Ways to Make Your Kings More High-Fantasy

Ah, royalty. We've all seen many a story of men who become kings. In ones where heredity is based on the female line, a knight saving a princess from a dragon and marrying her can become king. Or maybe the only person who can draw the magic sword is the One True Heir[sup]TM[/sup]. Or maybe the prince is the heroic knight himself, sword hand guided by god as he cuts down whatever enemy the story presents.

Plus, kings tend to be warriors themselves, and while kings actually fighting is more of a depiction of modern fantasy, they're basically divine agents of leadership and war in the Mythic paradigm, and I feel that in a high-fantasy saga, the king being the one to lead the charge should actually be an awe-inspiring event for whatever foe brought such a charge upon itself.

So I was thinking of a few ways to high-fantasy-ify the king, and at this point, I'm honestly drawing a bit of a blank. There's the minor supernatural abilities thing that some of them have going (I cure leprosy with a touch, woohoo!) and I suppose I could pump those up, but that feels... Inelegant. My best thought so far is to key it off the Divine support of the Church, with their inherent Magic Resistance signifying a God-maintained purity, so that regardless of the king's actions, until he dies or gets excommunicated, he is considered to be in a state of grace. This means he'll be able to have a number of permanent effects on him at all times, which ought to help. He'll get Warped, but that just makes him more holy, especially if instead of mundane Warping you use an altered version of Divine Form that improves upon his natural kingly things.

What would you guys do to make your kings more high-fantasy-like? (Obviously, I'm not saying we should do this to every king, because most people play this game in its lower-fantasy form, but it's fun to think about for those who push the upper limits.)

Make the king use the high-fantasy bits around him. Consult the seer. Make magic legal. Have magicians create "public works" for the land, whether good roads, or dredging ports, lights for the park or whatever. Just because the king doesn't have a lightsaber or whatever doesn't mean he can't intelligently use his environment, unlike it seems, most ArM rulers.

hth,

Rich

Just add Faeries.

If you have a king, you ought to have visits by faerie ambassadors, troubadours, champions and troublemakers. Knights offering fealty; a greater faerie king demanding it.

If the king has a daughter and fails to invite a powerful faerie neighbor, expect a Big Curse, because that's what slighted faeries do. Making her fall asleep is kind of classic. :slight_smile:/4398758327509278019834 If she comes of age, expect faerie suitors.

If the king fails to get the heir he wants, expect a faerie to offer a solution... for a price.

A "long lost older brother" showing up? That happens all the time, so it should happen all the time.

Peasant heroes coming to court and making good because they have powerful faerie advisors? That's how the story goes, yes.

Anyway,

Ken


If she doesn't have one or two oddly-intelligent animal sidekicks, she cannot possibly be a real princess.

I really like that whole Divine King thing you set up. Have him walk around with enough Spiritual Influence to raise mobile Divine Auras around himself and/or his banner, tempered with Wrath or somesuch. Let him add his Leadership to all those he personally leads in battle, as if they were a Trained Group. Have him decked with powerful Divine effects of Grace duration, lasting indefinitely as you say. Including MR 100+. Have him wield Divine Powers to command men, ghosts, or even the elements themselves, the very Titans and Magical spirits that are the earth in his domain. Have him exorcising demons and conversing with angels. Let him be nourished by the loyalty of his people, so that his wounds transfer to them and he will not fall until all who are loyal to him have fallen. And let him wield the sword given to him by Michael, Captain of the Host, a sword that grants him the Wisdom (=Perception and Sense Holiness and Unholiness Score of 8) of the archangel, as well as his Strength (+8 Strength bonus to Damage), and is anathema to demonkind (+25 to damage against demons).

That's high-fantasy enough for ya ? :smiley:

A coupla hundred years ago, when the lineage/kingdom was established, the new king (ancestor to the current one), commissioned a crown. Silver and gold , with jewels including ruby, topaz and sapphire.

All Items of Quality.

MANY plusses to skills every king needs. Suddenly the King IS a leader of legend.

MR 100+!? o_o High-fantasy doesn't necessarily mean obscenely powerful... The OP may indeed have been looking for something like this (though I'd hope not o_o), but even in absolute high-fantasy, I personally would probably keep kings around the top pagan gods at most, and probably a lot lower. Though I do like the "natural because God made them that way" enhancements to his damage and abilities to exorcise demons...

Though now that I'm thinking of how he'd get 100+ MR, I'm suddenly curious about how crazy powerful an item with a relic of the Virgin Mary built into it would be...

:slight_smile: Ceremony makes Divine Powers powerful, but perhaps indeed not THAT powerful. Here is a bit about high-fantasy Mythic Templars I once wrote:

Hi,

Tangentially, it takes quite a bit for me to consider something "broken," and Ceremony makes the cut. These rules simply don't work, because it is too easy to accumulate totals that make hash of the setting.

With enough Ceremony, one can make anything more or less anything.

Anyway,

Ken