02:58 AM
Being that his catchphrase/hook is "anything but politics!" I'd guess he doesn't.

I at least haven't found any mention of him knowing, probably another thing meant to be left open for DM discretion.

In that case, it's just one more source of dramatic tension and a factor in the players' decision of who to side with.

Knight13
2012-09-05, 08:16 AM
Isn't one of Boranel's daughters pretty awesome? Maybe Breland can just have a queen instead.

blackspeeker
2012-09-05, 12:47 PM
In that case, it's just one more source of dramatic tension and a factor in the players' decision of who to side with.

Sometimes I don't know whether to love or hats whereon for that, but at least this way as a person who sometimes DMs I can have an NPC not be a chessmaster.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-09-05, 01:03 PM
Isn't one of Boranel's daughters pretty awesome? Maybe Breland can just have a queen instead.

Too impatient, dunno about her head for politics, but prefers to spend most of her time in Xen'Drik.

Seharvepernfan
2012-09-05, 02:53 PM
Too impatient, dunno about her head for politics, but prefers to spend most of her time in Xen'Drik.

Sounds like Azound and Alisair.

Seharvepernfan
2012-09-05, 02:55 PM
Too impatient, dunno about her head for politics, but prefers to spend most of her time in Xen'Drik.

Sounds like Azound and Alisair.

blackspeeker
2012-09-05, 04:30 PM
Too impatient, dunno about her head for politics, but prefers to spend most of her time in Xen'Drik.

Where can one find info on his children, all I can find in five nations is has 11 of them, and Kaius's daughter as a ward, who he may be in love with. I could see him name her heir.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-09-05, 05:15 PM
Where can one find info on his children, all I can find in five nations is has 11 of them, and Kaius's daughter as a ward, who he may be in love with. I could see him name her heir.

I have no idea. But
A) None of his children would be great rulers
B) She likes adventure and exploration.

So I just inferred she had the flaws that would fit in with point B.

Alleran
2012-09-05, 06:43 PM
Sounds like Azound and Alisair.
It sounds almost exactly like Azoun and Alusair.

Of course, Alusair proved that she was actually quite an effective ruler, once she'd been forced to sit down and actually rule.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-09-05, 08:23 PM
Where can one find info on his children, all I can find in five nations is has 11 of them, and Kaius's daughter as a ward, who he may be in love with. I could see him name her heir.

That's a terrible political move. Creating that strong a strong link between karnath and breland might galvanize other nations to action or worse, set the church of the silver flame into a tizzy by the merest suggestion that karnathi "love" of undead might spread beyond that nation, and spark a crusade led by thrane.

Madfellow
2012-09-05, 09:09 PM
"Anything but politics!"

He might do it anyway without thinking or worrying about the consequences.

The_Snark
2012-09-06, 02:39 AM
Actually the king wants a monarchy. He is secretly paying house Cannith to construct a warforged for him, this is why he is so avid to seen adventurers into Xen'drik, so that they can bring back ancient powerful technologies to further his real goals.

Construct & transfer his mind into a warforged body, that will never age or die.

He is in the middle of altering Sharns manifest zones so that he's soon to be warforged body can tap into the field & exert his control without leaving his throne. This is why he is first accepted the warforged as people. So that he could become one & still be legally eligible to be king.

....or atleast that's what I heard....:smallamused:

Conspiracy theory much? Next you'll be claiming King Kaius is secretly a vampire. Sheesh. :smallwink:

Seharvepernfan
2012-09-06, 05:02 AM
It sounds almost exactly like Azoun and Alusair.


I'm glad I managed to mispell both their names. : /

Anderlith
2012-09-06, 07:37 AM
Conspiracy theory much? Next you'll be claiming King Kaius is secretly a vampire. Sheesh. :smallwink:

Of course. It's always healthy to add a layer of conspiracies & secrets to game & especially healthy to add them to preexisting worlds to lower the metagaming.

Roguenewb
2012-09-06, 10:10 AM
I ran a campaign once where Boranel didn't really care for democracy. He didn't like many of the current politicians and nobles, but not because he was pro-democracy, but because he thought those nobles were weak. Thought all the good ones died during the war, etc. Now, that's not canon, but Baker believed pretty heavily in leaving setting "mysteries" as actual mysteries so that players couldn't metagame the answer.

I think that either option could make a good story, you just have to pick what kind of story you want to tell as a DM, and pick the answers to mysteries that you like.

I remember in the old WotC forum "ask hellcow" thread, from time to time Baker would post "3 explanations for _____" which ranged from the mourning, to the goals of the Chamber to rakshasas bound in the silver flame (and a couple others) and they were always awesome bits of fantasy literature, and he was careful IIRC to never ever post only one explanation of anything at a time, so that there would be no confusion that something was his "official answer". Though I believe some of them were described as being what he'd used in his Eberron campaigns (making them almost sort of kinda official.)


On an unrelated note: Does anybody have that thread? I'd love to gather his explanations up into an eberron inspiration collection.

shadow_archmagi
2012-09-06, 05:59 PM
On a totally unrelated note: Do the dwarves ever do anything in Eberron? Like, the elves have this long history and all these goals and stuff. The Dwarves just seem to be stereotypical fantasy dwarves who live in mountains and forge stuff and don't participate in history.

EDIT: I guess there are some dwarves in Sarlona that're waging a gorilla war against Riedra.

Beleriphon
2012-09-06, 06:13 PM
On a totally unrelated note: Do the dwarves ever do anything in Eberron? Like, the elves have this long history and all these goals and stuff. The Dwarves just seem to be stereotypical fantasy dwarves who live in mountains and forge stuff and don't participate in history.

Other than run the largest banking empire in the world? No, they don't do much, although its been suggested in the fiction that the thirteen clans are exiles to their current homes and there is a way more awesome dwarven empire underground somewhere.

The dwarves aren't integral to much of the setting's ancient history but they did split off from Karnath during the Last War, and they do finance most of the Five Nations debts.

Teron
2012-09-06, 08:34 PM
The exiles eventually went back to check; the empire's gone. Daelkyr got to it.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041101a
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041108a

shadow_archmagi
2012-09-07, 05:16 PM
The exiles eventually went back to check; the empire's gone. Daelkyr got to it.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041101a
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041108a

I should really read all the dragonshards at some point

Teron
2012-09-07, 05:36 PM
You really should; it's great material.

On a somewhat related note, I don't suppose anyone knows where I could find some sort of archive of the Ask Keith Baker threads?

shadow_archmagi
2012-09-07, 07:48 PM
You really should; it's great material.

On a somewhat related note, I don't suppose anyone knows where I could find some sort of archive of the Ask Keith Baker threads?

I don't know about an archive of his threads, but there's a tremendous amount of material on his old (and new) blogs