Arcane Nobility

[JohnPaulB]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

You need an explanation for why this society has chosen to make their figurehead leaders wizards. (And perhaps in the past actual rulers.) One reason might be there were some spells which were so useful to a kingdom that having someone able to cast them is or was critical to the kingdom's survival. Candidates would be the story-killing spells: Pathfinder, Scrying, Trance, Telepathy, maybe Detect Enemies.

This is actually a conspiracy by the bureaucracy. If you had a regular ruler, he might be interested in how the government works and could learn these things easier than a wizard could (with their x2 XP costs).

Thus with the wizards playing Game of Thrones, they don't want to be bothered with the nuts and bolts of running things and usually leave that to the bureaucrats, who perpetuate the "need" to have wizards rule.