Succession issue

the king is dead.
he has died in his bed at the age of 56 from failing health.and he has left behind no heir...
his closest living relative is his sister who is married to a neighboring king
and she is not eligible for inheritance under agnatic primogeniture

worse yet, rumors have spread that the neighboring kings plan to invade

there are 3 eligible dukes who can take power

the first duke holds large rich holding and has served on the advisory council for nearly 40 years.
but he is 80 years old and can't even walk without the aid of a servant and he has been know a stubborn man who pushed to subjugate the tribal land in the south to "prove we aren't to be pushed around".

the second duke is a 19 year old who has inherited his land from his father only 4 months ago.
he has experience as a military commander and is know to be incredibly hot headed but outside of that he is unproven.

the 3rd duke holds the smallest holding and he's been plagued chronic with pneumonia since he was a child, despite this he is known as an accomplished diplomat, he served on the council. and is known as a mild mannered man.
he is well known for railing against the church and calling to revoke land from the clergy and redistribute it among the less wealthy peasantry.

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Massacre the dukes. Raze the palace. Arm the citizens to repel foreign invaders, then strike out and liberate their citizens too.

Your ass is gonna get invaded.

Dukes are gonna get dunked

The middle class of merchants and bureaucrats who existed outside the aristocracy will become the new leaders, a mixture of idealistic lawyers and grubbing capitalists who will alternately commit to sweeping social reforms while at the same time carving out sections of the economy as their personal nest egg.

and the other kings take advantage of the instability and invade before this can take root ultimately carving up the kingdom.

BAD END...

This is basically how the Scottish Wars of Independance started. The Scots asked King Edward of England to help oversee a similar situation, and he put forward that John Balliol should be crowned Monarch, to which the Scots agreed. However Balliol was a weak King and sought advice from Edward so frequently he eventually became a puppet, and eventually Edward openly took control and kicked Balliol out the position. Then the wars happened.

The New Authority confiscates anything belonging to the old regime and then goes further, turning the churches into public schoolhouses and stripping them of wealth, making the clergy destitute or exiled. All revenue must now be filtered through the state, who will centrally plan all development, private enterprise must be contained, such selfishness is inherently counterrevolutionary. Anyone who lusts after profits is not sufficiently patriotic enough, they must understand that sacrifice for the betterment of the state as a whole is the ideal goal of any business. Your toil, your ingenuity, etc. all of it must be put toward the grander purpose than personal enrichment.

Except when that happened in post-Revolutionary France the other kings armies were smashed and the French marched out and went on to conquer nearly all of Europe.


NAPOLEON END

"You cannot stop me," Napoleon warned the Austrian statesman Metternich, "I can spend 30,000 men a month."
As much as I find the French disagreeable, this quote is great.

Arise citizens, raise your battalions, until the blood of the impure fills the furrows of our fields.

I always wanted to run a game focused around a succession crisis. Have the players pick a faction and try to put them on the throne, or maybe even try and take the throne for themselves.

Fuck I can't tell if this fascist or communist

Arm the peasants, overthrow aristocrats, murder kulaks. FULL COMMUNISM NOW.

youtube.com/watch?v=o3tHAyXLSzw

They are fairly similar, though the State doesn't own the factories in most forms of Fascism, and private enterprise is controlled, but not so much so that it ceases to be private.

Though most Fascist states are also military states so private enterprise is often asked to 'sacrifice' for the sake of the war effort in perpetuity.

Depends on the setting

I had this idea for a similar power intrigue plot

The Infant Queen
>Queen consort dies during childbirth, first and only child
>During the funeral procession the Kings horse is spooked, he falls off and lands on his neck, dying
>This days old infant is now the reigning monarch, surrounded by advisors and political power players
>While all are equals under the queen, only one will come out on top to become the figure heas of the government
>However, too overt of power will be seen as exploiting the queen, and is akin to treason against the throne

it sounds an awful lot like bolshevism.

Every commoner is trained in magic arts alongside the normal required indoctrination of loyalty to the state.

They are issued temporary spellbooks with spells deemed needed. War time? A thousand peasant mages with magic missile. Peace time? Unseen Servant, etc.

My idea was a little more warfare and less political intrigue.

