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    Canonfire :: View topic - What to do with King Skotti?
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    What to do with King Skotti?
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    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Jan 21, 2010
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    Thu Feb 25, 2016 7:43 am  
    What to do with King Skotti?

    I've been running a long-term campaign in the Kingdom of Keoland and I just realized something...

    King Skotti seems to be completely one-dimensional character, yet he is the ultimate ruler of one of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful kingdom in the Flanaess. This one-dimensionality is, of course, primarily my fault, but it's partially due to the fact that the background material doesn't give any incentive to do anything with the King.

    In the Living Greyhawk, Skotti was assassinated. I don't have that sort of campaign going on in my game, but the fact that the King has never married made me think that maybe he is not into women? If he's found to be gay, the peasants could revolt. Right?

    What do you think? I have done absolutely nothing concerning the King. He just is the King and that's it. Any ideas how to use him in games? And I don't mean anything that would directly include the player character. I'm talking more about flavor. Or should he just be the King that does nothing and no one talks about him?
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Thu Feb 25, 2016 9:46 am  
    Re: What to do with King Skotti?

    Sutemi wrote:
    In the Living Greyhawk, Skotti was assassinated. I don't have that sort of campaign going on in my game, but the fact that the King has never married made me think that maybe he is not into women? If he's found to be gay, the peasants could revolt. Right?


    That sort of thing is dependent on context. Without photos or mass communication, it's just a rumor, and it can be spun. The House of Plantagenet in the real world was rumored to be descended from the Devil and they didn't face a revolt. Some cleric of St. Cuthbert starts telling peasants about scandals among the royal family, so what? The royal family denies it, the seasons keep turning. There are much worse scandals in other nations. Ivid V has a pact with Baalzephon and he isn't worried about what the peasants think. Iuz is a literal demon and he's not wringing his hands about peasant revolts. If they try to revolt, he takes care of it.

    A peasant revolt, remember, is something that is almost inevitably going to end up with many dead peasants. The Keoish nobles outgun them and have wizards to boot. I don't care if Kimbertos Skotti is lawful good, he's going to put down a revolt hard; being lawful good means defending the law, especially for a king, and defying the authority of the crown is most definitely against the law. For a revolt to happen, therefore, first of all, the peasants have to feel like they have nothing left to lose.

    Are the peasants starving and/or being devoured by monsters? Revolting against the crown might seem better than doing nothing. But the reason they're revolting is because they're literally dying, and any kind of moralism is going to just be an excuse. But again, revolting against the government of Keoland is most likely going to end with a bunch of dead peasants and the rest sullenly going back to their jobs. For a revolt to be successful, they need someone on their side: a powerful spellcaster, a rival noble, or an extraplanar entity who can make a battle between peasants and armored knights more fair (example: the Revolt of the Yaheetes, led by someone wielding the Hand and Eye of Vecna).

    Most likely this means a rival noble who wants the crown. But a peasant revolt isn't a good way to gain legitimacy for the rival's cause. At best it's a distraction while the noble does the real work of gaining allies in the Court of the Land. Perhaps while the king concentrates on putting down a futile rebellion, those conspiring against him are able to act. If he goes himself, a battle is good cover for an assassination.

    From a historical perspective, I don't know any examples of a ruler's sexual preferences being a big enough issue to cause political upheaval. What a king does in his own time is more or less his business. Many of the Roman emperors had male lovers, and there's little reason to shoehorn Christian morality into Oerth's pagan society. It'd be more of an issue if he didn't have an heir, or if a scorned queen enlisted her noble relatives in a coup. That's the sort of thing a rival could bring up in building the case for forcing Skotti to resign/assassinating him/forcing him into exile.

    But this is a fantasy world. Why build a plot out of mundane sex scandal when there are so many more interesting scandals? What if the king is cursed so that his touch brings death to whoever he comes in contact with, or he's aging at a supernatural rate, or the queen is an erinyes, or it turns out that his father was an itinerant bard and he has no true noble blood? What if he's cursed with lycanthropy? What if there's a ghost that's plaguing him? What if he's revealed to have orcish blood, or six fingers on his right hand, a deformed conjoined twin? A gay or bisexual king is still the rightful king, but a secret bastard can be dethroned. A deformed king might represent a curse. Since it's a fantastic world, there may be a literal curse that's far more interesting than any superstitions.

    The canonical Kimbertos is interesting in his own right. He was a ranger (like Tolkien's Aragorn), an adventurer with no reason to believe he would ever become king. The House of Neheli was decimated by a magical plague, and the Rhola heir was still young, so the wizard Lashton proposed an all-but-unknown noble as a compromise candidate, a naive, politically inexperienced man that Lashton could control. Kimbertos is well-meaning but without the support of the major noble houses he's little more than a pawn in other peoples' games. Countess Allita Elgarin supports him; Lord Kharn supported him but now regrets it.

    So for one thing, the other nobles, except for Lashton, don't want Skotti to have any heir because the last thing they want is a Skotti dynasty. They see him as a placeholder king while they build their own power and make their case to succeed him. His brother Markos Skotti wants the throne for himself. They'd be happy to have a king with no interest in producing an heir, and actually if Kimbertos was for whatever reason unable or unwilling to produce an heir it'd make a lot of sense for them to choose him. I had similar thoughts about Nyhan I, the first king of Keoland; he was succeeded by a king of a rival royal house, and it'd make sense if he was too old or disinclined to produce an heir on his own (or perhaps the next king just married his daughter). Of course, Kimbertos's sexual preferences won't prevent him from doing his duty and producing an heir, but regardless of how much he's attracted to women the other noble families may be resist giving him an appropriate bride from among their own families. If Kimbertos decides he wants to create an heir in defiance of the other nobles' wishes, he may have to look in other nations, with all the political consequences that implies. Furyondy and Veluna may be the most politically savvy places to look, near to the Sheldomar but outside of the influence of the Rhola and Neheli families. But neither of those nations want to fall under the sway of a Keoish monarch, so how to persuade them that they'll remain independent and still gain them as useful allies? Can Kimbertos manage such negotiations with his advisors all conspiring against him?
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Thu Feb 25, 2016 10:55 am  

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, rasgon! You are right. Having peasants revolt just because Skotti is gay makes little sense. I could make it an issue that raises a lot of debate and discontent, but having a peasant revolt is bit too much. In order to have a peasant revolt you'd need something a lot more real.

