Bizarre idea for D&D game: Suppose titles were inherent like alignment

[Jay R]

What if kingship or the right to inherited titles was an inherent, detectable quality, like alignment?

Perhaps you could tell if the old queen is alive 500 miles away by casting “detect rulership” on the princess.

You might discover that the queen’s son isn’t really the king’s son, and doesn’t have a claim on the throne.

If births don't have to be in wedlock to inherit, there might be a search of all the places the old king visited in his youth to find the peasant living in squalor who is the actual heir.

Besides a cantrip “detect rulership” that worked like “detect magic", there might be a first level spell “identify lineage” that could determine your position in the succession, similar to “identify”. [Note that without this second spell, you can't easily determine that the prince is not the heir until the old king dies.] "OK, the spell shows that the prince isn't really next in line, but third, after some child of the king we don't know about. But look at this. He turns out to be 14th in line for Duchy of Grand Fenwick through his mother, and his servant, who I caught in the spells's range, is the true heir of the the Isle of Naboombu."

Does changing the inheritance laws, or conquering the lands, change who the spell identifies, or is there an inherent true king, regardless of whose armies are currently holding the land? And are there some areas that have never been ruled by their inherent true ruler?

Would Raise Dead gain you that aura back, or does the right pass away permanently at the king’s first death?

And what new kinds of quests just opened up?

Just a weird thought that crossed my mind today, while contemplating the absurdity of the alignment rules.

[solidork]

You reduce the absurdity level by just having Fate be a big setting element, something that is tangible and measurable by those with the right kind of power. It could be really cool.

I decided for my current character in a campaign we just started to be fated to die within a year, and I talked with my DM about what kinds of people might be able to notice that kind of thing and comment on it.

[NowhereMan583]

This sounds like a fantastic idea, and it fits really well with the fantasy-medieval setting of D&D. The belief that kings &c. not only have divine right to rule, but are an inherently different class of person, is pretty old and practically baked into a lot of the source material -- for instance, Cyrus the Great, according to Herodotus, was secretly raised by common folk in total ignorance of his royal blood, but was identified as the heir to the throne as soon as he came to the attention of the authorities because he spoke and acted like a king. And, of course, much later, there was the whole Sword-in-the-Stone thing, which kind of establishes a precedent for magical items that can tell whether you are the rightful ruler of a nation.

So, yeah, taking the idea that royalty is an inherent property of the ruling class and making a set of spells that play off of that would fit right into the genre. I think it's definitely worthy of further development.

If you're going to be consistent with the legendary material, I'd say that conquest or the changes of laws don't affect who the "true ruler" of a land is; the people who now hold temporal power have to actually eliminate the bloodline of the "true rulers" in order to take their place. (Even then, maybe there's a lag of a generation or so.) That would be a quest hook in and of itself:

It is well known that the throne of Baltimore is enchanted so that none but the rightful ruler may sit upon it. King Jeff, a fair and just monarch, has never been able to take that seat, which constantly undermines his position and authority. This is because his grandfather took the throne by conquest, but failed to completely eliminate the heirs of the previous ruler. As the third generation of his dynasty, King Jeff should be recognized by the gods / fate / the magic throne / whatever as the true king, but is not -- in desperation, he hires some morally-flexible adventurers to search out any remaining "true heirs" of the previous dynasty and put them to the sword.

You'd really have to decide where the quality of true rulership comes from. If it comes from somewhat fallible, powerful-but-not-omnipotent, gods, then there might well be some areas that have never been ruled by their true rulers.

At the dawn of humankind, the god Bob took his chosen people, Steve and his children, to the top of a great hill and spoke unto them, "Steve, I give unto you and your sons and daughters this great land in perpetuity." Unfortunately, the Stevelings are absurdly incompetent, so they've never managed to actually take charge of the place.

Also, I think the issue of raise dead in regards to lines of succession has come up before, and it really only makes sense if dying means you're no longer the true ruler, whether or not you come back. If you accept that true-rulership stays with you after you've been killed and resurrected, then you open up a whole can of worms with regards to one's ancestors.

