Campaign idea help: Royals: Masters of War

[Donny Brook]

Then there is the fact that 1 in 200 people are descended from Ghengis Khan.

[Astromancer]

Given how many kings there were in ancient Ireland, plus the fact that at least 25% of people of Irish ethnic background can trace their ancestry to Niall of the Nine Hostages, there would be a lot of Irish supers around. Similarly, in late Medieval and early Modern Africa you could enslave a king, but you couldn't disarm royals or make them work, or fail to give them accomodations fitting to their status. Similarly, your relatives of royal status also had to be given similar treatment. Meanwhile, there was nothing seen as dishonorable in their plotting your downfall. This led to large numbers of people of Royal or aristocratic blood being sold into the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

This would mean that large numbers of low status people in America would have at least some useful super powers. That would create an interesting power dynamic ;-)

[Bathawk]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Given how many kings there were in ancient Ireland, plus the fact that at least 25% of people of Irish ethnic background can trace their ancestry to Niall of the Nine Hostages, there would be a lot of Irish supers around. Similarly, in late Medieval and early Modern Africa you could enslave a king, but you couldn't disarm royals or make them work, or fail to give them accomodations fitting to their status. Similarly, your relatives of royal status also had to be given similar treatment. Meanwhile, there was nothing seen as dishonorable in their plotting your downfall. This led to large numbers of people of Royal or aristocratic blood being sold into the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

This would mean that large numbers of low status people in America would have at least some useful super powers. That would create an interesting power dynamic ;-)

I forgot about Ghengis Khan, but wasn't aware of most of the rest of that. Fascinating. But using the WoD Vampire model, I would assume that after awhile the power of the blood would become diluted. a person who's 50th in line for the throne may be able to do a parlor trick or two, but being 3,481 in line probably doesn't have the potency to be truly "super" perhaps an extra 15-25pts. in "mundane advantages

[Prince Charon]

Realistically (which doesn't necessarily apply to a setting like this), it would be difficult to find someone in modern or modernish times who isn't descended from one or more kings, unless they're from one of the Uncontacted Peoples (and then it may depend on how you're defining 'king').

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Bathawk

Of course each marriage is between one royal and one "commoner". For obvious reasons. Two supers by definition becomes incestuous except from another foriegn bloodline...something that takes a great amount of effort politically to accomplish. Not to say it dosen't happen (much like two vampires mating in the World of Darkness) but it's usually hushed up when discovered with a lot of falsified documents and lies (and a hefty secret disadvantage)

Wasn’t Prince Phillip, Elizabeth II’s husband, part of the Greek royal family? Similarly, Victoria’s children married so widely across Europe’s royal families that they spread the genes for hemophilia. So the campaign background seems at variance with much of recorded history.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Realistically (which doesn't necessarily apply to a setting like this), it would be difficult to find someone in modern or modernish times who isn't descended from one or more kings, unless they're from one of the Uncontacted Peoples (and then it may depend on how you're defining 'king').

Isn't literally everyone in Europe descended from Charlemagne at this point?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Isn't literally everyone in Europe descended from Charlemagne at this point?

Basically, genealogy is iffy that far back, but yes.

To make this setting work you need a limiter. The power trait would have to have been attached to royal families fairly recently. Perhaps Morgan le Fay married a Marovingian. Only people descended from that couple have super powers. Those who demonstrated the power trait most strongly were either married back into the cadet lines of the royal houses or sent into the church.

Illegitimate descendants of Royalty are hushed up. Some are wed back into the high nobility. Others are used as agents of the crown.

[Inky]

It seems like for this to make any sense, it might have to be only some of the royals that inherit the powers, rather than them being evenly distributed across all of a king's children. But that seems reasonable, that is how titles are inherited. (The exact rules possibly vary between different countries/dynasties, so it might make sense for this to as well).

