Sorcerer Noble Houses, determining inheritance. I painted myself into a corner

[Scalenex]

So the game I'm running, the players are in a scrappy nation of Fumaya with a lot of problems. It's got orcs raiding the north, criminals in the capital, and the larger sorcerer rich nation to the south is saber rattling.

The PCs took apart the major crime syndicate (lots of politics and roleplaying relatively little combat) now they are taking on the orcs (lots of combat, relatively little politics). Eventually they are going to help Fumaya against the sorcerer nation and I'm hoping to make things more political again.

I'd like to develop the noble houses. Swynfaredia (Swin-fa-rid-eeya), known to their enemies as Swine-herdia is ruled by draconic sorcerers.

Roughly a thousand years ago, four (I might change this to five, six, or seven) dragons adopted an emerging human tribe and created a bunch of half dragons. These dragons are called the Founders (until and unless I come up with another name). The half-dragons ruled over their humans and the half-dragon's human descendants retained their sorcererous powers. Thus they created a nobility that is based on both magic and blood.

Essentially there status quo is this.

Sorcerers > all non sorcerers

Draconic sorcerers > all other sorcerers

Draconic Sorcerers with a lineage to the Founders > all other draconic sorcerers.

Originally noble titles passed to the eldest male heir.

So for two or three generations, 100% of the noble's childrens developed sorcery. Then it dropped to 95%. Then it dropped to 80%

When the king's eldest son was a squib and the king's youngest son was a sorcerer, there was a civil war.

The sorcerer won the civil war. The succession laws were changed such that titles passed to eldest male sorcerer.

Generations later, only about 60% of the nobility's children were properly manifesting sorcery. There was a generation where a disproportionately high number of sorcererous nobles were sorceresses.

There was a second civil war with some backing the king's eldest daughter and some backing the king's nephew.

The daughter won and now titles pass to the eldest child with sorcerery regardless of sex.

There was another civil war later, but no laws were changed, the status quo was defended.

So I was setting out to start fleshing out and developing my noble houses.

I realized it gets messy. If a lady from House A marries a lord from House B, in theory the children could inherit titles from both house A and B. Does this throw the house system into chaos?

How do I figure out which house AB children fall into?

[John Out West]

Didn't this exact same thing happen with entire nation states? I'm pretty sure the entirety of France / England once too. (You can look up Dual Monarchy)

From what I know, the merging of houses and the consolidation of wealth was extremely common. Typically the family of these people would become lesser nobles, while they would become greater nobles. (Lesser nobles are still of noble birth, but are basically poor with few land claims.)

Usually, houses also had councils which would help organize this stuff. Especially when the parents die. (Being sorcerers, i imagine death would be as common as warriors) Like there was even once where a nobles daughter was forcibly married to another noble so that they could keep her family's house alive. (Her whole family had died and she was a spinster. Her husband took on her name instead of her taking on his name.)

So, this could create some really cool stuff. Sorcerers that are actually disrespected and poor because their siblings inherited almost everything. Wars/fights/assassinations/squabbles over courtships. Arranged marriages, plus the desire to get out of them, or get other people out of them. Basically anything shakespear has ever written.

I hope this helps.

[Grim Portent]

Inheritence of titles and lands in noble families tended to be quite all or nothing during certain time periods. The eldest legitimate inheritor got almost everything and the others successively less going down the line.

Usually if nobles married only one was going to inherit much of anything unless they were both the eldest of their families' children. If you marry your eldest daughter off to someone's eldest son in an egalitarian system that is an implicit fusing of the houses since all the titles held by the parents will pass down to them in time, and then to their eldest child.

So if you want to keep your houses separate you'd only marry younger children off to older ones, your primary heir is kept for a marriage which keeps your house intact even if it brings little new land or titles into the house.



There's also the option of morganatic marriages, or something like them. Morganatic marriages were/are marriages between those of unequal social rank, and the children of the union though legitimite are not able to inherit titles. Using this as a start point could have the houses have some leeway to designate new heirs in the event the primary heir has married in such a manner as could fuse the houses together when they don't want to.

[Damon_Tor]

Seems like ripe fruit for Patrons to find themselves warlocks with serious political agency: a prince who would be in line for the throne but for a lack of sorcery might do anything to change his lot, including selling his soul. How would the rest of the court react to the discovery that their King wasn't producing Dragonfire, but Hellfire? Would they care? What if some of THEM were secret warlocks too? How would you prove it?

[Scalenex]

Thank you for the input everyone!

Didn't this exact same thing happen with entire nation states? I'm pretty sure the entirety of France / England once too. (You can look up Dual Monarchy)

From what I know, the merging of houses and the consolidation of wealth was extremely common. Typically the family of these people would become lesser nobles, while they would become greater nobles. (Lesser nobles are still of noble birth, but are basically poor with few land claims.)

Usually, houses also had councils which would help organize this stuff. Especially when the parents die. (Being sorcerers, i imagine death would be as common as warriors) Like there was even once where a nobles daughter was forcibly married to another noble so that they could keep her family's house alive. (Her whole family had died and she was a spinster. Her husband took on her name instead of her taking on his name.)

So, this could create some really cool stuff. Sorcerers that are actually disrespected and poor because their siblings inherited almost everything. Wars/fights/assassinations/squabbles over courtships. Arranged marriages, plus the desire to get out of them, or get other people out of them. Basically anything shakespear has ever written.

I hope this helps.

So basically you are suggesting that I lean into the chaos of the system. Seems like a good idea, but I need to have enough order on the chaos that Swynfaredia can approximate a stable nation.

Inheritence of titles and lands in noble families tended to be quite all or nothing during certain time periods. The eldest legitimate inheritor got almost everything and the others successively less going down the line.

Usually if nobles married only one was going to inherit much of anything unless they were both the eldest of their families' children. If you marry your eldest daughter off to someone's eldest son in an egalitarian system that is an implicit fusing of the houses since all the titles held by the parents will pass down to them in time, and then to their eldest child.

So if you want to keep your houses separate you'd only marry younger children off to older ones, your primary heir is kept for a marriage which keeps your house intact even if it brings little new land or titles into the house.


There's also the option of morganatic marriages, or something like them. Morganatic marriages were/are marriages between those of unequal social rank, and the children of the union though legitimite are not able to inherit titles. Using this as a start point could have the houses have some leeway to designate new heirs in the event the primary heir has married in such a manner as could fuse the houses together when they don't want to.