"Queen Sue, I regret to inform you that you are no longer the ruler of this land."
"What?! A coup, is it? Guards!"
"No, no, your majesty, nothing like that. You are beloved throughout the land, and we would not dare challenge your leadership."
"Then...?"
"High Priest Fred, who has long resented your progressive agenda, located the mummy of your great-grandmother and cast true resurrection. So, legally speaking... you're going to have to step down."

[NichG]

This would work well in an animistic setting with large numbers of small gods. The idea of a country is when the land becomes animated by the shared belief/nationalism of its inhabitants. 'True' rulership is when the spirit of the land finds an individual who best matches the (current) collective belief of the people about what they expect in a ruler. At which point that person starts to manifest supernatural boons to aid them in establishing rule.

[Andor13]

This is kind of a running theme in the Erfworld comic, which got its start on this site.

Note that there is also potential overlap with the old "The King is the land, and the land is the King" idea in which the proper King was magically bound to his land for good and for ill.

[comk59]

This is kind of a running theme in the Erfworld comic, which got its start on this site.

Note that there is also potential overlap with the old "The King is the land, and the land is the King" idea in which the proper King was magically bound to his land for good and for ill.

Aw, you beat me to it.

I do like Erfworlds signamancy mechanics, where the King (or Queen) of a strong and powerful kingdom will be noticeably more imposing than the ruler of a small, stagnant kingdom. It encourages the nobility to constantly fight each other for power, since if you stop fighting for power and just rest on your laurels your body begins to physically reflect that.

[RazorChain]

I think this has already been done in part in the Birthright setting for D&D where you had Regency points, domains and holdings.

[zlefin]

The anime/underlying novels Twelve Kingdoms runs in a somewhat similar way. could be a good source of inspiration.
been awhile, so my memory on the details are too rusty.

[Xuc Xac]

If this also includes the old "alignment languages" stuff, this would mean that kings, and only kings, could speak with the royal "we".

[Florian]

@Jay R:

Things are probably a lot simpler than you think. When rulership is an externally bestowed quality, either by divine mandate or the land itself, then the biological and legal aspects of inheritance are pretty much unimportant. Same with raise dead or undeath, the mandate ended and was passed on with death and unless the whole setup contains a "once and future king" clause, there is no automatism or entitlement to get it back from the current holder.

Birthright had that thing about Regency being coupled to bloodlines, both of which could be magically detected, assessed and were understood in the setting. IIRC, it also worked in reverse, once you claimed Regency, you developed a bloodline.

But I think that L5R is actually a better example for the whole concept. The different lands and cultures come attached with varying divine mandates that manifest in different ways but will create tangible effects. For Rokugan, the mandate comes from "celestial heaven" and will manifest in the Rank, Honor and Glory scores, which a typical rokugani can detect by instinct, but which can also be made visible with spells.

[Kardwill]

@Jay R:
Same with raise dead or undeath, the mandate ended and was passed on with death and unless the whole setup contains a "once and future king" clause, there is no automatism or entitlement to get it back from the current holder.

Or you could have a possible conflict, where two different people hold the same divine mandate (similar to the way the Slayer was "duplicated" when Buffy died, resulting in 2 slayers), which could have an effect on the country (a separation in 2 lands, magical instability, doom prophecies) or the mandate itself (weakening the link between King and Land)

And even if the mandate was lost with death, the old resurected king would still be a serious threat to the throne, even if all "divine right" was lost.

Yeah, I imagine resurection would not be very popular in such a setting...

[Telonius]

I believe there's actually a spell that does something in BoEF, "detect ancestry" or something like that. At work and not about to check, but I remember it as being one of the few serious, non-squicky, actually-good-for-most-campaigns ideas in the book.

[Florian]

And even if the mandate was lost with death, the old resurected king would still be a serious threat to the throne, even if all "divine right" was lost.

L5R has the "War of Spirits" campaign arc. Basically, a gate to the celestial heaven was opened and a rather large number of dead ancestors stepped through and instantly reincarnated in the flesh, amongst them one former emperor. That led to a massive civil war, as the newly arrived spirits all claimed their former land, titles and positions from the "usurpers".