(Astromancer's idea might work too, although you might get a rather different-shaped selection of superheroes, with it being spread out widely rather than following the line of succession).

A system that assumes that the royal family of each country is somehow a constant thing seems likely to fall apart if looked at for more than five seconds for the same reason that the idea of the Divine Right of Kings does - royal families don't just drop from the sky, they have to come from somewhere, often in complicated and/or ignominious ways. Which seems like it would be a difficult part of this setting, but also an interesting one. Either, as Proteus suggests, history has to be drastically different in this setting so that it is, in fact, that tidy and mythological, or the genesis of each bloodline of supers has to be as varied and messy as the origin of royal families normally is.

It might be wise to leave the exact rules unknown and possibly actually unpredictable - that way, players have some wriggle room about what their character's "origin story" might be.

Some possibilities.

Maybe if somebody is elected a president who's a close relative of another recent president, he/she might start to develop small-scale superpowers. For instance, George W. Bush (how embarrassing), or quite a lot of "elected presidents" of countries that are only pretending to be democracies.
Actually, the first few members of a new superhero dynasty might quite often be in the "how embarassing" category, since they're there because they're descended from somebody impressive rather than because they're anybody impressive themselves. (And if it takes a few generations for the powers to build up to anything more than a parlour trick, they might not have that going for them, either).

Alternatively, maybe it only works if it really is officially a hereditary monarchy, rather than being one in practice but pretending not to be in the legal rules. Or, as above, maybe it varies.

Logically (which may or may not be relevant here!), such a setting might have a lot more constitutional monarchies, as countries try to hang on to their superhero team while still having most of the important stuff controlled by an elected goverment.
On the other hand,

Originally Posted by Bathawk

You brought up an interesting point I hadn't considered about exiled or non-recognized lineages. In "Royals" I believed the French royals were all put to death.

If the people reckon there's no chance of getting their royal family on their side, that might happen a lot, yes. Royal blood can be a dangerous thing to have, especially if it's known to also come with superpowers. Girl Genius again.

Even where a country did get rid of its royals, it seems like they'd be likely to do it by replacing them with a more co-operative younger cousin or friendly member of a foreign royal house, if there's anyone available - it seems like having no royals at all would be a last resort as you'd lose a military edge. (Not to mention that trying to depose a royal without the help of another royal might be a lot harder).

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Given how many kings there were in ancient Ireland, plus the fact that at least 25% of people of Irish ethnic background can trace their ancestry to Niall of the Nine Hostages, there would be a lot of Irish supers around. Similarly, in late Medieval and early Modern Africa you could enslave a king, but you couldn't disarm royals or make them work, or fail to give them accomodations fitting to their status. Similarly, your relatives of royal status also had to be given similar treatment. Meanwhile, there was nothing seen as dishonorable in their plotting your downfall. This led to large numbers of people of Royal or aristocratic blood being sold into the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

This would mean that large numbers of low status people in America would have at least some useful super powers. That would create an interesting power dynamic ;-)

Sounds solid. If there's going to be some factor to limit how many of a king's descendants have superpowers, the numbers might not be all that large, but there were a lot of African kingdoms so there might be a lot of different royal lines involved. Smaller kingdoms might mean lower levels of superpowers, but even so, that's a large number of low-level superheroes, and it wasn't that long ago as dynasties go.
From a quick glance at Wikipedia, it looks like a lot of the Native American tribes were also hereditary monarchies, so, again, small "kingdoms" but lots of them.

It might be funny if some or all bloodlines had a sharp cut-off at Xth in line to the throne, such that definitely superhuman abilities (even minor ones) kick in only at that rank - because that would give you the possibility of some "King Ralph" characters who had no idea they had royal blood until some relatives they didn't know existed die and suddenly they have superpowers.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Inky

I

A system that assumes that the royal family of each country is somehow a constant thing seems likely to fall apart if looked at for more than five seconds for the same reason that the idea of the Divine Right of Kings does - royal families don't just drop from the sky,

In ancient China dynasties did very much come and go. When a family was said "to have lost the Mandate of Heaven" they weren't "royal" any more and their replacements definitely were.