>King is aging
>A new woman has caught his eye, spreading myriad rumors about his open affair
>Several of his heirs die in mysterious ways
>New consort is pregnant when the King dies suddenly
>Consort Clams the unborn child is the kings
>Only other heir is the king's brother who's taken the cloth and traditionally isn't allowed to inherit
>Several Bastards have appeared, claiming to be long lost sons and being backed by different factions
>A civil war is on the way between supporters of the Consort, supporters of the bastards, an group of lords fighting for independence, a faction trying to install the king's brother, and a rival nation pressing a very dubious claim on behalf of the Queen

True, though in what is the most widely recognised form of Fascism, companies that had military contracts made a fortune. I think outside of the obvious Mauser/Walther, Rhein-Metall and IG Farben made buckets of money, Volkswagen, Porsche and Mercedes as well.

If there are multiple kingdoms, why not copy actual European royalty? The royal families are all intermingled and don't have much to do with the countries they govern. The nation's king died, but their neighboring kingdom's king is his cousin. Neither one of them actually speak the land's language fluently, they're above it.

The neighboring king should rule our land as king of both his old realm and ours. Without merging the two states, of course.

With our united power we will defeat the rest of kings who want to prey on us.

Fuck dukes, high nobility always ruins everything for everyone but themselves and choosing ANY of them will make the others butthurt and throw the kingdom to civil war.

France was the most populated country in Europe, not all nations could pull that out.

K R A T I S T O S

Who is the next male in line? Usually there is always junior branches next after the senior line.

Till the time when great army of Republic lead by great leader will march to crush last opposition on the continent only to die of from starvation, cold and disease. Despite the fact that your only allies that knew about fighting the war in that environment repeatably told you to not fucking march deep into enemy territory at the end of the summer.

CONGRESS OF VIENNA END

I was going to do something like that. Not quite Hapsburg level, but definitely families from other countries pushing their chosen contender.

After you get a significant distance away, who's backing you have matters more than how close you are to the throne.

The three dukes duke it out in arena. No champions allowed, intrigue before actual combat emphasised.

So deep man. Really made me think.

is the neighboring kingdom evil or just...the neighbor?
if it is not evil, crown the third duke and make him negotiate a federation style alliance that will keep the kingdom culturaly unique and free.
stronger toghether

if it is evil, crown the second duke and prepare for war. war does wonder for unity

>Succession Issue
More like Succession Without bodily Issue

>Required one of the best generals ever born not be immediately #rekted

Whilst you are not wrong, I do not feel this helps your case.

Where did you find all that bureaucracy and nationalism on such short notice? Was there a sale on?

Eh.. Depends. Who would succeed the first and third Dukes?

>While all are equals under the queen, only one will come out on top to become the figure heas of the government
>However, too overt of power will be seen as exploiting the queen, and is akin to treason against the throne
You lock the queen in a tower along with any cousins or other successors to the throne, then you change the rules of succession to put you next in line and become king. Once you're on the throne you can have the children disposed of quietly.

While not a bad idea it is one true believer away from a lot dead conspirators for conspirators you will need.

I find stupid the very idea of randomly giving the throne to a duke when there's probably a male descendant who should be crowned somewhere. But let's suppose those three are the male descendants and have somewhat equally valid claims.

The obvious choice is to crown the first duke. While physically weak, he looks perfectly fine mentally speaking. He is also the one more likely to have a good quantity of offspring to succeed him and, more importantly, he's been 40 years in the council so there's no doubt that he has the political connections to make sure that the new dynasty will have support in the court. He seems to be a bit of a warmonger, but also intelligent enough to pick on a weak enough victim. Considering that our neighbours seem to be more than willing to attack, a king with military experience and political connections is perfect.

The third duke looks weak both physically and in terms of power. Ill, passive and with small territory. He would fail to push the social advance he seems to love so much and throw the country into civil war Yet he has experience and looks smart, so some kind of deal with him and his faction should be made. He is probably intelligent enough to understand that only a strong monarch can go against the church, and that first duke will be better than the second. Make some concessions if needed. Maybe instead of the church we can revoke land from those who side against our claim, and give a part of their land to the common folk to gain their loyalty.

Second duke is an absolute mess. Just send him against the first kingdom who invades and hope he dies or gets wiser with age.

So, like that time Portugal became a part of Spain because the closest living relative to the deceased King of Portugal was the Spanish King?

Now this reminds me of Don Pedro II, except instead of dying his parents were told to fuck off the throne.

I'm pretty sure the sister's husband takes the crown, doesn't he?

Gonna have to load up my crusader kings 2 to know for sure

No, the sister's SON takes the crown.

If it was Agnatic-Cognatic, then she would take the crown, and then her son when she passed.