[hamishspence]

What if kingship or the right to inherited titles was an inherent, detectable quality, like alignment?

Perhaps you could tell if the old queen is alive 500 miles away by casting “detect rulership” on the princess.

Makes me think of this Terry Pratchett quote:



The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.

[DeTess]

Yeah, I imagine resurection would not be very popular in such a setting...

Is suspect that after the first couple of civil wars caused by this issue, a general agreement to never, ever resurrect dead monarchs would be put into place, and that a monarch that has been resurrected does not have any legal rights tot he throne.

[noob]

Is suspect that after the first couple of civil wars caused by this issue, a general agreement to never, ever resurrect dead monarchs would be put into place, and that a monarch that has been resurrected does not have any legal rights tot he throne.

Well you do not need to not resurrect dead monarchs if you already agree about not giving resurrected monarchs legal rights to the throne.

[DeTess]

Well you do not need to not resurrect dead monarchs if you already agree about not giving resurrected monarchs legal rights to the throne.

Depends on how much the magic determining who's king cares about legal agreements regarding resurrected ex-monarchs.

[TheStranger]

Cool idea. As has been said, you want to give some thought to what constitutes a "divine mandate" to rule. When you think about how many distant descendants a monarch might have after a few generations (especially if you're giving bastards full inheritance rights), the idea of eliminating a long-reigning bloodline might require you to kill a not-insignificant portion of the kingdom. And in most cases, the idea of a rightful ruler assumes some general consensus in the kingdom about who might have the right to rule.

You might have a high-level clerical spell called Establish Bloodline or something like that. I'm imagining a ritual spell that could only be cast by the high priest of a god widely worshiped in the kingdom and would only work on a monarch sitting on a throne, perhaps with an additional requirement that the monarch's right to rule be acknowledged by general acclamation. So a conqueror could use it to replace the old lineage once it reached the point where most people accepted that King Steve wasn't coming back. If all known members of the old monarchy were killed, that would be pretty quick, but if it was known that the old king's son fled to the neighboring kingdom to raise an army and reclaim the throne, it would take a while. Additional castings would be necessary to add new lands to an existing kingdom (again, subject to the requirement that the monarch's right to rule is acknowledged), or to change inheritance laws. For instance, a ruler with no sons could have the High Priest cast the spell to allow his daughters to inherit instead.

When the spell is cast, the ruler affirms himself as the rightful ruler of the kingdom, and speaks the inheritance laws that will be used. Smart rulers write it all down ahead of time. The spell itself is neutral about what those laws should be. "Firstborn sons of my direct lineage, born in wedlock" is a valid option, but so is "the Dukes shall choose from among their number." In the latter case, detecting the rightful ruler later on might be pointless, but it does prevent the spell from tagging somebody else on the basis of bloodline.

In combination with divination spells, this might allow the creation of "sword in the stone" items that could be used to determine not just the rightful, but the preferred ruler of a kingdom. The idea would be that when the prospective king grasps the sword, the divination magic determines whether he's Good, what his bloodline is, whether the kingdom would prosper under his rule, etc., as prerequisites for ruling. A king with a disfavored heir might commission such an item in order to legitimately pass the crown to a much more suitable younger son, nephew, etc., and also to encourage future royal scions to get their act together.

[JMS]

Maybe, for the resurrection problem, a nation could set a time limit, so the current ruler can be raised after an assassination, but the grumpy high priest can't raise the 100 year dead leader who agrees with his cause.

[Anonymouswizard]

We essentially have two ideas here.

I like the idea of detect lineage. Maybe in a different form, give somebody a piece of prepare paper and it lists their ancestors until the page is full, but I like the general idea.

Coming from a monarchy that had a civil war over the monarch's right to rule (sort of), I'm very suspicious of any divine right of kings situation. I like Birthright because it's more about being Blooded than about being the right bloodline, and there's technically nothing stopping a constitutional monarchy with a Blooded royal family (it probably works better with PC controlled kingdoms, elected officials to do the day to day running and a document that gives the monarch some level of actual power. But otherwise it's just something that rubs me the wrong way, as if we're looking at monarchy from the other way around. The addition of spells to change what the 'right' bloodline is just makes it weirder, in that case who is it giving monarchs their power?

