Nice. Going off the bit about elective monarchies, they got screwy sometimes. Sometimes the position would just become associated with a family thay would be elected by default. And sometimes a group of electors wouldnt like who was elected and would coronate their own king known as an "anti-king" (with all the antis writers and games seen to like youd think thered be more anti-kings). A story i could see coming from this is the old king dies, his son immediately assumes he's the new king because his family's been consistently elected king for over a century now, and then a popular duke who holds an electorate challenges the new king and demands an election.
Well, the actual Game of Thrones storyline is more War of the Roses from England. But personally, I find the Holy Roman Empire to have even more backstabby and politically intriguing plotlines.
My favorite is from The Goblin Tower: The Kingdom of Xylar has a peculiar custom for choosing its kings, each of whom serves for a five-year term. At the end of that period he is beheaded in the public square before an assembly of foreigners, and his head cast into the crowd. The man who catches the head is drafted as the next king.
When it comes to a Birthright monarchy I like the idea of rumors of him being born under a red moon bad omen which makes someone to depose them summer hesitant to strike
When it comes to a luck-based monarchy you could make a whole book series on the administrative being mad at the the Hat ticker because he picked the wrong person
In the Urian empire, the heir is traditionnaly selected by the emperor among his sons, but there's no clear rule on which one he should select. So, in theory, the most promising one is selected as heir, while the others will be granted other high ranking positions in the empire. Now, in practice, this lack of clear succesion rule makes infanticide and fratricide all too common, and if the emperor dies before he could officialy designate his heir or didn't make his will clear enough, civil war is always around the corner. Now, to make this even more fun, let's introduce the ancient concept of Shrân; aka Divine Majesty, or the capacity to bring victory to you and your followers. Shrân works a bit like the Mandate of Heaven, as in it's a favor granted by the gods, except that there's not one chosen. Instead, everyone has some of it, but in different quantities. If you want to build yourself legitimacy, all you have to do is to prove that you have more Shrân than whomever is on the throne, usually on the battlefield. So, if one of the non-selected sons of the emperor manage to escape assassination attempts, raise an army, and defeat his selected brother or even his father (if he's still alive), he proves to all that he has the more Shrân, and is thus not an impostor or a rebel, but the legitimate ruler. All of this results in a deeply unstable empire which has spent the last two centuries going from one civil war to an other, and is now on the brink of collapse. And with the rise of the new Shawid dynasty, the first one to not be of urian origin as they are tùta, a new debate has appeared, as some want to continue the urian succesion system, while others want to impose the tùta tradition of splitting all heirloom (including land) equally among all sons AND daughters. And that's what I have for now on succesion and legitimacy for my unstable empire. Thanks for your vids!
@@JustInTimeWorlds Thank you! I always have a hard time deciding how to develop my world or how to organize my notes, so your videos always provide some interesting insight
I think elected monarchy is my favorite because there's so mini potential plot points you could have electors be replaced by shapeshifters maybe the Thunder breaks up because of it too many plot points
really, thank you. I'm designing a mix between some types of governments and I know is way too challenging to do it in my first project so that's why I'm leaving it to a long term project (and after reading Game of Thrones and Dune). I don't know if I said this in a past comment but I find interesting the idea of a mageocracy in which the chosen one is the best at magic but the worst at governing or a meritocracy based on strength in which the strongest is a muscle head, in other words I find interesting the idea of a person that is not evil, just a bad leader while having a great talent in other area.
The drakalfar of Berthiervista Skerry elect their monarchs... sort of. Usually it ends up being the oldest child of the previous monarch, but this does need to be confirmed by the Stórrthing, a great council that any dragon rider can speak and vote in. If enough people don't like the heir or judge them incompetent, the Stórrthing can pick another monarch---often a better-liked or more competent younger sibling, but not always. There's a few laws regulating who is eligible to be monarch, such as that no monarch may be part of a blood feud with another dragon rider.
The United Kingdom of Musical Instruments is so named because their executives use the style of houses of royalty and nobility and the chief executives thus use the style of monarchs. These executives are elected democratically on the principle that each instrument may have a human musician and the governments are always predominantly run by the humans’ instruments even if none of the monarchies have explicit laws that they should be this way. The reason this happens organically is that the instruments quite literally see themselves as the humans’ lieutenant administrators by design.
@@ronecotex It gives me some bronze age vibes too, with a divine ruler acting as head-priest of the main god, or even his incarnation in the material world
For a good gaming example of a meritocratic monarchy, see the world of Tekumel, from EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE and its successors. The heirs to the Petal Throne (including some who had been hidden among other factions and who might not have known who their father was until he died: how's that for 'unknown heirs' stories?) are invited to take part in the choosing of the Emperor contest. Not just military prowess but also challenges of law, administration, magic and other stuff. The candidate is allowed to substitute champions for some number of tests. And when the High Priests of the Twenty Gods and Cohorts had decided which had won, the rest were sacrificed.
Good video. When you spoke of the picked by magic kings, I thought of the story of king David being anointed as a boy. Just because the world or in this case God has chosen a king doesn't mean the existing one will step down. You have forgotten the original method for becoming king, build up an army and come in and conquer a land. A variant being the person over a defensive army who after chasing off the enemies crowns themselves king. I am not 100% sure, but I think that most real world kingdoms (going back far enough) started this way originally and grew by conquering more land.
For this video, I more wanted to focus on succession rather than original conquest :) I spoke about conquest in my video about how to design a fantasy government.
@@JustInTimeWorlds That is fair enough. Though even when there is a set way for succession to happen it often ended up being decided by conquest and war. See The War of the Roses for example.
This was a great and informative video, but it was very difficult to watch due to the sharp sound you used in it. It was very distracting and painful, even without headphones.
I do like the luck-based idea as a dishonest approach valuing the merit of cunning. They don't want someone random on the throne. They want someone that can cheat and get away with it because that's useful in politics. A hidden meritocratic kakistocracy presented as noble and in the hands of the gods. In more overt ways Alexander the Great gets this a bit with the gordian knot. "Here's an impossible task. It's believed only the truest leader will be able solve undoing it. Oh, you cheated and just cut it. What a great leader!"
