Blooded characters in Anuire

Dungeons & Dragons The Royal Library
1

Let us assume that a dukal family like Avan, Boeruine, Diemed, Alam etc, all of them having an average blood around 45 has 3 sons, 3 daughters (with clerical magic the survival rate of kids should be much greater than our historic version), one of which inherits the throne and the rest get married to fellow peers or vassals to cement alliances.

Looking at over a millenium of imperial history and considering that even if some noble families were unbloodes in the beginning - the stupidest scenario - peasant hero rescues Avan and gets the princes and half the throne - i.e. his son would have Anduiras major 30. - I think it is reasonable to assume that every noble in Anuire would be blooded by now, as lesser blooded families further married to other unblooded families and so on.

My argument is that every province in Anuire (a county) would have at least one ruling noble family, whereas the City of Anuire, Endier, Ilien, Daulton, Seasedge etc could have dozens.

Taking into account all the 3rd sons of the 3rd sons and all the bastards that nobles sire with peasant girls (if this is sexist I apologize in advance, but I’m using cliches and historical parallels) how many blooded individuals would be out there really?

If the nobility comprises about 5% of the population I would say that after a thousand years there would be at least 10% of blooded people in Anuire, which amounts to a whole lot. I

Some estimates I’ve found on the net place the total population to about 1,5 million, or the population of England during William I

5% = 75,000 blooded characters
10% (my, admittedly arbitrary assumption about the distribution of blood in the peasantry) = 150,000

Of course, the vast majority of these bloodlines would be tainted and minor (rulebook gives 25 % for tainted and 50% minor, but this is of course, because PCs already come from established bloodlines), with 20-30 major bloodlines and only a few percent of great ones on the global scale these would probably ne only the select and known few)

50% tainted
51-85% minor
86-99% major

that would be my suggestion but its not very relevant to the matter.

What I am implying is a picture vastly different than what the setting seems to portray. Blooded characters would definitely not be that rare.

Why Even if an Avan with 70 were to repeatedly marry commoners the generations would give 35/17/8/4/2/1 With only 3 kids per generation that’s 486 people in the final generation. Cut half for accidents and childless and you get 240+ tainted blooded families.

I don’t think however that a civilized society woud tolerate highlander behavior and the destruction of bloodlines through bloodtheft for long, really, and forced divestiture seems equally evil and chaotic

So… Is Anuire an empire with 30 blooded families or 10,000?

Since all guilders in Anuire are blooded and none or very few seem to be nobles it is safe to assume that there is a good number of those as well. Howere a number of 100,000 blooded characters seems to ba safe estimate

Here is another thing that’s been weighing on my mind. The levels of the characters.

Let’s assume once again that 5% of the population have levels. (ie. aren’t 0-level nobodies). Additionaly I’ll assume that 30% of the blooded population have levels. Although one can argue (as it states in BoP) that 0 level characters can be administrators in temple holdings, I have yet to find a single 0 or 1st level regent in Birthright). Consequently it seems that blooded characters are “destined” for great things, making thm more prone to choosing classes. Since the primary duty of a noble is either to fight or pray, this seems reasonable. (All knights train since the age of 7)

5% of the general population is 150,000, 30,000 of which are blooded (30% of the blooded 100,000)

I don’t have the book on me here that deals with the demographics (High Level Campaign I think) but I remember that the general distribution of characters was something like this

40% fiighters
30% rogues
25% clerics
5% wizards/magicians (probably at a ratio of 1:5)

Level distribution is progressive (not sure about the term, but the point is that 1/2 is 1st level and then 1/2 of that 2nd etc)

level–total-----fighters----rogues-----clerics-----mages
1st–75,000-----30,000-----22,500-----18,750------3,750
2nd-37,500-----15,000-----11,250------9,375-------1,875
3rd-18,750------7,500------5,625-------4,687---------937
4th—9,375------3,750------2,812-------2,343---------468
5th—4,687------1,875------1,406-------1,171----------234
6th—2,343--------937--------703---------585----------117
7th—1,171--------468---------351--------292------------58
8th-----585--------234---------175--------146------------29
9th-----292--------117----------87----------78------------14
10th----146----------58----------43----------39-------------7
11th-----73----------29----------21----------19-------------3
12th-----36----------14----------10-----------9--------------1
13th-----18-----------7------------5-----------4
14th-------9-----------3------------2-----------2
15th-------4
16th-------2
17th-------1