That's a good point, if all the titles go to the eldest sorcerer/sorceress one could avoid having houses merge by not marrying eldest to each other.

Though I suppose since the third civil war was mostly about assassinations than the clashing of armies, it's likely that a lot of noble deaths led to houses unexpectedly merging as they run out of conventional heirs.

Seems like ripe fruit for Patrons to find themselves warlocks with serious political agency: a prince who would be in line for the throne but for a lack of sorcery might do anything to change his lot, including selling his soul. How would the rest of the court react to the discovery that their King wasn't producing Dragonfire, but Hellfire? Would they care? What if some of THEM were secret warlocks too? How would you prove it?

That's a good idea. I was on the fence on whether I want my world to have warlocks at all. My players seem uninterested in them, but if I have warlocks, a squib would probably try to use a pact to fake draconic heritage.

Adding to the mix, sometimes sorcery skips a generation and squibs produce sorcerous children or grandchildren. They need to fit into the hierarchy somewhere. With only 50% of the children of sorcerer-sorceress pairings "breeding true" they cannot afford to throw out any sorcerers.

I figure sorcerers are charismatic and arrogant and most of them are shoehorned into arranged marraiges. This means their would be a lot of infidelity, so you get a lot of bastard children. Some of these bastards would develop sorcery.

Most of the nobles do not adventure much, so a lot of the nobles are fairly low level sorcerers. A lot of noble houses will offer marriage proposals to sorcerer adventurer just so they can get very high level spell-casters loyal to their house.

I figure lowly born sorcerers like those above could be inducted as knights, or rather Talons. The Swynfaredian love to brag about their draconic ancestors so they make most of their official titles related to dragons in some way. A sorcerer that is good at scrying magic and works for the king may have the title "The Dragon's Eyes" A sorcerer that can cast teleport on behalf of the king is "The Dragon's Wings."


I figure they are also superstitious about sorcerer children. There are hundreds of old wives' tales about what kind of pairings are likely to produce sorcerer offspring and which pairings are likely to produce squibs.

For instance, marrying a sorcerer with lots of ice based spells to a sorceress with lots of fire based spells means you are not likely to have a lot of sorcererous children but your grand children will be more likely to have sorcery.

I figure there are hundreds of superstitions about mixing this spell potency with that one.

I figure a tiny little bureaucracy the Arcane Registry started as a sort of a joke, but now wields a lot of power behind the scenes. They are supposed to keep track of all the gazillion superstitions and provide match making advice to nobles BUT they are susceptible to bribes, so they can recommend for or against a pairing for purely political reasons making a BS explanation of favorable pairing superstitions for whatever outcome they want.

Also, the Arcane Registry knows which nobles can cast what spells. It's handy for espionage and intrigue to know what magic your rivals can or cannot do.

[Yanagi]

So the game I'm running, the players are in a scrappy nation of Fumaya with a lot of problems. It's got orcs raiding the north, criminals in the capital, and the larger sorcerer rich nation to the south is saber rattling.

The PCs took apart the major crime syndicate (lots of politics and roleplaying relatively little combat) now they are taking on the orcs (lots of combat, relatively little politics). Eventually they are going to help Fumaya against the sorcerer nation and I'm hoping to make things more political again.

I'd like to develop the noble houses. Swynfaredia (Swin-fa-rid-eeya), known to their enemies as Swine-herdia is ruled by draconic sorcerers.

Roughly a thousand years ago, four (I might change this to five, six, or seven) dragons adopted an emerging human tribe and created a bunch of half dragons. These dragons are called the Founders (until and unless I come up with another name). The half-dragons ruled over their humans and the half-dragon's human descendants retained their sorcererous powers. Thus they created a nobility that is based on both magic and blood.

Essentially there status quo is this.

Sorcerers > all non sorcerers

Draconic sorcerers > all other sorcerers

Draconic Sorcerers with a lineage to the Founders > all other draconic sorcerers.

Originally noble titles passed to the eldest male heir.

So for two or three generations, 100% of the noble's childrens developed sorcery. Then it dropped to 95%. Then it dropped to 80%

When the king's eldest son was a squib and the king's youngest son was a sorcerer, there was a civil war.

The sorcerer won the civil war. The succession laws were changed such that titles passed to eldest male sorcerer.

Generations later, only about 60% of the nobility's children were properly manifesting sorcery. There was a generation where a disproportionately high number of sorcererous nobles were sorceresses.

There was a second civil war with some backing the king's eldest daughter and some backing the king's nephew.

The daughter won and now titles pass to the eldest child with sorcerery regardless of sex.

There was another civil war later, but no laws were changed, the status quo was defended.

So I was setting out to start fleshing out and developing my noble houses.

I realized it gets messy. If a lady from House A marries a lord from House B, in theory the children could inherit titles from both house A and B. Does this throw the house system into chaos?

How do I figure out which house AB children fall into?

Okay, so the most important determining factor is being a sorcerer, and specifically one with a lineage, but magic use isn't stably heritable, so any power system that transfers power from generation X sorcerers to generation X+1 sorcerers is going to be more disruptive than a standard inheritance system. But it will be chaotic in the same way that, say, contested claims to a throne are when a ruler dies childless, but instead of just having contenders waving a genealogical chart they'll also be showing off their magical power set.

As described, the AB child would have a legal claim to both titles, barring a specific societal rule that said otherwise, and families would be incentivized to arrange pairings that merged claims. I mean, that's why marriages were a central part of power-brokering and peace-making in world history: you create a kid that, in the monarchist social/religious understanding, has a right to rule both groups (be they clans or whole nations).

However, if these seven lineages have had a lot of time to establish themselves as powers...dividing up into geographical regions, like the dukes or daimyo; or dividing the economy up by controlling different sectors...there might be strong, long-term incentives to not allow certain kinds of A+B marriage, precisely because Dragon Clan* 1 doesn't want Dragon Clan 2 to grab a chunk of its power through a marriage. So it matters how cohesive and how power is distributed through these lineages, and after a millennium there would be deep cultural understanding of what a specific lineage identity was, and what it would mean to cross-marry with another line.