[LibraryOgre]

I think this has already been done in part in the Birthright setting for D&D where you had Regency points, domains and holdings.

Yep. About 1500 years ago, the Gods exploded, and some of the old kings became new gods. Rulers can link themselves to the land, using their personal power to enhance the land, and enhance their personal power with the land. There are, IIRC, spells to tell who rules a given land.

[Anymage]

I'm not a fan of the idea, but only because I'm not a fan of the D&D-ism of making every effect into a spell that some caster type or other can bring to bear. Detect Monarch would be weird in play.

Having certain items/locations have special effects for those of the right bloodlines, and possibly even having special feats or other abilities that can only be used by someone of the right bloodline, on the other hand, could be really cool. Again interacts oddly with certain D&Disms (if playing 3.x, UMD suddenly becomes a lot more interesting), but a fun idea in its own right.

[Cosi]

Coming from a monarchy that had a civil war over the monarch's right to rule (sort of), I'm very suspicious of any divine right of kings situation.

D&D doesn't really put enough thought into how divine right would work in-game. In the real world, the idea that the king rules by divine right is basically absurd. He's a dude, usually not even a particularly special dude, who is in charge because his father was king. On the other hand, the existence of Mind Flayers and Dragons in D&Dland implies that the king is at least pretty hard core -- otherwise he doesn't get to keep his kingdom. The king might actually be better and stronger than everyone else in the kingdom. Obviously, that doesn't make putting him in charge right, but it does make things more complicated. Things are further complicated by things like Apprentice, magic items (particularly, Weapons of Legacy), and various heritable power sources (like Lycantropy, or "being a dragon").

Not to mention the complexities of "divine right" in a world where there are multiple gods, many of which will tell you who they would like you to put in charge.

[Anonymouswizard]

D&D doesn't really put enough thought into how divine right would work in-game. In the real world, the idea that the king rules by divine right is basically absurd. He's a dude, usually not even a particularly special dude, who is in charge because his father was king. On the other hand, the existence of Mind Flayers and Dragons in D&Dland implies that the king is at least pretty hard core -- otherwise he doesn't get to keep his kingdom. The king might actually be better and stronger than everyone else in the kingdom. Obviously, that doesn't make putting him in charge right, but it does make things more complicated. Things are further complicated by things like Apprentice, magic items (particularly, Weapons of Legacy), and various heritable power sources (like Lycantropy, or "being a dragon").

Not to mention the complexities of "divine right" in a world where there are multiple gods, many of which will tell you who they would like you to put in charge.

I'd argue that the king is either one of the strongest people in the kingdom or commands the loyalty of some of the strongest people.

Here's a possibility, one or more bloodlines have an inherited trait that gives them a massive bonus to Will Saves (I'm talking +10 or something similar, to make this make more sense). These people are considered destined to rule because they're resistant to mind-control, so it's significantly less likely that their words aren't their own. However there's hundreds to thousands of people who have potentially inherited the trait in a given kingdom, you don't have to be the true heir, you just have to have the anti-mind control gene.

In a less supernatural-happy setting a 'divinely chosen' king could easily have some sort of minor power that acts as 'proof' they're destined to rule. We're talking The Dark Eye levels of magic here, countries probably have a mage academy or two and most cities might have a local mage, but creatures and mages able to control minds are rare enough that you're probably not going to encounter one. The king who can cure one specific disease might easily be able to claim divine right (which yes, was a real world belief).

On another note, there's a different between having divine right and believing you have it. Birthright actually runs more on the latter, while you want a ruler to be Blooded there's nothing specifying what Bloodline they must carry and can easily be replaced by another one. Also none of the Blooded families were actually chosen, you're Blooded because your ancestor was close enough to exploding deities to gain enough, but not too much, divinity.

[JoeJ]

Is suspect that after the first couple of civil wars caused by this issue, a general agreement to never, ever resurrect dead monarchs would be put into place, and that a monarch that has been resurrected does not have any legal rights tot he throne.