All right, what would these numbers say. If we take into account the fact that blooded abilities allowed the survivors of Deismaar to climb to power much faster than the rest of the population I believe it is safe to assume that all (or most) character of level 9+ are blooded. This gives me the possibility to play with the numbers.

Firstly I’ll disregard the 15-17th level as these are easily the Gorgon, Rhuobhe, the Chamberlain, HMA etc.

I’ll take clerics as the group of interest since Juan and I were discussing how and why the humans defeated the elves with “overwhelming clerical magic” as it says in Anuirean history. There are 136 clerics here capable of casting 5th level spells (9-11) 13 for 6th level and 2 for the 7th level. In the days of the Empire this would probably have been the patriarch of the Imperial Temple and the patriarch/matriarch of Nesire?

In total that’s 151 clerics capable of raising the dead (of course, some don’t get the necromancy sphere etc but its still impressive).

In the lower level group the numbers get enormous. Almost 5,000 capable of 2nd level magic, 1600 of 3rd level and 450 of 4th level. Now that’s an army Smile I guess that even if a portion of this great force is used against an elven kingdom to support the human fighters it can be devastating, especially if high level fighters or mages can be brought back to life.

For peacetime conditions..

The total number of provinces in Anuire is about..140 or so (I’m too lazy to count). This means that there can be an 8th level cleric in each of them, a 9th level for every two, a 10th level for every 4 and an 11th level cleric for each of the twelve duchies (with a few excess). Of course these would be split between the various faiths and sects, but the total is still interesting.

This excercise in math seems to indicate one thing.

At any time a realm like Avanil, Ghoere, Boeruine, Diemed… could have access to a mid level (9-11) fighter, rogue (perhaps) or priest.
This would also explain why someone like Avanil wouldn’t have to fear adventurers or assassins that much: If your personal guard is composed of 6-10 7th level fighters (and someone like Avan could afford it) with a 10th level captain, then throw in the court chaplain, a 9th level priest, and perhaps a 7th level magician (or wizard) this comes close to resemble the fantasy model we’re used to in other settings. Of course, each of these is entitled to demand a salary and I wouldn’t be surprised if the bodyguards alone were to cost more than a company of knights but heck, some people can afford it Wink

So when Joe the Chaotic Evil adventurer tries to whack a prince of Avanil he can get stomped real easy by his guard (7th level fighters are a force to be reckoned with in a low magic world) or the bodyguard, even without the magica assistance of the spellcasters. Much more plausible than a world in which everyone seems to be either 0 level or low level.

Any thoughts?

2

The population of Anuire (if you add all the individual realm populations together) is closer to 6 million. That is using a revised population table, with the population density designed to match RL equivalents (Anuire = 14th century france).

You are essentially correct, there are going to be a lot more scions than the 2,000 mentioned in the original material. However, looking at your arguments, there are a couple of things to consider.

  1. You are starting from a very low number of scions, the survivors of Deismaar. Most of those who went to Deismaar were killed, either during the fighting, in the explosion of the mountain, or in the conflict imediately afterwards. Understandable this number has increased over the years, but at the same time some bloodlines have vanished, or been killed off. Most likely the number of scions is now static (not increasing), and has been for some time.

  2. There are only three ways a bloodline can increase, through bloodtheft, by ruling a domain, or through careful marriage. The strong bloodlines you see today have been passed on from generation to generation.

Looking at your Avanil example. You need to take it one step further. In the next generation, those 486 people become unblooded, thus their bloodlines fade away all together. So yes, there probably are a fair number of low level bloodlines out there, and some people will not even know they are blooded because they don’t exhibit any blood abilties (bloodline < 20 = no blood abilities).