*I'm using the word "clan" in the anthropological sense of a people who claim a common ancestor

There's a social anthropological thing that comes into play as well: kinship relations. It is now standard to view a child as "of the family" of both parents, but that doesn't have to be the norm. It is similarly a social construct that a spouses are viewed as of both families. Even basic kinship words...father, uncle, aunt...have different meanings in different cultures. The simplest solution to your intermarriage problem is for them to use a different evaluation system of who are "kin" and how descent functions. This can actually get really weird, because "sorcery talent" is a wild card since it's random generation by generation.

For example:

When two people are paired to marry and reproduce, their families compare dragon-descent genealogies: the spouse (and their family group) with the better pedigree are understood to have primacy in legal matters. Children from the marriage get the better family's last name, be raised in their traditions, and have their legal standing--what they stand to inherit, what status they have in a contested matter. In turn it is simply understood that the "lesser" spouse will live with the "better" family and accepts their norms of behavior, particularly about child raising. In the case of legal separation, or death of one or both spouses, the offspring are considering of the "better" family and their care will remain within that grouping. This distinction might even cross into distinct kinship terms and roles: the "better" grandparents having a different relationship with a child than the "lesser" ones, et cetera.

This kind of rule means there's no AB child possible: any child only belongs to the greater family. There can be a bunch of twists to this, like "greater" families only accepting full sorcerers as family, or only the most talented sorcerers, sending the squib kids back to "lesser" families, creating complicated main-versus-cadet branch tensions...each generation there are exiles, but the next generation it's the children of those exiles with more power.

But since sorcery is a wild card each generation, it might be that there's a far more unusual kinship structure in which there is both common descent--family genealogy--and sorcerous kinship: since there are specific titles and claims that pass inter-generationally only from sorcerers to sorcerers, this is formalized in the culture and language in that people with native magical talent are described as one another's kin. So within a clan it is expected that a titled sorcerer of one generation will adopt a sorcerer of the descending generation--ideally, one close in genealogically--explicitly becoming a parent-and-child diad in the eyes of the law.

In such a scenario, there is no AB offspring possible because there's a third kind of parent role with its own distinct legal rights to inheritance and title. This also creates a fertile field for resentment and internal strife, because each generation there are talented children and their parents, seeking to make an adoption alliance.

Another aspect of kinship is rules about who can marry who, and what marriage "means" relative to inheritance. Having the clans have rules about who can marry whom, and who is kin to whom, precisely because no wants wants an offspring that can make a solid claim to more than one clans' holdings, is the simplest way around the inevitability of "AB offspring" consolidating too much power. For example, the noble sorceror lineages could encourage endogamy...marrying inside the clan community...or something like hypogamy...nobles must select mates from people who specifically have lesser or no claims. And it's not that these rules have to be formal or ancient. If this is a society with a history of civil wars and internal tensions, then it may be that the fear of conflicting claims reflects old tensions and enmities from past eras in which there was more intermarriage.

Another control factor could be if all marriages (and thus, presumably, reproduction) by the nobility have to be approved by the supreme ruler. If the culture values dragon lineage and sorcery, then there being a formal institution that tracks genealogy and evaluates what's an acceptable pairing to perpetuate "the bloodline" makes sense both as a sincere expression of the societal value, but also as a pragmatic control mechanism in which the current ruler can keep the seven clans from flying apart.

This society, however, has three interesting complications that you should toy with...because they're fun, not because they're a problem.

The first is...second siblings.

If you nuclear family has only one talented child, then everything's fine. But what if there's more than one? If titles and claims work like normal nobility, then the second talented siblings loses out, whether the system uses primogeniture or merit. Where do these people end up? In the military? In the equivalent of clergy? Over long term-history, doubtless there's stories of feuding siblings and family-internal power struggles, but in the current day there's probably an accepted cultural norm for what those disinherited siblings do.

The second is...bastards.

Since "sorcery talent" and "draconic lineage" are both factors in determined social status, then there's going to be instances where an individual with a lot of talent and only one parent can argue their right to a claim...in which case, the question becomes how important is sorcery skill versus proper lineage. When the two cornerstones conflict...technical pedigree versus deep magical skill...which does the law favor, the clans favor? I mean, this is always the problem with inheritance of power, but in circumstances involving magic, where the culture elevates natural magical ability as the essential skill, it going to be an especial tension because there's no way of acquiring sorcery. I've talked about multiple kinship system with very formal boundaries, but there could be the opposite: if you're the child of a sorcerer and a sorcerer you have legitimacy, so for that particular class of people there's little incentive to marry and make strategic alliances. You thus have an especially raucous, disruptive generational change-over of power.

The third is...fakes.

Fake genealogy is a thing present in hierarchies and monarchies in real life. When the past is just a diagram of marriages and birth expanding across time, it's pretty easy to slip in an extra bracket several centuries ago to become legitimate. Barring some kind of perfect magical detection or an obvious, consistent mark of dragon descent...there would be enormous incentive for sorcerers and sorcerer-families to fake their lineage, make a connection to one of those seven ancestral figures. And with a millennium of history, chances are pretty good that's happened at some point.

By the same token, since part of being an elite family is producing more elite magic users, generation after generation, because certain aspects of social power only pass to sorcerers...there is enormous incentive to secretly adopt (or abduct) from outside the clan...or for lesser branches to offer up talented children to greater branches in return for compensation.

The third kind of fake would be...dabbling in other magical sources. Since sorcery is so central to the power system, the non-talented would likely have to understand magic even if they didn't cast. But the idea of a borrowed ladder...picking up magic from some other source and trying to pass it off as authentic dragon sorcery...would be strong. Particularly inside clan structures: if the central authority and the law think the clan membership is fifty sorcerers performing their assigned functions, but actually ten are wizards or such, the clan (or branch family, etc) holds onto those precious sorcerer-only appointments. Given the wild card inheritance setup--sorcerers only, fools--directly conflicts with stable intergenerational power transfer, the incentive to cheat with a more stable base of academic arcane magic (repeatable) and other banked supernatural material (magic items, bound magical creatures, pacts) is enormous.

[Biggus]

Though I suppose since the third civil war was mostly about assassinations than the clashing of armies, it's likely that a lot of noble deaths led to houses unexpectedly merging as they run out of conventional heirs.

...

Most of the nobles do not adventure much, so a lot of the nobles are fairly low level sorcerers. A lot of noble houses will offer marriage proposals to sorcerer adventurer just so they can get very high level spell-casters loyal to their house.

