The Politics of Nàbra

Nàbra is ruled by an absolute monarchy, and each town or village has their own Lord/Conqui. The royal family is human and has been since time began. The crown is passed to the eldest son, or if there is no son, to the eldest daughter. If there is no heir, the crown passes to the oldest cousin or niece/nephew. Nàbra’s historians don’t go back far enough to know how the King’s ancestor first came to rule the continent.

A council consisting of a wide variety of people, including at least one male and one female peasant, advises the King. There are stories of backstabbing in the court, but the monarch is generally loved by the people. The king or queen rules actively, and when their armies ride to war they sometimes ride with them, but their position could be either at the front or the back of the army. Medicine is not great, and so traditionally members of the royal family only live to the age of 50 or so.

At the time we were transported back in time, the monarch was a King: His Highness, King Láni of the House of Ilias. He had ruled so far for 42 years, since he was four years old. He has not married and has no heir. Kind Láni was a bastard – he was raised in the stables, unbeknownst to the entire royal family, until the king and queen (who supposedly had no child) were assassinated. The knowledge of the bastard son only was known to the King and Queen (Láni’s parents), and to the stableboy who had a letter from the late queen.

One day, King Rúshk and Queen Olní were found dead in their bedroom. There was a dagger on the floor, which led to the king’s much younger half-brother (on his mother’s side). This half-brother had previously been known for his treason in making underhand dealings against King Rúshk with the people who live on the continent to the north, but King Rúshk was a family person and always loved his half-brother (despite them not growing up together), so he did not punish him for his crime. However, despite the dagger the king and queen had not even once been stabbed, and nobody knows the truth behind their deaths. There was a period of about six months where the king’s greedy half-brother tried to rule the country until the stableboy, with the letter from the late Quenn Olní, revealed Láni. The impostor was removed from the throne and the people reinstated the four-year-old bastard king.