However, you cannot say that every noble will be blooded. For example, Avanil most likely has nobles running each province, town, etc. (Counts, Baron, mayors, etc). Now, assuming a family was given that honour generations ago when they were blooded, that does not mean they are still scions now. Their bloodline may have faded away over that time, as they have no way to maintain it, except through very careful breeding and even then it is likely destined to drop.

Those families who do have strong bloodline are going to be always interbreeding (like the royals of europe :slight_smile: to ensure that their children have the strongest bloodlines around and for political reasons. If the three strongest bloodlines in Anuire are Avan with 70, Boeruine with 60, and Dosiere with 64, then anyone they marry is going to have a lower bloodline, definitely lower than 60, most likely in the 40-50 range. So Avan’s children are going to have bloodlines in the 55-60 range. Assuming only one child becomes regent (and gets the bloodline of 70), the others are going to marry scions with lower bloodlines, which like marrying commoners, will decrease their bloodline. Then after another generation or two, they probably start marrying commoners and that branch of the Avan bloodline fades away.

As long as they keep marrying other scions, the bloodline survives (although probably at a lower level), but once they marry into common blood, the bloodline will fade away in 4-6 generations.

  1. Bloodtheft. On top of normal accidents, disease, etc, there are also people in Anuire and elsewhere who are very keen on hunting down other scions and taking their bloodlines. A smart bloodthefter is always going to look for the most powerful scion they can kill, thus further weakening the bloodlines of Anuire.
3

True, untended bloodlines would fade away over generations. However, it seems to me that, just as our medieval heralds kept a detailed record of the many noble bloodlines, that the nobles of Anuire would do the same.

I assume that there is some way of knowing or noticing that a bloodline has lost in strength - i.e. the sons do not posess the father’s famed charm aura for example. By marrying a daughter of someone with a stronger bloodline the child would have an increased bloodline (though it would perhaps change to the mother’s derivation, if different).

Families of great and major bloodlines would seek to have as many children as possible, and daughters especially have a major function here. Since, as you said, Avan’s children would have a bloodline of around 50-60 they would not be much of a threat to the ruling Prince, but they would be a great asset to the family in general, and excellent marriage partners. More than one House would want an Avanese daughter in their household, and not only for the sake of alliance.

As Avans of second third and fourth generation marry into lesser houses (let us say unblooded) their blood strength would dwindle, but after a few generations these would again marry to new Avans with powerful bloodlines (and perhaps lesser nobles from other realms with bloodlines), thus regaining some of their lost power.

1st generation 55
2nd generation 45 (marries again a member of a powerful house since 55 is not a bad marriage partner at all
3rd generation 35 (45 is still eligible to marry a Mhor or Alam, but I assume that it dwindles a bit)
4th generation 25 (marries someone of lesser status - provincial count - ruler of one province)
5th generation 40 (parent again marries an Avan of 55 - replenishing the strength of the family and providing a new set of children to marry other families of 20-30, slowing down the dwindling)

This would probably be better explained by some kind of graph or formula but I am completely inapt at math :smiley:

In any case, with a healthy dose of children (4-6) which in a fantasy setting with clerical magic shouldn’t be a problem, I believe that all higher nobles (dukes, barons, counts - even those without domains) would be blooded, and as well as the majority of the lesser nobility.

A single heroic deed of a knight with a tainded line and the acquisition of an Avanese princess (as improbable as that may be) could infuse such a great amount of power into a lesser noble and spread throughout the province as their children ( lets say 12+55 = 33) marry into other minor and tainted lines, strengthening these in turn.