A possible thought: if a noble house dies out, perhaps the title will pass to the highest-level untitled Sorcerer who can trace their heritage to the four dragons? Or maybe even to the highest-level Sorcerer in the kingdom who's willing to swear undying loyalty to the king, regardless of their heritage? This would keep the nobility at a stable number (other than houses sometimes merging, which as has been pointed out above isn't that uncommon in the real world) and be in keeping with the "sorcery is nobility" theme. Also, could lead to some spectacular duels if a prestigious title becomes vacant and two roughly evenly-matched Sorcerers try to claim it...

[Sparky McDibben]

Hope somebody's keeping an eye on degrees of cosanguinity or that's gonna get fugly eventually.

[Segev]

One thing I imagine happening is a house that is lacking any sorcerous heirs finding ... non-titled sorcerers (ideally draconic) to marry their children to. Even without the ability to pass their house to the probably-commoner sorcerers that married in, they could cross their fingers and hope for a sorcerous child of that union (what with the pedigree of their own scion and the fact it skips generations sometimes combining with the sorcerous spouse). The scion might not be able to inherit, but his or her child could, and they would rule as regent until their child were old enough to inherit.

Though between adoption and the importance of sorcerous blood, wealthy houses who are in danger of losing themselves to combining with another hosue that actually has sorcerous blood and a descendent who's technically related might just declare that an ex-commoner married to their eldest scion is their heir. The contests for the hand of the scion, and thus heirship to the noble household, could be their own plots for stories.

[Yakk]

One thing that can happen is a non-noble body gains power over the inheritance rules.

In England, the house of lords or commons would prevent the crown from passing to a Frenchman.

A merging of countries or houses can happen, but for the most part, each house wants to be independent and not be swallowed up by another house. So the marriage ends up not doing that -- you marry your head of house to someone further from the head of the other house.

Now, sometimes this breaks down, and people die, or houses choose to merge. In addition, lesser houses are formed, and grow in power; the "house" is an organizational unit, and there is a limit to how big they can get before falling apart. You need to delegate, and with delegation comes power.

[Sergeantbrother]

This is a cool setting. I’ve done something a little bit similar with families descended from demons, with a naturally darker nature than dragons.

There could be all sorts of reasons for why a noble house might want to join with another noble house or maintain its autonomy, depending on various dynamics between houses and personality quirks of the noble sorcerers involved. Though not many nobles who might have been the undisputed leader of their own house will want to marry into a house where they play second fiddle. If there are some patriarchal tendencies within this society, which I gather there are to some degree, then a sorceress destined to be the head of her own house might be disinclined to marry the lord of another house where she becomes secondary to him and her house becomes secondary to his.

If only 60% of noble family members have sorcerous magic, then they could be the ones married off to other noble houses. In patriarchal societies, noble ladies often married into other noble families and became a part of their husbands’ families, leaving her male relatives to rule her former family. It could work in a way where non-magical members are secondary. The sorcerers carry on the family name, non-sorcerers are married off to seal agreements and form bonds of marriage, they become members of the sorcerer or sorceress spouse’s family.

I wonder if inbreeding would ever be an issue? Purity of dragon ancestry is likely related to potential for magic. Is there a requirement for sorcerer nobles to marry those with draconian ancestry? Can they marry commoners with no trace of noble blood?

In my setting with demon blooded noble houses, inbreeding is a big issue, with some families heavily engaging in the practice and having greater mystical potency, along with numerous associated disadvantages, and with other families out-marrying frequently with less supernatural power.

[Segev]

How common is it for nobles to learn to be wizards in order to fake being sorcerers?

[Cyclops08]

What if a noble born without sorcery deliberately married a sorceress from another land (keeping her magic a secret)?
Further what if this gal was a tainted blood Divine Soul sorceress?
Their children inherited the tainted blood line and learned to imitate Dragon's Blood types (they get bats wings at 14th level, just a little illusion makes that dragonesque).

~~now we have false pretenders to the throne. A few assassinations and wala, junior is in line behind the king...

[Scalenex]

Your post is a gold mine Yanagi. Thank you.

Okay, so the most important determining factor is being a sorcerer, and specifically one with a lineage, but magic use isn't stably heritable, so any power system that transfers power from generation X sorcerers to generation X+1 sorcerers is going to be more disruptive than a standard inheritance system. But it will be chaotic in the same way that, say, contested claims to a throne are when a ruler dies childless, but instead of just having contenders waving a genealogical chart they'll also be showing off their magical power set.

Yeah, they have a genealogical chart AND magic to back it up, so that's messy.

As described, the AB child would have a legal claim to both titles, barring a specific societal rule that said otherwise, and families would be incentivized to arrange pairings that merged claims. I mean, that's why marriages were a central part of power-brokering and peace-making in world history: you create a kid that, in the monarchist social/religious understanding, has a right to rule both groups (be they clans or whole nations).

However, if these seven lineages have had a lot of time to establish themselves as powers...dividing up into geographical regions, like the dukes or daimyo; or dividing the economy up by controlling different sectors...there might be strong, long-term incentives to not allow certain kinds of A+B marriage, precisely because Dragon Clan* 1 doesn't want Dragon Clan 2 to grab a chunk of its power through a marriage. So it matters how cohesive and how power is distributed through these lineages, and after a millennium there would be deep cultural understanding of what a specific lineage identity was, and what it would mean to cross-marry with another line.

Well said

*I'm usi

ng the word "clan" in the anthropological sense of a people who claim a common ancestor

There's a social anthropological thing that comes into play as well: kinship relations. It is now standard to view a child as "of the family" of both parents, but that doesn't have to be the norm. It is similarly a social construct that a spouses are viewed as of both families. Even basic kinship words...father, uncle, aunt...have different meanings in different cultures. The simplest solution to your intermarriage problem is for them to use a different evaluation system of who are "kin" and how descent functions. This can actually get really weird, because "sorcery talent" is a wild card since it's random generation by generation.

For example:

When two people are paired to marry and reproduce, their families compare dragon-descent genealogies: the spouse (and their family group) with the better pedigree are understood to have primacy in legal matters. Children from the marriage get the better family's last name, be raised in their traditions, and have their legal standing--what they stand to inherit, what status they have in a contested matter. In turn it is simply understood that the "lesser" spouse will live with the "better" family and accepts their norms of behavior, particularly about child raising. In the case of legal separation, or death of one or both spouses, the offspring are considering of the "better" family and their care will remain within that grouping. This distinction might even cross into distinct kinship terms and roles: the "better" grandparents having a different relationship with a child than the "lesser" ones, et cetera.