In some versions of D&D, including 3.x and 5e, resurrection automatically fails if the soul is not both free and willing to return. That leaves out all the rulers whose souls are imprisoned or bound by a contract of any kind, and the ones who have gone to a plane where they're happier than they were when they were alive. That might very well mean that the spell hardly ever works.

[Beleriphon]

This sounds like a fantastic idea, and it fits really well with the fantasy-medieval setting of D&D. The belief that kings &c. not only have divine right to rule, but are an inherently different class of person, is pretty old and practically baked into a lot of the source material -- for instance, Cyrus the Great, according to Herodotus, was secretly raised by common folk in total ignorance of his royal blood, but was identified as the heir to the throne as soon as he came to the attention of the authorities because he spoke and acted like a king. And, of course, much later, there was the whole Sword-in-the-Stone thing, which kind of establishes a precedent for magical items that can tell whether you are the rightful ruler of a nation.

We all know the Sword-in-the-Stone was actually just a gene locked weapons left by ancient aliens. Magic. Bah.

[Lunali]

One thing you have to consider with this is the origin of any countries in question. Historically the 'rightful king' is usually a descendant of someone who came in and conquered the locals.

In this case, I would presume there is an actual divine mandate or the like that makes someone king, if so, there are some interesting questions.
Was the first king given a mandate to create a country, or did he receive a mandate because he created a country?
If the mandate is truly divine, do the gods all agree on who is king of any given area?
Is the monarchy necessarily hereditary or does the magic choose the most suitable person?
If it chooses the most suitable person, can that be affected by education and training?
Also if it chooses the most suitable person, is it chosen at the time of inheritance or can it be detected beforehand?
If it is hereditary, what happens if the entire family line is exterminated?

[AceOfFools]

...

You might have a high-level clerical spell called Establish Bloodline or something like that. ...

I really like this idea. Make the coronation rituals etc. supernaturally significant.

[TheStranger]

One thing you have to consider with this is the origin of any countries in question. Historically the 'rightful king' is usually a descendant of someone who came in and conquered the locals.

In this case, I would presume there is an actual divine mandate or the like that makes someone king, if so, there are some interesting questions.
Was the first king given a mandate to create a country, or did he receive a mandate because he created a country?
If the mandate is truly divine, do the gods all agree on who is king of any given area?
Is the monarchy necessarily hereditary or does the magic choose the most suitable person?
If it chooses the most suitable person, can that be affected by education and training?
Also if it chooses the most suitable person, is it chosen at the time of inheritance or can it be detected beforehand?
If it is hereditary, what happens if the entire family line is exterminated?

These are the questions I was attempting to answer with my attempt at an Establish Bloodline spell. Here's how I envision it working.

- King Felix unites the warring tribes of Puget Sound and forms the new Kingdom of Washington. Since there was no Kingdom of Washington prior to this, nobody else has a claim on the throne. King Felix also establishes inheritance laws for the kingdom. None of this happens with any divine involvement.
- To establish that he and his children rule by divine right, King Felix recruits the High Priest of the god Seahawk to cast Establish Bloodline. This spell has five requirements:
1) The caster must be the High Priest of the god (an OotS mechanic I'm borrowing here).
2) The god must be widely worshiped within the kingdom. If the kingdom uses a pantheon, the god in question must be either the preeminent god in the pantheon, or if the members are roughly equal, a major god. In this case, the god Mariner would also be appropriate.
3) The king himself must be a follower of the god (and must remain so).
4) The king must actually control the kingdom. (A bit vague, but you can't just bribe the high priest to make you king if you don't control the kingdom in a practical sense.)
5) The king must be seated on the throne of the kingdom and wearing the crown when the spell is cast (or comparable trappings of authority).
- When the spell is cast, King Felix recites the inheritance laws. Note that the king, not the god, establishes the laws, and the laws could be anything the king likes (including democracy, in which case the divine mandate would pass to the duly elected President, but let's assume a standard fantasy monarchy for now). This reflects the god, in recognition of his followers bringing him glory, granting his divine blessing to the reign. (For reasons of Plot, the god may decline to do this.) Henceforth, King Felix and his descendants rule by divine right.
- For as long as King Felix and his descendants (or other rightful heirs as determined by the laws spoken when the spell was cast) rule Washington, they do so by divine right, allowing OP's ideas to work.
- If King Felix or his successors ever need to change the inheritance laws, they can have the spell cast again.
- If King Felix is ever overthrown, the usurper remains a usurper unless and until he can convince the High Priest of Seahawk to cast the spell.
- If King Felix's line ends in such a way that the inheritance laws don't provide for a successor, then there is no rightful ruler of Washington until somebody is able to take the throne and have the spell cast again.