My original number was probably too high, but I would argue that there are several thousand blooded families in Anuire, most of them, of course, of minor and tainted strength

4

There is one problem with the bloodline rules of the Birthright setting. IMC I haven’t fixed this because it doesn’t bothers me… but if you are going to argue about the number of blooded families, then it must be taken into account. I’m speaking about the fact that bloodlines “pop” out of nothing when a children is born. When you have a father with a bloodline score of 20, and a mother with a score of 50, you have a total of 70 points. If they have a children, the baby will have a score of 35. Suddenly, you have a total 0f 105, 35 points more of bloodline in the world…

Come on! What impedes a noble of having 10 bastard childrens, with peasant girls, and then killing all of them??? Even if all the mothers are commoners, each baby will have a bloodline equal to one-half of the father’s bloodline. This is sufficient, according to the BRCS rules, to always increase the father’s bloodline by one point. One point for each killed son… :frowning: :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:

5

This would seem very likely, especially in Anuire. In the other lands, maybe not so much, but in Anuire there would be something like this.

I assume that there is some way of knowing or noticing that a bloodline has lost in strength - i.e. the sons do not posess the father’s famed charm aura for example. By marrying a daughter of someone with a stronger bloodline the child would have an increased bloodline (though it would perhaps change to the mother’s derivation, if different).

The loss of blood abilities (charm aura, etc) is the most obvious way to see a lose of bloodline power. Of course, one problem is that every noble in Anuire is likely looking for the most powerfully blooded daughter or son available to marry their child to, so there would be a lot of competition and then politics would enter into it.

Suprisingly, this rarely gets seen in BR campaigns I’ve experienced. For example, in a pbem I’m currently playing in, there is no attempt what so ever to improve the bloodlines and people are marrying commoners or bastards. The result is that the next generation will have a much reduced bloodlines. It is more realistic to assume that marriages between the noble houses will only occur for political or bloodline reasons, so to either improve an alliance, or to improve a bloodline, better yet both at the same time.

Families of great and major bloodlines would seek to have as many children as possible, and daughters especially have a major function here. Since, as you said, Avan’s children would have a bloodline of around 50-60 they would not be much of a threat to the ruling Prince, but they would be a great asset to the family in general, and excellent marriage partners. More than one House would want an Avanese daughter in their household, and not only for the sake of alliance.

As Avans of second third and fourth generation marry into lesser houses (let us say unblooded) their blood strength would dwindle, but after a few generations these would again marry to new Avans with powerful bloodlines (and perhaps lesser nobles from other realms with bloodlines), thus regaining some of their lost power.

I don’t see that they would necessarily marry back into the Avan family again in the future. There are only going to be a few really powerful scions of each generation, so marriages between scions with bloodlines of 40+ are going to be fairly rare. The only scions who are going to have these levels of bloodlines are the children of the major dukes and kings. In Anuire, this means scions of the Avan, Dosirie, Boeruine, Diem, Mierelen, Tael, Mhoried, Alam, Daouta, and Dhoesone families. And of those, only the Avan, Dosirie, and Boeruine families are going to have children with bloodlines of 40-50, the rest are going to be around 30-40, unless they marry into one of the other families with higher level bloodlines, and I don’t think there are going to be a lot of marriages between Avanil and Boeruine, etc. A marriage between the Mierelen and Avan families is possible though, as they are allies.

In any case, with a healthy dose of children (4-6) which in a fantasy setting with clerical magic shouldn’t be a problem, I believe that all higher nobles (dukes, barons, counts - even those without domains) would be blooded, and as well as the majority of the lesser nobility.

If you use the brief guide in the Roesone PS book (written by Rich Baker), the nobility of Anuire is said to include.

Emperor + Princes
12 Archduke + Dukes
3-10 Baron/duke
3-10 counts/Baron
10-100 minor lords for each higher noble.

This gives you a rough total of around 10,000 to 15,000 or so nobles in Anuire, and that doesn’t include their immediate families.

The family sizes you mentioned of 4-6, although I agree they aren’t unrealistic, don’t match up with the information presented in the BR books (either the core books, or the PS books). Most are listed with 1-4 children, not 4-6. I believe that nobles would traditionally have fewer children than commoners as well.