That's a good idea worth considering

This kind of rule means there's no AB child possible: any child only belongs to the greater family. There can be a bunch of twists to this, like "greater" families only accepting full sorcerers as family, or only the most talented sorcerers, sending the squib kids back to "lesser" families, creating complicated main-versus-cadet branch tensions...each generation there are exiles, but the next generation it's the children of those exiles with more power.

But since sorcery is a wild card each generation, it might be that there's a far more unusual kinship structure in which there is both common descent--family genealogy--and sorcerous kinship: since there are specific titles and claims that pass inter-generationally only from sorcerers to sorcerers, this is formalized in the culture and language in that people with native magical talent are described as one another's kin. So within a clan it is expected that a titled sorcerer of one generation will adopt a sorcerer of the descending generation--ideally, one close in genealogically--explicitly becoming a parent-and-child diad in the eyes of the law.

I like this. I need to come up with a flowery word for this relationship, preferably with something draconic, but "adopting a hathling" sounds a bit too weird.

In such a scenario, there is no AB offspring possible because there's a third kind of parent role with its own distinct legal rights to inheritance and title. This also creates a fertile field for resentment and internal strife, because each generation there are talented children and their parents, seeking to make an adoption alliance.

I'm all about resentment and internal strife. That's Swynfaredia's main weakness. They have powerful magic users, wealth, and a good sized mundane army. They thing that keeps them from conquering the world is a internal squabbles.

In fact I'm thinking the current queen is preparing to invade a neighboring nation not so much because she wants the land and wealth, but because she wants to give her vassals a common enemy (besides the Queen).

Another aspect of kinship is rules about who can marry who, and what marriage "means" relative to inheritance. Having the clans have rules about who can marry whom, and who is kin to whom, precisely because no wants wants an offspring that can make a solid claim to more than one clans' holdings, is the simplest way around the inevitability of "AB offspring" consolidating too much power. For example, the noble sorceror lineages could encourage endogamy...marrying inside the clan community...or something like hypogamy...nobles must select mates from people who specifically have lesser or no claims. And it's not that these rules have to be formal or ancient. If this is a society with a history of civil wars and internal tensions, then it may be that the fear of conflicting claims reflects old tensions and enmities from past eras in which there was more intermarriage.

Another control factor could be if all marriages (and thus, presumably, reproduction) by the nobility have to be approved by the supreme ruler. If the culture values dragon lineage and sorcery, then there being a formal institution that tracks genealogy and evaluates what's an acceptable pairing to perpetuate "the bloodline" makes sense both as a sincere expression of the societal value, but also as a pragmatic control mechanism in which the current ruler can keep the seven clans from flying apart.

This society, however, has three interesting complications that you should toy with...because they're fun, not because they're a problem.

Nod.

The first is...second siblings.

If you nuclear family has only one talented child, then everything's fine. But what if there's more than one? If titles and claims work like normal nobility, then the second talented siblings loses out, whether the system uses primogeniture or merit. Where do these people end up? In the military? In the equivalent of clergy? Over long term-history, doubtless there's stories of feuding siblings and family-internal power struggles, but in the current day there's probably an accepted cultural norm for what those disinherited siblings do.

I figure a lot of squibs join a priesthood much like how non-inheriting nobles often joined the priesthood in medieval Europe.

Though in medieval Europe, priesthoods didn't produce clerics who could wield magical powers routinely. I figure since Swynfaredia has an unofficial state religion that deifies their draconic ancestors that their piety to the regular gods would be somewhat lacking.

My world has a lot of priests that are not spell-casters (and some divine spell-casters that are not ordained as priests), but since Swynfaredia ties prestige to magic the nobles don't give non-spell casting priests the time of day.

There is also some tension with the priesthood of Greymoria, the goddess of magic. There is an ongoing debate on how much the transmission depends on draconic blood, how much depends on Greymoria's will, and how much depends on sheer dumb luck. Few of the nobles wish to offend the goddess of magic, but they are leery of giving her too much credit for their greatness, so it's a delicate balancing act. They don't want to foist off their sons and daughters into Greymoria's priesthood if said sons and daughters are rebellious or resentful.

I figure noble squibs might be able to get themselves cushy government jobs doing things the sorcerers don't want to bother with such as managing funds, supervising work crews, and the like.

Non-inheriting sorcerers (and some sorcerers that do have land) could also gain non-landed titles for serving the king/queen or the duke/duchess. A sorcerer who has a lot of invocation magic and serves as the queen's enforcer might be called the Dragon's Breath. A very powerful sorcerer could have four or five Dragon's _____ titles.

The second is...bastards.

Since "sorcery talent" and "draconic lineage" are both factors in determined social status, then there's going to be instances where an individual with a lot of talent and only one parent can argue their right to a claim...in which case, the question becomes how important is sorcery skill versus proper lineage. When the two cornerstones conflict...technical pedigree versus deep magical skill...which does the law favor, the clans favor?

The law favors pedigree over raw mystical might. This was the impetus of the Third Civil War. A high level bastard claimed that might makes right. While he was clearly the most powerful sorcerer in the land, he wasn't good at forming a coalition. The second, third, and fourth most powerful sorcerers backed the status quo and eventually brought him down.

If two sorcerers have roughly equivalent lineage, then raw power breaks the tie. If a noble house is desperate for magical power, they might exaggerate a powerful nobodies draconic credentials. I figure this would be how most new houses would form.

I mean, this is always the problem with inheritance of power, but in circumstances involving magic, where the culture elevates natural magical ability as the essential skill, it going to be an especial tension because there's no way of acquiring sorcery. I've talked about multiple kinship system with very formal boundaries, but there could be the opposite: if you're the child of a sorcerer and a sorcerer you have legitimacy, so for that particular class of people there's little incentive to marry and make strategic alliances. You thus have an especially raucous, disruptive generational change-over of power.

I figure a lot of Swynfaredian nobles would rebel against arranged marriages. In fact, in a game I played years ago that someone else ran with a very similar Sorcerer dominated nation, one of the PCs was a sorceress who became an adventurer largely so she could avoid an unpleasant arranged marriage.

