How do I become emperor from filthy peasant in a campaign?

Be very good at making war and also maintaining peace after the war time is over. Being charismatic is a bonus but not required if you're good enough at war.

A filthy peasant can not be an emperor.

Read about the life of Emperor Basil the Macedonian or Theodora if ur character is female.

abroadintheyard.com/slave-to-emperor-rises-to-power-humble-beginnings/

>*Clears throat after killing evil magi usurper then marrying the last emperor’s daughter*

Coup d'état, next question

It's easy.

>first, make a noble Bard character and fool your DM in to saying he has the blood of an Emperor, but is only really a distant cousin
>tell your other party members to min/max and be muchkins
>consistently betray your benefactors when new opportunities arise and bullshit the reasons why with Persuasion expertise rolls
>if someone else is outshining you and taking the spotlight, be sure to be That Guy and shit talk him
>if you impregnate a girl but don't want the kid, be sure to toss the baby in to the ground and say it was an accident
>pretend to help your family that is related to the Emperor and betray them at the end
>remember, if things go wrong, bullshit your way through Persuasion checks by saying, "Benevolence."

With these steps there is no way future generations won't look at you as the epitome of virtue and heroics.

Claim your father was celestial dragon.

>Celestial Dragons

Just go with the traditional way; become a general in the imperial armed forces, gather support from both the common people, military, nobility, and whatever other castes there are, wait until some crisis like unclear succession or bad harvest (note: you may look into organizing one if there doesn't seem to be one in the horizon), declare that due to the dire situation you've to take charge so that you can protect both the people and the nation, win the ensuing civil war, crown yourself the emperor Anonymous I the Great.

1) Start rebellion against weak/falling dynasty
2) Declare they've lost Mandate of Heaven
3) Win the rebellion
4) Take over the throne
5) Start your own dynasty as first emperor of it
It had been done numerous times. Suprisingly, all emperors that took over this way were AT LEAST good and some of them - exceptionally good.

Doesn't work in China, sorry.

utawarerumono.

have more manpower then the current emperor.

Objectively wrong. All the best empires has peasant emperors.

> Fuck up the economy
> Claim the emperor fucked up the economy
> Emperor loses the mandate of heaven
> Claim mandate of heaven before the horse lords or elephant fuckers do

Simple really.

Both Han and Ming dynasties were started by peasants. Both founding emperors are among the greatest rulers of all time in Chinese history.
But I suppose if you are a filthy European, then only sufficiently inbred people can be rulers.

If you do it that way, the path will look like this instead:
>Fuck up the economy
>Be publically beheaded for this
>Emperor gains extra points of popularity
>You are dead

Kill all who oppose you, carve a bloody path, seize your destiny and oppress those who revel against your just and mighty rule!

>2018
>Not forcing your players to become authoritarian dictators

>2018
>Thinking this is a good way of seizing power
It's like you want to spend your entire reign on counter-insurgent activity that is entirely fuelled by your retarded style of ruling.
Or you simply forget to tip your fedora enough

>My little user can't be this naive!
Yes user, nothing bad will happen, come, I will railroad you juuuust like you wanted~

Overhewlming force.

>Say it was an accident
Liu Bei was teaching Zhao Yun a valuable lesson about football, nothing accidental about it.

Carry sandals for the right guy.

>Join the army
>Rise through the ranks until you're the commander of the Royal guard
>Wait until the Emperor dies without heirs
>Win the succession war.

Do it like Hideyoshi and join the army.

>Doesn't work in China, sorry.
not if the peasant woman was a prominent member of the imperial harem

I want to get into Chinese history, but it's hard to find starting point.
Is there a more or less comprehensive book/podcast/whatever that covers this topic and isn't very dry?

No they weren't

>Let me just straight out deny history

Kill your way to the top.

Obviously, you'd need to be rich. But in the last days of the Roman empire, literally anyone could be Emperor if they tried hard enough. They didn't last long, though.

Do you mean "good" as in competent or as in a good guy.

>Seriously asking for podcast on history of just about any country, ever
Usually you start from the beginning, too.
Let me think...
- Fairbank's "China - a new history"
- Ebrey's "History of China"
- Fitzgerald's "China - a short cultural history"
- Künstler's "Chinese culture"
- Needham's "The Grand titration"
- Rodzinski's "History of China"
- Granet's "Chinese civilization"

t. sinologist

Not him, but both. However, they were first and foremost very capable rulers. It just happens it also meant they were pretty good guys as such, at least for Chinese standards.

I asked because being competent seems given if they went from peasant to emperor.

>seems given if they went from peasant to emperor
Not really. Being semi-competent military commander and/or having a loyal and competent military commander on your side is pretty much useless when it comes to ruling China. Just check Sui dynasty. Two fantastic generals that unfortunately were obsessed with conquering Korea. Effect? Korea unified into a single country from warring petty kingdoms, Chinese lost all three expeditionary wars, the coffers drained to the bottom, god-awful taxing system (and another reason why they were hated), everyone hating the emperor and all loyal troops wiped out in Korean mountains. They didn't last 40 years, despite being extremely capable military leaders.