Also, most family marry within their own realms, political marriages to more powerful families are rare. Take the Roesone example from the PS of Roesone. That family has had four political marriages in its short history, 2 internal, 2 external. Both the external marriages have been to families roughly the same bloodline (or lower) than theirs. The rest of the marriages have been to commoners (no family name listed). That is 50% of the marriages to commoners.

As for all nobles being blooded. All major nobles (Counts, Barons, Dukes, etc) are almost certainly blooded. Minor lords may not be.

6

I seem to remember that blooded individuals dont breed properly its like they have low sperm counts. They dont have as many children and twins etc are less frequent. I cant remember where this was mentioned and dont have the time to look it up but they arn’t realy human anymore they are something different.

Nothing stops someone from having bastard children and then killing them and there is a whole series of adventures for you. People finding out what the guy is doing would have bad results well unless you were in some nasty places like the gorgons crown. Just have the pc as one of the children who escapes or characters who fidn out about it.

7

Time for one thing. Bloodlines don’t manifest until puperty, so that is a good number of years to wait until you can go around and bloodtheft your children. Apart from that, nothing, but of course only the most evil scions would ever consider doing it. It just amazes me how many times this theory comes up.

8

It difficult to give an answer to this question, since this really depends on circumstance. Medieval nobility had lots of kids. Noble families in Central and Eastern Europe I did my reasearch on had many children (one count had nine sons alone, another had 3 sons and 3 daughters etc), which was a phenomenon that was largely dependent on their obsession with the continuation of the dynasty - producing enough male heirs to ensure the succession. Even this did not help in many occasions. The reason why the Habsburgs managed to become the most powerful dynasty in Europe in the fifteenth century was the “defunctus semi” or the failure of the seed of their rivals. Internally the last Count of Cilli was assassinated in 1456 (his two sons died before him) which prevented the disintegration of Habsburg lands in Styria and Carintia, and “externally” Charles the Bold of Burgundy dies in 1477, also without a male heir - bringing the Burgundian inheritance to the Habsburgs. In 1526, the young Hungarian king Louis II Jagielo also died without an heir, leaving the throne of Hungary to the Habsburgs
This doesn’t mean that they weren’t trying to obtain children, but those kids didn’t make it.
Its also difficult even to establish the exact numbers as usually only the successor is remembered, and daughters vanish from historical records, so only bits an pieces remain.

The problem is two-fold. On the one hand there is clerical magic to prevent infant deaths, disease etc (the nobles at least should be able to afford it), but at the same time, nobles would probably not feel urged to “make” many children if they can count on the survivability.

My guess is that they would go for 2-3 sons at least (with as many daughters as “collateral products”) giving them one heir, one replacement, and a priest. The designers of Birthright probably did this on purpose to avoid alliances, but I think it would be appropriate for an Avan (probably uncle or something, due to age needed for church positions) to be in the top echelons of the WIT, if not even the patriarch himself. As it is, there isn’t a single temple regent who is a member of any of the dukal families, which I find odd. Since in the medieval mindset the family members are the only one’s you can trust (depends of course), powerful families would seek to maneouver their relatives into positions of power in the church. Thirs sons were usually destined to end up there.

9

13 years isn’t long to wait, but if I was a neutral regent I would give a substantial sum of money and a position (non hereditary) to each of those bastard children that underwent an investure ceremony to transfer thier bloodline to me. Over several generations this would see a substantial improvement in my families bloodline.

10

This would still probably be looked on as a fairly evil act, denying your children their birthright. Being blooded is a fairly big deal in Cerilia, it makes you someone and gives you the potential to rule. It is a very risky thing to suddenly start asking for your children’s bloodlines to boost yours. What if one of them is the captain of a mercenary company with a few units under his command?

Besides, the main reason why bloodlines have not increased vastly is that the family bloodline is not always transferred on a regent’s death. Setting up a heir to take over the domain is easy, transferring the regent’s bloodline is not if the regent dies suddenly on the battlefield, or away from a priest. And both the regent and heir need to be present for the transfer to occur. In many cases the new regent will have a reduced bloodline over the old.

