What could be some magical or fantastical reasons for a society to tolerate or even encourage family incest (assuming no biological problems like IRL gets in the way)?
Asking not just for magical realm reasons but also because I want to shock the other players.
Sounds like you're trying to justify magical realm bullshit, piss off you creep.
Gots to keep them noble bloodlines pure
Except everyone wants to pretend they're nobles
>a-asking for a friend! honest!
Sure OP, we all believe you
Your doing this soley for magical realm reasons, and your players will figure that out.
As much as this is magical realm as fuck, bloodlines.
Say you've got some kind of super special magic bloodline that weakens if you dilute it. Now, a single generation of dilution might not weaken it that much, but its still weakened and its still kind of notable. Fast forward a few centuries after people have finally figured this out, and there's now a push to try and hang on to that bloodline for its power and potency, and so arranging as close marriage and breeding contracts as possible in order to try and preserve/strengthen the bloodline would be priority.
Naturally this would work well in some kind of vaguely totalitarian magocracy, but I digress.
Sure, easy. Magic is genetic and recessive. Wizard tribes are highly inbred with the hope of maintaining their power.
See Inca and Egypt for socieities that liked incest.
>assuming no biological problems like IRL gets in the way
All the reason you need.
Clearly you have never seen a Dragon Blooded Exalted game with a house Cynis member
Good idea. Could bloodlines be strengthened as well, or just prevented from being diluted thereby maintaining the same strength?
No I haven't, tell me more.
I would say for the sake of storytelling, most of the time it's exclusively maintaining the same strength. HOWEVER, due to genetic mutation and the kind of chromosomal oddness that comes with incestual reproduction, occasionally offspring recreate a missing portion of the bloodline, and theoretically if very careful, the bloodline could be slowly restored to its former glory.
Sauce
Hmm, excellent, this makes for a very good villain motivation: RESTORE THE GOD-MAGIC BLOODLINE!
Any other ideas beyond bloodlines?
Like maybe powerful family fighting combos?
Memetic spreading of ideo-immunity to hostile ideologies?
Protection against widespread incubi/succubi attacks?
Takasugi Kou, Days of Honey or something like that.
Bloodlines is the most reasonable and realistic excuse, unless you wanna have a weird legal system like the egyptians where the guy inherits the title of Pharaoh and his sister's the one who gets all the land
They don't know.
As in, at some point in young adulthood people have their memories wiped so they're unaware that the person they've been slowly falling in love with is their blood cousin/sibling/whatever.
The Ancient Egyptians did it IRL. Why? Inheritance comes down through the mother. You can't know for 100% who the father is. But you'll always know 100% who the mother is. So if you want to be Pharaoh you have to marry your own half sister.
That's not even what OP said. He flat out stated it was because of magical realm and also to shock the other players.
Learn to fucking read, asshole.
I'd say Xeodawah is probably the most realistic.
you have mommy issues
>assuming no biological problems like IRL gets in the way
Paranoia of other houses, or other people. Maybe there's a "history" of disease associated with mixing too many bloodlines, or maybe mixing blood dilutes magical power or epic-level strength chances.
Alternatively being paranoid and racist. Two counties merged hundreds of years ago, but some people would rather have their families be incestuous than mix with Them.
Imitating nobility is another answer, as said, or maybe your gods are kinda Greek in how much they fucked close relatives so your people do it for religious reasons.
Yes, and...?
Without the genetic issues you'd need a strong reason not to default to it
For nobles and farm kids maybe, but in cities, villages, and towns there would still be reasons. Firstly, siblings annoy the fuck out of each other. Second, kids are still currency to be spent to other families, or used as an investment. Why let little George get too close to Sally when you can send George to the blacksmith as an apprentice and future husband to the smith's kid, assuring you've got someone to pay for you later, AND sell Sally off to someone for some livestock you can use?
OP, the biological problems are literally the only reason we have this taboo. Humans actually *did* used to fuck their sisters on a regular basis. It was the second kind of fucking we ever did (right after fucking our opposite clone).
This.
Alternatively, make life expectancy something ridiculous and birthrates very low so reproduction isn't important
So basically, it would be the default if you had no politically motivated reasons to do otherwise
>o biological problems like IRL
means you don't get Westermark's effect means it's already solved and everyone is keeping it in family anyway. If you somehow retail Westermark's effect but need to justify it anyway, make magical talent genetic so all mage families interbreed like crazy trying to sire supermages.
Make it a society where incest is considered the norm and non-blood relationships are considered strange or lower status
If a family has an odd-child (one without a opposite-gender counterpart) then they have to leave the family to go out and adventure and begin their own house with another odd-child. Bam, youve got a backstory for an adventurer right there
>If a family has an odd-child (one without a opposite-gender counterpart) then they have to leave the family to go out and adventure and begin their own house with another odd-child. Bam, youve got a backstory for an adventurer right there
They could just bang their mum or pa
source?
literally search the author's name + the most obvious tag it will inevitably have
great plan. Except the author's name is not shown.
geez, fine, have a hint
row 10, 1st image
Literally the only thing wrong with incest is the tard kids that can come from it. The act in and of itself is completely fine. I don't think it would be strange is a setting for something like elves to practice it since they're typically more clean than other races so wouldn't have to worry about negative repercussions.
you make me sad.
Junai-Irregulars by ShindoL
Not entirely. Society and personality would play into it. In the same way that couples don't always have kids, or don't have more than one, or have one because of an accident, or abort, or adopt, all things being equal (no laws or social stigma against/insisting on invest) it would be opportunity based like any other relationship.
Is your sibling hot? Attractive? Likable? Willing? Bored? The only non-sheep within 20 miles? Worth investing time in? Somehow wealthier than you? Of a sexual orientation that would be attracted to you? Drunk? Desperate? Reminiscent of someone you loved years ago? Tolerable? A good person? Etc.
If baby making isn't a problem you can make your social norms whatever you want in a setting.
YOU are my nigga
Play Crusader Kings II for a while.
>What could be some magical or fantastical reasons for a society to tolerate or even encourage incest
MONEY AND POWER YOU FUCKEN BOOB. i.e. the historical reason people did it.
Also: sometimes you just want to bone a relative.
How does wincest give you money and power?
Really, I want to know, if it's a good system I'll do it.
>How does wincest give you money and power?
No, people with money and power bone each other to keep the money and power in the family, eventually creating a vast, intercomplicated network of the elite who are bound by blood to defend each others' interests.
And that's how Europe happened! And the Habsburgs.