>most
>2 out of 5

Yes, but you have more choice about what you want to do, as long as the state agrees. In communism, the state would tell you what to do and own the factories. In facism, you had private companies working for the state, rather then owned by it. Both are shit though.

>and she is not eligible for inheritance under agnatic primogeniture

Bullshit. The Crown is hers. I'm not going to let some no-name duke onto the throne.

The third duke strikes a deal with the dead king's sister and the neighboring king to unite the two realms into a superpower.

The first and second duke ally to form a resistance, but the first duke dies of stress and without his guidance, the second duke soon falls prey to a "Red Wedding" style massacre of him and his party.

Oldest duke.
With luck the foreign countries are scared shitless of the immortal badass.

Also, does he have any heirs?

Looks like I will be moving to this kingdom soon. Someone is bound to hire mercenaries to fight for them sooner or later.

Yeah, or possibly cousins - if the king didn't have any brothers, you'd expect him to have uncles at least

Does he have any other living male relatives? Just because his sister isn't eligible it doesn't mean he doesn't have a nephew, a cousin, an uncle, or such.

On his death his crown goes to his children. He has no children so the crown reverts to his father. His father has no eligible children so the crown reverts to his grandfather, does his grandfather have any eligible children? Rinse repeat until heir is found.

Of course, since this entire situation seems to be inspired by a game of CK2, those dukes are all going to raise an army to declare the throne their own and the King's sister is going to try and take the throne by her husband's force despite her lack of rightful claim.

To be fair, before Napoleon was ever crowned Emperor the citizen army was smashing the mercenary armies of Europe that descended on France.

The bureaucracy always existed, it just became self-aware and created the idea that it was worthy for its own sake and should be protected and cherished, calling it 'nationalism'.

Assuming that the dukes are more desirable than the neighboring kings, the kingdom's best bet would be to place the second duke on the throne, and the 1st and 3rd dukes be made close advisors to keep the 2nd in check. Hopefully the 3rd duke would keep the king's hotheadedness in check on better days, while the 1st duke would direct he king's temper toward constructively keeping the foreign kings scared to approach.

Either way the Kingdom stands to be very weak to a coup, and i'm not saying a merchant or a low born soldier would be better, but fuck if divine mandate hasn't been lost. Leo III the Isaurian this shit right?

the first duke seems to be the best option, but in his case it would be wise to look at his offspring. If he has strong and acomplished sons and grandsons, then people would know the royal line would be secure, and the new king would have good aide in his rule, as well as someone to take care the more intensive royal matters for him. Honestly, at his age it woulld be wise to let his eldest son lead the armies, throw parades and gain glory, since he'll be king sooner rather then later.

On the other hand, if his sons are weak and incompetent, prone to fighting amongst themselves, or he even has no sons at all, then
picking him would be foolish. Even if he won and served as a geat king, we would be having the same problem again in just a few short years, either through misrule, princes fighting amonst themselves or another empty throne.

We put the three of them into a thunderdome and see who comes out afterwards.

Against legal code, the inheritance of the kingdom goes to his sister. Seeing this is an insult to their eligibility, and other countries seeking to take advantage of this breach of the law all raise armies against the new queen. The immense weight of the enemy is nigh-impossible to withstand for only one albeit mighty kingdom.

>there are 3 eligible dukes who can take power

Alright, lets have a look.

>The first duke
Least likely and if anything will most likely just DIE before he gets the crown. Even if he takes the crown- I doubt his rule would be long or stable and if he doesn't die, I'm sure someone more able and willing will just fucking kill him.
*Bonus: His actions might actually cause the tribal lands to begin raiding or attacking the north; sending in hordes of barbarian humans, centaurs, orcs, or all three in a joint effort to fuck the kingdom while it's down.

>The second duke
Experienced military commander? I'd give him good odds if unless some other third party doesn't swoop in and take the crown for themselves. He could simply just strong-arm the crown for himself, but if that's a problem I could also just see him running off to slay a drake, wyvern, some other smaller sized dragon and DEMANDING the crown via his victory be god given.

>The third duke
Bad odds, but for reasons entirely depending on how strong the church is: he could have better luck if he backed another religion, you got any druids? Being nice to the peasantry is also fine and being an accomplished diplomat may have it's benefits- maybe get a good word in with some guilds, or nonhumans to assist in his bid for the crown.

That does beg the question of whether or not this hypothetical kingdom has a precedent of powerful warlords either attempting or succeeding in pressing their claims on the throne by force or not.