11

If I force them to do it, it would be evil, but I would be giving them a choice and compensation. On the other hand, blooded bastard children (from a family with a high bloodline) could be rather useful for building alliances. It wouldn’t be a sudden thing, but a general policy once they have reached puberty. As for a child wanting to be a mercenary captain, he may well prefer a bag of coins and safe base of operations rather than a bloodline. The idealistic children would probably refuse, while the practical ones accept.

In the end the conflict comes from those players who believe that traditions would have arisen to succesfully bind individuals and those who believe that the powerful will eventually make full use of their resources or face being replaced by someone who will. In a fantasy setting it seems proper to choose either path.

12

At 04:43 AM 9/6/2005 +0200, Raesene Andu wrote:

>Come on! What impedes a noble of having 10 bastard childrens, with peasant
>girls, and then killing all of them??? Even if all the mothers are
>commoners, each baby will have a bloodline equal to one-half of the
>father`s bloodline. This is sufficient, according to the BRCS rules, to

always increase the fathers bloodline by one point. One point for each &gt;killed son... :( :( :( :( &gt; &gt;Time for one thing. Bloodlines dont manifest until puperty, so that is a
good number of years to wait until you can go around and bloodtheft your
children. Apart from that, nothing, but of course only the most evil
scions would ever consider doing it. It just amazes me how many times this
theory comes up.

In addition to having to wait until puberty (I personally dont think bloodlines should manifest until the character reaches their "age of majority" that is, effectively, the age at which they become 1st level characters; for humans thats 15 + d4 IIRC) there are a few other reasons
why such a plan would be very difficult to carry out. Some of these are
house rules, others are interpretations:

  1. It`s difficult to keep such a pogram secret. Most people would not
    support a regent who engaged in such an activity, and a ruler who did so
    would likely have to face serious loyalty shifts for his realm.

  2. The peasant girls/mothers of the bastards are notoriously difficult to
    control–particularly if they suspect they are being used for such a
    purpose. Anyone in such a situation is going to be motivated towards the
    extremes of human behavior including killing the father in self-defense,
    and taking any risk to escape that situation. This is the kind of thing
    that inspires a womans wrath to a whole new maniacal level. Its Category
    5 on the hurricane scale.

  3. Related to #1 & #2 is that we have many literary examples of this kind
    of background being how a young hero came about who destroys his unnatural
    or otherwise ill-fated father. They aren`t exact matches, of course,
    because bloodline is something a little different, but think of Oedipus,
    Moses, Zeus, Luke Skywalker, etc. This is especially the case when that
    son is someone who has been so horribly wronged by his father, and that
    father so depraved as to have children for the purpose of murdering
    them. Such tales exist almost universally in cultures around the world.

  4. Its possible in the case of some of the older more powerful scions (Gorgon, Spider, etc.) that they are no longer capable of breeding. I remember reading many moons ago a humorous piece how it would be impossible for Superman to have a child with Lois Lane without killing her. It seems there are various biological reasons why such a pairing wouldnt work,
    which for the sake of delicacy, we needn`t go into. Suffice it to say,
    however, that in the case of the Gorgon he is now size large, has a
    predominantly stoney skin and in moments of emotional extremes his gaze can
    kill. Not exactly the kind of profile that gals looking for a donor look for.

  5. One might also vitiate the amount of bloodline gained by a character who
    kills another scion of the same bloodline or derivation of that bloodline.

Gary

13

To sell the blood of the Gods? The very thing that separates mortals and living gods that walk on Cerilia? I don’t think that even the greediest, most radical people would want to part with their bloodline, regardless of how small it might be.

I imagine it would be like asking someone to give up everything he believes in. If casting detect lie or know alignment is considered insulting, I wonder how people would react to “Hey, wanna sell me that ancient bloodline of yours?”

14

And even in the very rich world which we live in many people do sell out what they believe in for a good job. But in a world in which the lifestyle difference between the elite and commoners is tremendous, a chance to move between the two economic groups would be worth most anything.