If King Felix later conquers the neighboring kingdom of Oregon, which also worships Seahawk, he could, assuming the High Priest is willing, either have the spell cast again from his capitol in Washington, making Oregon's lands a de jure part of Washington and effectively extinguishing that title, or he could travel to Oregon, sit on the throne there, and establish himself as the rightful holder of both titles. Longtime CKII players will recognize the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches, which are largely political. However, both spells will likely fail if the deposed king or his heir is more favored by Seahawk than King Felix is. Even if the spell is successful, there's still nothing stopping the son of the deposed king of Oregon from gathering an army and retaking the kingdom. If he's successful, he can have the spell cast again to reestablish his family as the rightful rulers (subject to the same caveats about the High Priest's cooperation and the god's favor).

If King Felix conquers the kingdom of Denver, where they worship the god Bronco instead of Seahawk, he will find it much more difficult to establish himself as the rightful king, although this will not stop him from being the de facto ruler for as long as he can hold power. Bronco will not recognize his rule even if King Felix forces the High Priest to cast Establish Bloodline for him, because King Felix is a foreign heathen. And Seahawk can't make King Felix the rightful ruler of Denver, because the people there don't worship him. And if King Felix converts to the worship of Bronco, he'll lose Seahawk's favor back home in Washington. Clearly, the solution is to forbid worship of Bronco and forcibly convert the people of Denver to the worship of Seahawk. In the meantime, the rightful heir to the kingdom of Denver is out there somewhere...

[Faily]

But I think that L5R is actually a better example for the whole concept. The different lands and cultures come attached with varying divine mandates that manifest in different ways but will create tangible effects. For Rokugan, the mandate comes from "celestial heaven" and will manifest in the Rank, Honor and Glory scores, which a typical rokugani can detect by instinct, but which can also be made visible with spells.

I heard L5R and here I am.

L5R does have a Celestial Mandate, by the mandate of the Hantei (and later the first Toturi and after that Iweko) being blessed by Amaterasu to be the divine ruler of the land, so that is correct. The rest of Rokugan follows the Celestial Order, which for the Rokugani is a divinely mandated caste-system.

But no, Rank, Honor, and Glory is not a divine manifest from the Heavens. And you can't detect them by instinct. L5R 4E allows you to use Lore: Heraldry/Intelligence to recall information about a person based on their Glory (the more famous a person, the more likely people will recognize you or have heard of you), or you can use Lore: Bushido/Intelligence to gain insight into how honorable someone is (learn their Honor-category). Some spells and one Advantage make other percieve you as more honorable than you actually are. Honor is not a mandate from the Celestial Heavens, but rather is a social concept of how well you fit into the expectations of society in according to Bushido, whose tenets are hotly debated in Rokugan itself (the Crane, Lion, and Scorpion for instance all have *very* different views on the virtue of Compassion, for example). Status is entirely a political and social thing, with the exception being the divinity of the Hantei automatically putting him on top of the social ladder as well as the spiritual ladder, as the Emperor is head of state and head of religion. And lastly, Insight Rank is not based on any enforcement from divinity.

I mean, you can certainly run your Rokugan as being deeply steeped in divinity and enforcement from the Heavens in everything, but I personally find that interpretation to detract from the samurai-drama that has always been at the core of the most compelling stories in L5R.

Also, there were spells in 2E and 3E known only to the Seppun Hidden Guard that allowed them to detect if someone had the blood of the Hantei. The spell was developed to examine any potential hopefuls claiming to be descendants of an Emperor or the like, though usually used in secret because magic is not admissable testimony in Rokugan.