So, no biology involved. It's all The Magic of Belief. "Royalty" is "special"(super) because the mass of that countries people believe they are.

I think this is more like the only way it could work as described.

[Inky]

Yes, it seems like if it was entirely biological, without reference to who was still a king (and unless it had started fairly recently, like Astromancer suggested) you'd have quite a build-up of families who used to be royal confusing things, if history had gone anything like how it really did!

Maybe the power slowly fades away after a family is deposed but takes a few generations, to allow for PCs that didn't know they were royalty.

Originally Posted by Bathawk

Of course each marriage is between one royal and one "commoner". For obvious reasons. Two supers by definition becomes incestuous except from another foriegn bloodline...something that takes a great amount of effort politically to accomplish. Not to say it dosen't happen (much like two vampires mating in the World of Darkness) but it's usually hushed up when discovered with a lot of falsified documents and lies (and a hefty secret disadvantage) The fact that it's rumored to be encouraged in some circles in hopes of creating different and more powerful supers, is only rumored

Originally Posted by Proteus

Wasn’t Prince Phillip, Elizabeth II’s husband, part of the Greek royal family? Similarly, Victoria’s children married so widely across Europe’s royal families that they spread the genes for hemophilia. So the campaign background seems at variance with much of recorded history.

What Proteus said, yes, this seems to be famously very far from how it was in real history. The royal families of Europe seem to have been marrying mainly among themselves for so long that they're basically one huge extended family now. There were political uses to marrying another royal of a foreign family, as that made an alliance, so although it took more work to set up than marrying someone from their own country they made the effort, and that quickly led to even foreign royals often being relatives. They were just careful to keep it to very distant relatives most of the time. The Habsburg dynasty is a notorious example of one that wasn't careful.


Bathawk mentioned maybe having other powers that could stand a chance against the royals (at least before modern technology comes into play), such as magic or magical martial arts. That might put a new spin on James I's suspicions that his enemies were hiring witches to murder him! :-D (Might not directly be a James I in this history, but you get my drift).

The history of America is either going to go drastically differently in this history or take a lot of explaining. The colonists have got no royals, not even aristocracy - maybe, at most, a few younger cousins who fled their own countries for political reasons. Meanwhile, many of the Native American groups have got royals (albeit maybe small-scale ones, if that makes a difference), and as Astromancer says, the African slaves might actually have a disproportionate number of them. The colonists might be able to get the upper hand over them all the same due to superior weaponry and numbers, but when it comes to declaring independence they'd be stumped. Maybe they don't get independence. Or maybe they win by cutting the Africans and the natives in as equal partners so their royals will join the fight, leading to a drastically different-looking America. Or maybe they have magic, or get ahead in technology.

Even if America somehow remains roughly like its usual self, the superpowers are going to add a weird new twist to racial politics. It's one thing knowing, as a theoretical political slogan, that your ancestors once ruled kingdoms of their own in Africa, but it might be quite another thing having the proof of it before everyone's eyes and even knowing exactly who (or, rather, whose great-grandfather). Records may be easy to lose, but superpowers a bit harder.

Possibly an interesting thing, that - for a lot of formerly colonised countries, not a lot of information survives about what was going on there before the Europeans showed up, but in this setting, if exiled/deposed royal families keep a noticeable amount of their powers for a long time, it's quite difficult to lose a royal family. (Though they might still have no idea how exactly they got where they are now, or even exactly where their ancestors were kings of, but they know who they are :-D )

(For that matter, how likely is it that some of the people of Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi descent in England are descended from the many Indian kings dispossessed after independence? I'm not sure how likely that is, though, since most of the Indian etc. population of England seem to be descended from people who came over to get jobs in the cotton mills.)