The situation in my game escalated and now we have three petty kings vying for position as high king of a dark-age people. Thing is, I have not given much thought to how to portray these kings nor this conflict, not in any nuanced fashion anyhow.
Where do you draw inspiration from for your kings and their struggles?
>>47036155
Play Crusader Kings 2 and take inspiration from your game.
Sengoku Jidai.
Never before has there been a viler pit of serpents back-stabbing and kenivering for position.
>>47036155
History mainly, and myths and legends.
Also do you have problems with only three petty kings bro? Make one than the players would like, a king than wants to improve the well being of the people for example, another than they can sympathize or at least understanding his motives, like a honorable traditionalist, and then one they can hate, a murderhobo with the rape-army.
>>47036201
>>47037522
And then spin it! The murderhobo is the best bet the kingdom has to protect itself from it's neighbours, the traditionalist will not embrace the technological advancements required to increase the agricultural yield to feed the growin populace and the improvement king is going to tear down the native religion and mandate a foreign state religion.
>>47037777
why is there a random rider of rohan there?
>>47038137
He charged so hard at pelennor than he teared a the space time and ended in that situtation. My guess at least.
Dark age?
Gotta go the king Arthur route.
Otherwise, kings just chop each others heads off and do what they want, no?
Peasants are asleep in the fields!
Post kings!
It was October, 1350 – and the Black Death continued to ravish Europe. As his army besieged the Moors in their Gibraltar stronghold, King Alfonso of Castile was struck down by the terrible plague and died.
So began the reign of the king’s son, Pedro. It was to be an era of unmitigated cruelty.
Soon Pedro was imagining that every man was against him. During a ‘sporting’ contest he personally slew Fadrique, one of his half-brothers. Nothing could stop Pedro now. On his orders many of the barons were declared outlaws and hunted down, beheaded and their lands confiscated.
A minister suspected of an alliance with the exiled Henry of Trastamara was strangled and decapitated in front of a dinner gathering. Even the faithful Simuel el Levi, whom Pedro believed was growing too fat and wealthy, was tortured to death in a vain attempt to make him reveal where his fortune was hidden.
>>47036155
History is full of great stuff honestly.
Any period of civil war in any part of the world is full of terrific folk to pull from conceptually.
Wikipedia is literally full of this stuff.
>>47038605
what a dick.
>>47038637
what is your favorite conflict of kings then?
Technically...
>>47038377
>Otherwise, kings just chop each others heads off and do what they want, no?
Eh, no.
Being a king is not the same as being an absolute monarch.
>>47036155
To know how each of the kings should act you first have to come up with from where the kingship is derived from. How a king is chosen is a good start as someone who bases their right to rule on geneology may not be limited in the same way as someone who got elected to the position by the nobles or the army of the land etc. After this is done you'd migh want to delve deeper into the royal person by fleshing out his personality and possibly royal oath.
Is he a shrewed opportunist who have influenced his way to the throne by wooing men of note to his side and thus is primarily focused on staying in power or is the king's origin that of a common peasant turned magnificent warrior who took the power in a bloody coup against the former dynasty and thus have a need to cement his rule by victories in foreign lands?
>>47039342
Early on in the myth, King Arthur was trying to unite a bunch of petty kings under his banner. So it could work for a more dark age competition for one of the kings to try and manhandle his way to power by getting the most support from lords and chieftains.
>>47036155
The Pendragon game has plenty of kings to draw inspiration from if you want.
>>47039656
Another great way to go would be by taking inspiration from the historical franks in the sense that the kingship devolved into a puppet leader that was really only kept for ceremonial purposes while the strong man of the state was the Mayor of the Palace, a title that originally was "just" the household manager of the king.
To make it even more interesting you could include the frankish tradition of dividing up the land of the deceased father to his sons. As such one of the kings could have even more complications as you'd also have to take the possible chaos of future infighting amongst the inheritors into consideration.
>>47039849
Who doesn't love a good old fashioned succession war?
>>47040307
Everyone than is in the mid of a old fashioned sucession war.
>>47039849
Sounds like the japanese emperor and shogun.SENGOKU JIDAI!
MEN OFFERED TO DIE
FOR THE GLORY OF A WARRIOR-LIFE!Sorry, I just love that line from the civilization rap
>>47040307
Exactly! Bonus points if one of the sons is extremely incompetent at ruling, and another (not the oldest one) is a bully and a third one has embraced some newish foreign religion.
>>47040363
keksimus maximus