The third is...fakes.

Fake genealogy is a thing present in hierarchies and monarchies in real life. When the past is just a diagram of marriages and birth expanding across time, it's pretty easy to slip in an extra bracket several centuries ago to become legitimate. Barring some kind of perfect magical detection or an obvious, consistent mark of dragon descent...there would be enormous incentive for sorcerers and sorcerer-families to fake their lineage, make a connection to one of those seven ancestral figures. And with a millennium of history, chances are pretty good that's happened at some point.

Yeah. I figure some people faked their genealogical credentials at some point. This can happen the other way. After the Founding Father Dragons left it's not clear what they did. Presumably some of them had full dragon children. A half-dragon claiming directly lineage to the Founding Dragons could theoretically waltz in and claim power. Thus a lot of the more cloak and dagger nobles will try to make half-dragon sorcerers quietly disappear.

As of yet, my setting has no magical means of proving or disproving draconic heritage. In theory an oracle of one of the gods could answer this question but the gods and goddesses of my world are tired of answering "Who's the daddy?" inquiries so asking an oracle this question will usually result in no answer.

By the same token, since part of being an elite family is producing more elite magic users, generation after generation, because certain aspects of social power only pass to sorcerers...there is enormous incentive to secretly adopt (or abduct) from outside the clan...or for lesser branches to offer up talented children to greater branches in return for compensation.

In most cases it's very hard to tell if a young person is going to be a sorcerer till puberty so abducting babies is out of the question.

But I figure sorcerers of great power can get marriage proposals pretty easily.

Along those lines, the nation of Fumaya which Swynfaredia is planning to invade happens to have one very young sorceress among their lesser nobility. The Fumayan count that first discovered his niece was a sorceress quietly killed all the servants that also knew than adopted her as a fosterling. He is hoping if the Swynfaredian's invade he can turn on his countrymen and use his niece as a bargaining chip to get a cushy government position, perhaps setting up his niece as the head of a new noble house.

The third kind of fake would be...dabbling in other magical sources. Since sorcery is so central to the power system, the non-talented would likely have to understand magic even if they didn't cast. But the idea of a borrowed ladder...picking up magic from some other source and trying to pass it off as authentic dragon sorcery...would be strong. Particularly inside clan structures: if the central authority and the law think the clan membership is fifty sorcerers performing their assigned functions, but actually ten are wizards or such, the clan (or branch family, etc) holds onto those precious sorcerer-only appointments. Given the wild card inheritance setup--sorcerers only, fools--directly conflicts with stable intergenerational power transfer, the incentive to cheat with a more stable base of academic arcane magic (repeatable) and other banked supernatural material (magic items, bound magical creatures, pacts) is enormous.

I'm still working out the bugs on this. I have yet to figure out the nuts and bolts, but I'm thinking of making it very hard for a warlock or wizard to successful fake being a draconic sorcerer but it would be relatively easy for a non-draconic sorcerer to fake being a draconic sorcerer.

[Tvtyrant]

If the relationship between genealogy and cultural power is high enough you have impetus for swapping out real children for magically gifted ones. Say a clan needs to be more powerful but they haven't had any good magic users in a while, they might kidnap a low born prodigy and remove their clan/houses weakest kid and say they are the same person. Since Houses have every reason to do this there might be wink-wink relationships where this has become an open secret in the houses but unknown to commoners. Remember that aristocrats often create class consciousness first as their power is so precarious, so the official ideology might be bent very far in practice.

[Scalenex]

A possible thought: if a noble house dies out, perhaps the title will pass to the highest-level untitled Sorcerer who can trace their heritage to the four dragons? Or maybe even to the highest-level Sorcerer in the kingdom who's willing to swear undying loyalty to the king, regardless of their heritage? This would keep the nobility at a stable number (other than houses sometimes merging, which as has been pointed out above isn't that uncommon in the real world) and be in keeping with the "sorcery is nobility" theme. Also, could lead to some spectacular duels if a prestigious title becomes vacant and two roughly evenly-matched Sorcerers try to claim it...

That's a good idea.

Hope somebody's keeping an eye on degrees of cosanguinity or that's gonna get fugly eventually.

The Office of the Arcane Registry in theory is supposed to prevent inbreeding while also preventing unworthy commoners from sneaking in.

One thing I imagine happening is a house that is lacking any sorcerous heirs finding ... non-titled sorcerers (ideally draconic) to marry their children to. Even without the ability to pass their house to the probably-commoner sorcerers that married in, they could cross their fingers and hope for a sorcerous child of that union (what with the pedigree of their own scion and the fact it skips generations sometimes combining with the sorcerous spouse). The scion might not be able to inherit, but his or her child could, and they would rule as regent until their child were old enough to inherit.

Though between adoption and the importance of sorcerous blood, wealthy houses who are in danger of losing themselves to combining with another hosue that actually has sorcerous blood and a descendent who's technically related might just declare that an ex-commoner married to their eldest scion is their heir. The contests for the hand of the scion, and thus heirship to the noble household, could be their own plots for stories.

This is the sort of stuff I'm going for.

One thing that can happen is a non-noble body gains power over the inheritance rules.

In England, the house of lords or commons would prevent the crown from passing to a Frenchman.

A merging of countries or houses can happen, but for the most part, each house wants to be independent and not be swallowed up by another house. So the marriage ends up not doing that -- you marry your head of house to someone further from the head of the other house.

Now, sometimes this breaks down, and people die, or houses choose to merge. In addition, lesser houses are formed, and grow in power; the "house" is an organizational unit, and there is a limit to how big they can get before falling apart. You need to delegate, and with delegation comes power.

I played a lot of Crusader Kings. I figure a competent duke or duchess could realistically manage six or seven counts or countesses. A count or countess would have four to five barons or baronesses on average. I might let squibs be barons, but I haven't decided yet. If I do that, a squib would not be able to pass the title on to non-sorcerer heirs. Only squibs of two sorcerer parents could become barons or baronesses.

I figure the current queen is stressed out with eight or nine major houses to balance the needs of.

This is a cool setting. I’ve done something a little bit similar with families descended from demons, with a naturally darker nature than dragons.