    What you wrote about Skotti opened my eyes. Thanks!

    The following suggestions should be better than the mundane sex scandal that I proposed.
    1. Skotti is actually a natural werebear. That would match his alignment and go with his former profession. Getting caught as a lycanthrope would be deadly, since we are talking about a contagious disease. Being a werebear would make him unsuitable to be a king in the eyes of many (ignorant) people who would be very, very angry.
    2. Skotti's secret wife is a nymph (sure, CG and LG can marry!) and they have a son, a little boy. Skotti loves her immensily, but she refuses to leave the Dreadwood. The fey son is not a rightful heir. Or is it? Maybe there will be lots of dead people if someone finds this out? Skotti visits his family a few times a year.

    Please note that I'd like to skip the idea that Skotti is a bastard or something of the sort because all my players would say that I'm copying Game of Thrones. It would be humiliating for me, so let's not go there, please.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Oct 05, 2003
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    Thu Feb 25, 2016 1:22 pm  

    In LG Kimbertos had a wife (Jaedra) and several children. Perhaps consider a political coup, public or private: it certainly would be keeping with keoish political manuvering. Or consider having Kimbertos grow a backbone through careful advice from your players. He could just die, not unheard of.

    It is your campaign, do what you want and what you think will immerse you players further into your shared story telling experience.

    Dave Guerrieri
    Former Keoland Triad
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    Thu Feb 25, 2016 1:28 pm  

    Thyrnbryn wrote:
    In LG Kimbertos had a wife (Jaedra) and several children. Perhaps consider a political coup, public or private: it certainly would be keeping with keoish political manuvering. Or consider having Kimbertos grow a backbone through careful advice from your players. He could just die, not unheard of.

    It is your campaign, do what you want and what you think will immerse you players further into your shared story telling experience.

    Dave Guerrieri
    Former Keoland Triad


    Interesting! I couldn't find that information about Jaedra. I found mentions of her, but it all seemed like fan fiction or something. I think it's too late to insert a queen there, since I have told my players that there's just the king. All in all, I like the input I got from rasgon and I'd like to hear more. What to do with him? Since you were in the Triad, what do you think about the ideas so far? Of course I could retcon the wife there, but really... Jaedra is pretty hidden from non-LG people.

    I'm considering adding Jaedra as the former wife of Skotti, but they divorced because Jaedra was (rumored to be) unfaithful. No children.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Thu Feb 25, 2016 1:38 pm  

    So much depends upon what year you are in, and the particular details of your world. I'd suggest doing somehting you feel your players will like.

    Kimbertos died in LG, at least twice, actually. Once in 594 CY, he was assassinated by a possessed Neheli and his soul sucked into Blackrazor. The LG players decided via adventure results to bring him back to life. He then also died in the final LG interactive. His wife died in the same plot that he was killed in in 594 CY, a plot by the Iron Cabal, worshippers of Dispater, to put their pawn on the Lion Throne. Actually, her soul is in a gem in a brick somewhere in Keoland......
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Fri Feb 26, 2016 10:06 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    ...The House of Plantagenet in the real world was rumored to be descended from the Devil and they didn't face a revolt... Iuz is a literal demon and he's not wringing his hands about peasant revolts. If they try to revolt, he takes care of it...


    -Hmmm... interesting observation... Laughing

    rasgon wrote:
    ...From a historical perspective, I don't know any examples of a ruler's sexual preferences being a big enough issue to cause political upheaval...


    Although accusations of a Edward II & Gaveston thing didn't exactly help Eddie 2.0's case.

    rasgon wrote:
    ...Why build a plot out of mundane sex scandal when there are so many more interesting scandals...


    -Just because it's a fantasy world doesn't mean everythinghas ti revolve around magic or fantastuc creatures. It actually gets tedious.

    rasgon wrote:
    ...or the queen is an erinyes...


    -Zeech has erinyes in law enforcement. Seemed to bolster his rule, not hurt. Wink
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Fri Feb 26, 2016 10:19 am  

    I agree with you, James, but it would be cooler to get something more dramatic than just Skotti's homosexuality. Whether magical or mundane, I'd like to have something really shocking to be behind Skotti's lack of children (in the Living Greyhawk Journal or in Canonfire Wiki he has no wife or children, regardless what happened in LG, which only the players of LG know!).

    What about my idea of lycanthrope or a secret fey family in Dreadwood?
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Fri Feb 26, 2016 10:40 am  

    Sutemi wrote:
    ...What about my idea of lycanthrope or a secret fey family in Dreadwood?

    -Meh. I'm inclined to leave the old boy alone. He has enough troubles. Wink Laughing
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Fri Feb 26, 2016 1:17 pm  

    Considering Keoland's performance in the Greyhawk wars and aftermath, I see Skotti as being overwhelmed by a job that was bigger than his talents. When it comes time for Council to name his successor, I'm sure that will be considered, heir or no heir.
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Thu Mar 17, 2016 11:57 am  

    Well, if there's a king and no queen it's about time he got one, right?

    Have him fall in love with a female PC. That should make things interesting... Evil Grin
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