>Seriously asking for podcast on history of just about any country, ever
I don't see what's wrong here. Podcasts like "History of Rome" and "History of Byzantium" are pretty great at covering their topics.

>Usually you start from the beginning, too.
Well, it's easy to jump into something European, but with country as ancient as China the sheer volume of material is pretty intimidating.

Anyway, thanks for the selection.

>Well, it's easy to jump into something European, but with country as ancient as China the sheer volume of material is pretty intimidating.
Literally no difference when it comes to volume of it. The difference comes from more or less semi-continous civilisation going in the area and how Europe can be divided into more periods, but volume itself remains unchanged.
I strongly suggest starting with Needham. It's literally entry-tier book that pretty much every student of anything even remotely related with China has to read, while it's short, simple and easy to digest.

>filename

Isn't that supposed to be the Witch King?

But then they aren't a peasant user.

This is some high-grade circular logic up here

>Be pig farmer
>Join military
>Work up the ranks until you are commander of the imperial guard
>Emperor dies without an heir
>You have the only army in the capital (the imperial guard), make sure they are loyal to you
>Accept all the bribes from the nobles asking you to support their attempts for the throne
>Take said bribes to the Senate, bribe the senators to support your claim to the throne
>Go sit in your fancy new chair. The Senate backs you and your military forces already control the capital and imperial palace
Done and done, that's how you go from illiterate pig farmer to illiterate emperor.

For bonus points;
>use your pay from the military to get your nephew the best education possible
>Make him commander of the imperial guard when you become emperor
>Declare him to be your heir
>Die
>Your nephew becomes one of the best emperors ever

Be cunning like a whole forest worth of foxes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_I
And yeah, wash yourself as step 1. No one but gross people like filth.

Start your own empire! With blackjack and hookers!

Griffith

History of China podcast

>Talent is nothing without opportunity
>I found the crown of France in the gutter, and I picked it up
>Women are nothing but machines for producing babies
>A woman smiling is a woman conquered
You now realize that the French Empire was the OG Thot Patrol

Dynasty Warriors 4

Explore dungeons for five or so levels, then you hexcrawl for another four. While doing this you should be collecting treasure and followers. Then at about level 9 you can build your own stronghold. After that, it's a matter of conquering and manipulating.

So, you know, the way we've been doing it since the inception of our hobby.

Finish your work, then go to sleep and be emperor in your dreams.

>losing three wars
They don’t sound like extremely capable military leaders to me.

First emperor ever began his life as a fucking gardener.

Only in places where rulership was considered divine birthright is that true.

A peasant cannot be Pharaoh or Emperor of Japan, as both derive all legitimacy from their supposed lineage back to the divine.

But an empire can be created or inherited, utilizing conquest. Any man who can lead can do this.
Shit, in Rome there was like four Emperors who were just bodyguards that killed the last Emperor for being a cunt. The real life first Emperor of Japan was a Chinese noblewoman who conquered her warlord neighbors, declared independence, and made up a religion about it.

Couldn't a Peasant claim relations to the divine though? Like he was related to an ancient emperor or something.

>being this brainlet in history

You could have skipped Justin and just focused on Justinian, he was also born a pig farmer after all.

Have a watery tart hurl a scimitar at you.

Create chaos.

I don't think the Babylonians jizzed on their crop. The Egyptians might have.

petyr was never a peasant

That user should have posted Varys.

They unified China before that via conquest. If that doesn't ring you a bell, get a map of Far east and compare the size of China proper (so essentially the eastern half of it) with Korean Peninsula.
Oh, and they didn't command in Korea personally, so that might be a factor.

Depends entirely in the way how local religion works and how political structure is made up.
China is probably the bast example in history with its Mandate of Heaven, solely because Zhou dynasty CREATED IT as a justification why they've deposed Shang kings. Shang rulership, you see, was divine, in the classic Bronze Age god-king sense. So it would be like trying to depose emperor of Japan - impossible, all you could do would be marrying into imperial family and/or treating emperor like your puppet. Meanwhile Zhou aristocrats, being sick of late Shang incompetence and nepotistic way of ruling, created a whole religious and most importantly philosophical system that justified deposition of otherwise divine king, solely on how incompetent they were.
It is widely considered as one of the most unique things for Chinese culture and something that helped China as such have a semi-continous existence ever since.

The Celts DID.

>Chinese history being denied
Is he Japanese or something?

Start a peasant rebellion, gather an army, trounce the old emperor's forces, build momentum, then make a deal with some insider in the Imperial Court to get him kill the old emperor and take over. There's bound to an eunuch or two ready to jump on the winning train. After that, 勝者為王.

>picture of a chinese man
>jap words
riben baka

Stab people until people agree that you are emperor if you stop stabbing people.

A pure classic

Unironically this.
Just remember, the series is based on a pseudo-real account of history, and as the series progresses, the stories become more and more warped to accommodate battles and scenarios.

yeah it looks like eowyn vs the witch king