There could be all sorts of reasons for why a noble house might want to join with another noble house or maintain its autonomy, depending on various dynamics between houses and personality quirks of the noble sorcerers involved. Though not many nobles who might have been the undisputed leader of their own house will want to marry into a house where they play second fiddle. If there are some patriarchal tendencies within this society, which I gather there are to some degree, then a sorceress destined to be the head of her own house might be disinclined to marry the lord of another house where she becomes secondary to him and her house becomes secondary to his.

If only 60% of noble family members have sorcerous magic, then they could be the ones married off to other noble houses. In patriarchal societies, noble ladies often married into other noble families and became a part of their husbands’ families, leaving her male relatives to rule her former family. It could work in a way where non-magical members are secondary. The sorcerers carry on the family name, non-sorcerers are married off to seal agreements and form bonds of marriage, they become members of the sorcerer or sorceress spouse’s family.

I wonder if inbreeding would ever be an issue? Purity of dragon ancestry is likely related to potential for magic. Is there a requirement for sorcerer nobles to marry those with draconian ancestry? Can they marry commoners with no trace of noble blood?

In my setting with demon blooded noble houses, inbreeding is a big issue, with some families heavily engaging in the practice and having greater mystical potency, along with numerous associated disadvantages, and with other families out-marrying frequently with less supernatural power.

I figure it's a delicate balancing act between keeping the blood line pure and making sure the family tree doesn't look like a pole. I figure cousins marry fairly often but they draw the line at brother-sister incest.

How common is it for nobles to learn to be wizards in order to fake being sorcerers?

I'm still working on the specifics, but I want it to be fairly hard for a wizard to do this.

For their part, the Swynfaredian nobles probably treat wizards in their realm like crap...in public. In private they are happy to shell over gold in exchange for a wizard's potions and scrolls.

A wizard who does not mind being spat in the face can quietly build up a lot of informal power like a vice lord.

What if a noble born without sorcery deliberately married a sorceress from another land (keeping her magic a secret)?
Further what if this gal was a tainted blood Divine Soul sorceress?
Their children inherited the tainted blood line and learned to imitate Dragon's Blood types (they get bats wings at 14th level, just a little illusion makes that dragonesque).

~~now we have false pretenders to the throne. A few assassinations and wala, junior is in line behind the king...

Intriguing idea. I'm not even sure if my world has divine soul sorcerers or not. So far in my homebrew world sorcery only comes from two sources. Draconic heritage or magical fonts or storms of energy.




My rough draft for the Founding Dragons is below. It's not set in stone yet. I can change any of these or add a fifth or sixth dragon, maybe one that loves the sea.

I really like the classic five metallic and five chromatic D&D dragons but I don't like that you tell a dragon's alignment, MO, and breath weapon just by looking at them. Also, a single dragon needs a lot of land and a lot of food. I figure it's implausible that most fantasy worlds could sustain ten genetically viable breeding populations, so my world just as dragons. Any male dragon could in theory breed with any female dragon.

In my world, dragons usually develop a breath weapon that one of their parents had and they usually develop personality traits similar to their parents but not always. Same goes for coloration and body shape. A lot of a dragon's phsysiology is based on environment and personality. My dragons will often develop a coloration that blends in with their favorite environment unless the dragon is extra loud and narcissistic in which case they will develop a coloration that stand's out.

Here is my rough draft for the four founding houses. If someone suggests a good character concept for a dragon, I can boost this to five or six founding houses, but for now it's four. Maybe a fifth dragon that loves the sea, or maybe not. Swynfaredia has a lot of coastline now but they probably didn't when they were founded.

The four dragons: Framiss the Vibrant, Goirsonad the Wise, Numaness the Mystic, and Kovenoth the Builder.

All four of these dragons were at least somewhat concerned with the human houses that bore their names. All four wrote treatsies on their philosophies, ethics, and preferred style of rule. These treatsies have been copied down and translated a lot. Framiss probably wrote one or two books while Goirsonad probably penned dozens of tomes. In any event, most of the tomes have been copied a bunch, so most Swynfaredians of means have copies of tomes of all four of the dragons, not just their house's dragon.

Academic scholars probably debate minutiae of the writings of all four for hours on end.

Framiss the Vibrant

I figure Framiss was bright red. He was bigger and more muscular than the other Founders. Sort of stocky by dragon standards. Very prominent horns. In some ways he is a quintessential western dragon. Maybe I'll play up the feline traits of Framiss.

Framiss was a strong proponent of being kind to the lowly. Framiss was a bit of a hedonist. He certainly sired more half dragons than the other Founders. I’m likely to have given him around 20 half-dragon children with seven or eight human lovers.

Framiss was a bit of a hedonist. He sired more half-dragons than any of the other Founders. This attitude carried over to Framiss descendants. House Framiss has a reputation for infidelity and promiscuity. Because so many siblings are half-siblings, House Framiss has more fratricide than the other Houses.

House Framiss tries to brand themselves as the “princes of the people.” They have an annual festival where the Lord or Lady is ceremonially mocked by the commoners. They have another more somber festival where commoners can present the Lord or Lady anonymous complains about the ruler. The lords and ladies also love to boast about commoner friendly they are. Sometimes they can be condescending about it.

House Framiss loves to throw a lot of festivals, tournaments, and feasts. This combines their hedonism with their desire to be nice to commoners. This also gives Framiss a reputation for being spendthrifts.

House Framiss encourages their sorcerers to be battle ready. Cowardice is detested. Risk taking behavior is generally looked on favorable. This and the hedonism leads to House Framiss is often stereotyped to be reckless people who live hard and die young.

Goirsonad the Wise

Goirsonad was skinnier than the other dragons, but tail to snout, Goirsonad was the longest dragon. That means he's going to kind of be snake-like, maybe have a crest that resembles a sages beard like a stereotypical Eastern dragon. Probably make him a relatively unassuming color like stony grey.

Goirsonad’s central philosophy was summed up by “The dragons must bestow their wisdom on the ignorant humans for the humans own good.” I’m likely to have given him around 8 half-dragon children with one or two human lovers.

House Gorisonad values education and learning. They also are fairly hidebound in traditions. They tend to be a little more tolerant of wizards than the other Founding Houses.

House Goirsonad is a bit more pious than the other Founding Houses. Among other things, Goirsonad himself believed that it is the dragons’ responsibility to educate humans so they don’t create a Third Unmaking. House Goirsonad is very aggressive against Void minions and to a lesser extant The Fair Folk. House Goirsonad also is generally anti-necromancy, not that many nobles are publicly pro-necromancy.