I would agree that the stronger the bloodline is, the less chance that the child would be willing to part with it. So a bastard son of Avan would actually have special powers from his bloodline, which would make it very hard to part with them, since invariably they will have manifested prior to him being able to part with them; while a bastard son of Carilon Alam would only have the knowledge that he has the blood of the gods within him, but without any noticeable effect.

And it would be a lot subtlet than ‘hey you want to sell me that bloodline of yours’. They would have full knowledge from the time they were children of their ability to part with their future bloodline for a compensation. This would be to strengthen the realm against [place name of realms enemy here]. As children they would have a somewhat priveleged lifestyle, but still have chances to view the lives of peasants. Upon developing the bloodline they would then have the oppurtunity to remain within the world of nobles or set up in any profession of their choosing if they should be willing to strengthen the realm with the loss of their bloodline, or they will have to face the cruel world alone. Of course a truly exceptional child may be given a third option, they may have significant value for marriages or be groomed as a possible heir should tragedy befall my real children.

15

Actually, reading this I can imagine a whole new range of activities in Anuire, illicit bloodline trade, guilds operating it, villains running the show, and decadent nobles buying bloodlines like someone would drugs today or kidnapping the children of the wealthy to be sold for bloodharvest someplace far away.

Scary..
Not heroic fantasy, but very interesting

16

Also, to transfer a bloodline successfully, a priest must cast the realm spell Bloodline Investiture. Certain gods may not look kindly on people trading away their divine bloodlines for mere coin.

17

What do you mean, it’s classic heroic fantasy. Without the evil villians and their machinations how can the hero save the day? In the current campaign i’m part Guilder Kalien actually tried to put something similar to that into operation. I on the other hand, playing arron VAumel, was getting my Luietenant to seduce high blooded nobles, witht the intention of creating creating a flock of children to eventually divest. I’m pretty sure the temple of Eloele would not have had a problem, for a price.

18

Yeah that would be a problem. In Anuire it would probably require a priestess of Eloele or her mother. Mieres could make a pretty penny being the site for such transfers.

19

Let’s not forget one more argument to add to all the excellent things mentioned by Raesene and those who argue that it wouldn’t happen… if you buy a bloodline, assuming that the gods don’t mind it… Avan investing himself with say… reynir blood… even gaining just 1 point… there is the realistic posibility, although unstated in the rules (than with Azrai), that tainting your Anduiras blood with the blood of other gods would turn you into a mut, and eventually the “bought” blood points could outnumber the orginal and force a change in the derivation. This of course wouldn’t happen if you bought your bastard sons bloodline, but think about this really strongly…

In real life, in your own life in this real world, you are told from the begining of your days by your mother, that you literally have the blood of a GOD coursing through your veins, and you truly believe it. Magic and miracles really exist to the extent they do in BR, in our world. Just how many MILLIONS of dollars would Donald Trump, Bill Gates, etc. have to offer you before you would actually give up that claim to GLORY and power. Would you really give it up “for a few coins” a 1995 chevy caprice, a 3 bedroom house or being named the county supervisor or mayor of a no name 2,000 population city? Heck no. Now think about what medieval life was really like and just what kind of an edge this would give the person over all of those downtrodden nobodies that have to work the field everyday. It would be like walking into McDonalds and finding the 15 year old son of an unwed mother who knows someday his GODS blood will take him outta the Ghetto. What would it take for him to sell the ability to take his whole family away from that… probably at least a million dollars, or at least the equivalent of a senators position in the US federal government (I’m from USA btw) Now do you think that its really economical for the regents of Cerilia to offer the BR equivalent of a million dollars (probably like 50 GB or something) for 1 blood point which is all they will get (according to original BR rules)?

20

If this sort of thing happened in one of my games, then I would penalise the regent with a minor loss of regency (maybe losing the 1 pt he gains) as his people look on him as a cheapskate who isn’t willing to work to improve his bloodline.