>Be GM >Players begin to uncover ancient artifacts from the first dynasty of the current kingdom >Most of the other dynasties have claimed to have the blessing of Heaven to rule, but the first dynasty had the Actual blood of angels running through their veins >Players are initially confused as to why the First Dynasty isn't still in power, despite the following dynasties' deriving power from Heaven and their thimble-drops of blood relation to them >"They went mad, being unable to properly balance their mortal instincts with the overwhelming desire for moral and physical perfection" >Player 1: "So they became evil?" >Me: "Not evil. Just insane." >Player 2: "Mere insanity doesn't cause people to get kicked from a throne. Not when your dad's literally Michael or Zeus."
Help me out here. I need instances of madness that would cause people to no longer think a line of aasimar kings is worthy / qualified for the throne, without being Caligula. I've got a few ideas, and I'd like to hear your opinion on which is the best, or how to improve them. 1. Running a zoo with two of every sentient race 'just in case a demonic invasion ever wipes out all the goblins or elves, we'll have backups.' 2. Being heartbroken over the loss of your wife to the point of having organized an Impersonator contest; winner gets married, has corrective suurgery to 'polish out mistakes', and is given scripts to read for the next five years. 3. Raising an army of undead paladins and saints, then firing your living command stafff because 'you've now got the Best Men for the Job' 4. Building magical shock collars for your servants and chambermaids which apply tiny, painful (but not cripplingly so) spikes of voltage every time they're late more than 10 seconds 5. Personally going on a holy quest for the Grail while the kingdom suffers without your leadership for a decade 6. Kill all the tieflings in the kingdom, on principle. 7. Demand the palace be rebuilt from the ground-up to be utterly symmetrical.
The obvious answer is they declared all their subjects unworthy and drove them out of the palace or even out of the capital using the Paladins/Undead Army and then proceeded to desend into self destructive madness. Maybe the acropolis still stands somewhere and inhuman guards still watch the gates. Everyone is 'fallen' from paradise but each new king claims they are the 'true inheritors' of the legacy and no one can prove otherwise because of the mess of the Exodus.
Landon Roberts
They just didn't give a fuck about actually running a kingdom. All their time was spent praying, building churches, and arguing theology. Hence, when famines and invasions started to happen none of the kings did shit, and were deposed by their own detachment.
Lucas Jones
Most of your examples are evil.
Eli Hernandez
So they were autistic.
Joseph Collins
maybe the aasimar blood got too thin, so they were challenged
maybe an heirs aasimar ancestry wasn't obvious, so a cadet-branch made a claim, cue civil war and then the Tudors took the throne instead.
Dylan Bailey
>I've heard there's a five-pic mimimum for new threads. That's for image sharing boards like /c/, not discussion boards like Veeky Forums.
Owen Hernandez
They plan on casting an enchantment on the land, which when completed, will remove freedom of choice to commit acts that may hurt another, emotionally or physically.
Nathaniel Campbell
They declared war on the merfolk, and commanded their army to march into the sea. Predictably, this resulted in a coup.
Parker Thompson
They are queer as pixie pubes.
Ayden Miller
It helps when good and evil isn't so cut and dry.
Benjamin Wright
>Most of the other dynasties have claimed to have the blessing of Heaven to rule, >Most of the other dynasties >Most
Easy. The second dynasty never claimed to have divine support.
Thomas White
Tell your player that Aasimar aren't direct children of gods or even celestials. They're not even half-celestials.
Blake Thompson
I like this.
Carter Bailey
The Kings of Old saw everything in terms of ideology.
An ideology is an attempt to impose what one thinks ought to be onto what is.
The realities of governance tend to be resistant to imposition.
The Kings of Old staked their temporal power on impossible to enforce claims.
They lost power to those who are less idealistic, but as a consequence society is missing what it could aspire to be for what stands.
Lucas Roberts
This is tragic and beautiful, like man of la mancha tier good shit. Unlike Op's >they went lolsorandum stupid or obsessed crazy and shit fell apart
Hudson Fisher
My suggestion is something akin to this. They were simply TOO good, and the people could not live up to the standards, or agitated for more selfish reforms, because while morality is objective in D&D in reality and to perception it's subjective. Why do people protest ostensibly good social programs in real life like Medicare and food stamps? Why did prohibition fail? Morality cannot be legislated or forced.
To this result, the people overthrew their lords, and as another user suggested, the second dynasty was not and did not claim divine ancestry. But then they ran into the opposite problem of worldly corruption, and realized their inability to compromise with the genuinely benign if deluded first dynasty had doomed them to selfish and corrupt leaders.
Since then, every dynasty has claimed and tried to live up to the moral standards first dynasty and FAILED, and many believe this state of affairs is heavens punishment.
Ethan Stewart
They turned the other cheek in face of a demonic invader. Rather die than soil ourselves with violence.
It's ok for messias and saints to be martyrs, but the common folk had a bit of trouble with the idea, so they took out the guillotine and prepared for war.