Between their fear of the Dark and their love of traditions, House Goirsonad tends to favor harsh policing.

There is a stereotype that House Goirsonad will bury their heads in ancient books and ignore the world around them.


Numaness the Mystic

In my world, dragons that focus on their mystic power more than their physical might or mental acuity tend to be shiny, so Numaness is definitely going to be shiny. I'm thinking a medium purple. A little bit stockier than Gorisonad, but still on the long and lanky side. I'm thinking of giving her a crown-like frill.

Numaness was only the female dragon among the Founders. She had fewer half-dragon children than the all males, if only because carrying half-human children is time consuming and irksome.. I’m likely to have given her around 6 half-dragon children with one or two human lovers

House Numaness has a higher percentage of sorcerer births than the other houses. Not a lot higher, but high enough to notice.

Numaness herself talked about the weak should serve the strong, and nothing proves strength like magic. House Numaness really pushes their sons and daughters to excel at magic as much as possible. This has led to a stereotype House Numaness are helpless without magic. They don’t learn swordplay, diplomacy, useful crafts, or any mundane skills that aren’t directly tied to spell-casting.

House Numaness is reputed to be more contemptuous of the peasantry than the other Houses. They will often counter back, “The peasants benefit from our properly managed realms, we don’t feel the need to show off how commoner friendly we are like the drunkards of House Framiss.”

House Numaness believe in making hay while the sun shines. They identify with Aesop’s ant, not the grasshopper. House Numaness is reputed to be the most miserly and tight-fisted of the Houses. They spin this as a positive saying they can handle the hard times better than the others houses.



Kovenoth the Builder

Kovenoth is going to have an "average" build for a dragon somewhere between stocky and muscular like a lion and long and lanky like a snake. He was probably one of the rare burrowing dragons. Burrowing dragons tend to have shorter necks. So maybe a longish body and a shortish neck. Since he's a builder I'm thinking of making his claws proportionally bigger compared to the rest of his body. He's extra vain, so maybe I might make him multi-colored like a coatl.

Kovenoth’s main goal was to create a grand lasting legacy. I’m likely to have given him around 12 half-dragon children with two or three human lovers.

House Kovenoth really loves to build grand things. Monuments, castles, fortresses. This attitude has rubbed off on the other Houses over time. This has lead to a reputation for House Kovenoth being vain though that attitude has also rubbed off the other Houses.

Kovenoth was the most Machiavellian of all the dragons. He wrote the most political treatises. House Kovenoth nobles are very concerned about the various aspects of rulership. House Kovenoth view themselves as wise and detail oriented. They have a reputation for being intrusive micromanagers.


Anyway, those are the original houses. I figure initially the houses tried to live by the principles of their draconic namesake, but this would change and evolve over time. I haven't meshed out the history in detail but Swynfaredia is going to be somewhere between 500 and 1500 years old. That's a lot of time for a house philosophy to evolve and change, or warp and devolve. Even if the Houses intended to follow their Founder's principles to the letter, this could change over time.

Swynfaredia annexed neighboring lands several times. They had three major civil wars that enveloped the whole nation. They had a lot of minor civil wars that was just between two or three houses. They might have had to face an invasion from outsiders a few times. They absorbed a lot of sorcerers from outside the original bloodlines to avoid atrophying. Most of the dragon Founders were polygamous so there could be distinctive subhouses based on which branch of the dragon's bloodline someone hails from.

So there is a lot of room for new houses to be formed, old houses to die off, current houses to split in two, or houses to merge. At this point due to intermarriages, most Swynfaredian nobles have at least a little bit of the blood of all four Founding dragons.


I'm also not sure how the original four houses picked their first king. Probably a magical duel, which would favor House Numaness, but their could have been a surprise upset. Also, over 500 to 1500 years, it's likely multiple houses have held the crown at some point. Originally the dragon council was in charge, but the dragons didn't stay around much longer than a century.

[lightningcat]

There may also be something akin to a constitution either actually written by Goirsonad and/or Framiss, or hammered together by the families over the centuries (ala the British system). It may be designed only to protect the houses, but may also list out what they are required to do.

What are the power structures outside the houses? The legal system provides power and protection to those in charge of it. Is there one for each level of society, or is everyone (supposedly) bound by the same laws?
Is there a parliment, senate, or other similar body? Or does the Queen and other ruling nobles have all the power?
Since it is obviously important, how do you get a position at the Office of the Arcane Registry? Appointment from the king/queen? Beauracratic testing (like Imperial China)?

[Scalenex]

There may also be something akin to a constitution either actually written by Goirsonad and/or Framiss, or hammered together by the families over the centuries (ala the British system). It may be designed only to protect the houses, but may also list out what they are required to do.

That's a good idea. I'm not sure what provisions the Constitution would have or how it would evolve once the actual dragons stop enforcing it, but a Constitution or Magna Carta is a good idea that I will ponder.

What are the power structures outside the houses? The legal system provides power and protection to those in charge of it. Is there one for each level of society, or is everyone (supposedly) bound by the same laws?

I haven't thought of these things yet, but clearly I should have.

Is there a parliament, senate, or other similar body? Or does the Queen and other ruling nobles have all the power?

Interesting idea. I figure a parliament made up of arrogant scheming scheming spell casters would be a madhouse. Which is all the more reason to include it.

Since it is obviously important, how do you get a position at the Office of the Arcane Registry? Appointment from the king/queen? Bureaucratic testing (like Imperial China)?

Government agencies are a consolation prize for nobles and sometimes squibs who cannot get a landed title. Originally the Arcane Registry was considered a punishment assignment but due to shrewd politics the Arcane Registry reinvented themselves from a nothing-agency into a political powerhouse.

I'm figuring the modern Arcane Registry probably has a meritocratic entry system on paper, but in practice cronyism and bribery grease the wheels.

[brian 333]

A single parent with multiple titles or two parents with titles could grant one title to one child and one to another.

A parent could grant titles within an existing fief to additional children. Thus, the Duke of Fundasia could appoint her second child Count of Paradia and her third grandchild Baron of Partia, assuming Partia and Paradia were constituent parts of Fundasia. Thus noone has to be disinherited, and the eldest can still inherit everything.