Do these royal characters have siblings or other close relatives? What people seem to forget (a lot) in fiction is that by lack of an heir in the direct line, it is completely possible (and historically accurate, especially if using the British monarchy as an example) to have the throne fall to a (distant) cousin instead. The MC and royal character could discuss who they would prefer for the role, and what to do to prepare them for it.
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Yeah, they’re twins, but they’ve turned against each other to claim the throne. The MC can choose to support and even romance one of them if they’d like. That said, given the fragile state of the kingdom, having a legitimate heir is a pretty big deal for both of them.
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Could be an interesting way to bury the hatchet:
“Look, me and MC can’t have kids, so why don’t we call it a truce and let your heir ascend the throne once they’re of age/we are too old to continue doing so ourselves?”
Of course, that would require your two royal characters to think pragmatically, and I can’t say I’ve seen too much of that in actual royal history.
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And before I forget, the Lily Adventuresses! series will be part of Philippine Game Dev Expo’s Indie Game Stars lineup, and Episode 2 will have a full release this May 31. I’ve already finished writing and coding the entire game, and I’m currently on the last round of playtesting and debugging on Android (since RPG Maker 2000 games can be played on the platform via the EasyRPG Player) until the release date.
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Something I’m always intrigued by with this type of thing is how it reflects the setting. If you have a society that’s basically feudal, but also tolerant of same-sex relationships, how does that affect marriage pacts? Is there a standard assumption that a marriage is just about producing children, and each spouse is free to pursue other relations? Or is formal same-sex marriage a custom, and if so, how does that affect designation of an heir?
Regarding NB biology, I’ve seen it phrased as basically two questions: Can the MC get pregnant, and can they get others pregnant? That should be all the data really required for figuring out whether or not an heir is physically possible with another character. Of course, depending on the nature of your setting there might be interesting nuances to the whole situation.
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In the way I’ve structured things, same-sex marriages are accepted, but nobles still have an obligation to produce an heir. Usually arranged marriages are the norm for them, so this isn’t really an issue, but if a noble does marry someone of the same sex, it’s generally understood from the start that the partner with noble blood will take a concubine (male or female) to provide an heir.
However, with the MC and the twins, it would be a bit different. I plan on including a lot of dialogue and choices to navigate this issue, but it would be important first to determine whether or not the MC and their partner can biologically have children together.
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I find it a bit hard to understand how a culture would end up being institutionally fine with same-sex marriages (or nonbinary people, for that matter) while still being very invested in bloodlines. I feel like a non-heteronormative society would be less interested in that side of things and might be more happy about adoption? Or is same-sex marriage considered lesser, or OK for less-fancy people but for nobility bloodlines are more of a thing? Would arranged marriages for the sake of alliance include same-sex ones, or would the families doing the arrangements be more focused on straight marriages if a blood heir is expected?
Not saying that it’s not OK to include discrimination in the setting by any means - I’m just curious how things have evolved in this society.
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I guess it depends if, for example, blood does stuff. If there’s some magical effect that runs off your bloodline, then you DO need to pump out a kid if you want the effect to keep going and no amount of adoption will get you out of it. E.g., over at A Mage Reborn the king DOES need to make a kid, because the Big God-Gifted Magic-Eating Sword that is the symbol of rulership (besides, y’know, being a god-gifted magic-eating sword, meaning that if it weren’t the symbol of rulership it’d probably end up being it anyway) can only be wielded by the bloodline, and you can’t circumvent that by showing it adoption papers and succeeding on a Persuasion check.
The BIG issue that arises if bastard kids count as much as legitimate for legal stuff is that, generally speaking, a male noble can get around and there’s really no way to prevent two kids being born at roughly the same time, and that causes inheritance issues, and inheritance issues is exactly the sort of problems marriage (and the importance of primogeniture) was invented to solve. So digging deep into how that society works might lead us to “marriage doesn’t actually exist”.
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I think it also raises questions about sexism/misogyny - ie if bloodlines are considered important (for legal/societal rather than magical reasons), is the lineage carried through one gender or another? If it’s based on age of children with the heir being the eldest, does their gender or orientation matter in terms of their ranking?
If a cis prince and a cis baron are married and they have children with a concubine, does it matter legally/societally which of their genetic material resulted in the kids in terms of heirs - would there need to be proof provided in order for the kids to be considered official royals? If Simon the baron has kids with a concubine would they inherit his lands or would it be a joint thing where they could also be Sam the prince’s heirs? Does the concubine have any noble privileges and is she also a public figure? Have there historically been nobles in gay, or straight and childless, marriages where they opted not to go the “have children with an additional person”, and were they able to leave their inheritance to someone of their choice or did it automatically go to a younger sibling/cousin/etc?
(These aren’t necessarily questions I’m expecting answers for, and I don’t mean to be interrogative, it’s just interesting to think about when figuring out what’s culturally important to people in fantasy settings!)
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I honestly wish more fantasy stories did explore the whole inheritance thing further than “well yeah of course the heir must have a child”.
(I have a fantasy kingdom where the king of certain age must have a heir to be allowed to stay a king… but there’s no rules on how that person became the heir. It leads to… issues.)
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This whole thread of conversation makes me think of (and potentially recommend) the Luna Trilogy by Ian McDonald. Now full confession, I only read the first book and it was some years ago so my memory is hazy, but the setting was this very interesting corporate neo-feudal situation on the Moon. One of the concepts of that world is that as Lunar corporations slowly transition into being functionally noble houses, they develop new concepts around marriage, reproduction, and inter-house alliances. One aspect of it is that while hetero marriages for the purpose of producing children are a very strong way to cement an alliance, they’re sometimes too strong, while a same-sex marriage is a means of forming a pact without permanently cementing two houses together and potentially creating succession issues.
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In the setting I created, they accepted same-sex marriage, but it’s still not encouraged when it comes to the nobility.
For nobles here, lineage is very important. Bloodlines provide a clear, undisputed path of succession, which helps prevent internal power struggles or civil wars. The idea of placing a common-born heir at the head of a noble house is seen as laughable by the other nobles, and a sign of that house’s decadence. They cling tightly to the idea that noble blood inherently makes them different from the commoners.
I feel like if they didn’t value this, the whole monarchy system would kind of fall apart eventually, and in turn, making them lose power.
There’s also a magical element at play. In this world, magical talents are often hereditary, with certain noble bloodlines renowned for strong magical affinities or specific abilities. Passing these powers to a biological heir ensures the family maintains its legacy, preventing a situation where someone lacking magical ability inherits leadership of the family. However, exceptions do exist, and I plan to explore those situations in the story.
Occasionally, even a biological heir may fail to inherit the family’s magic. Such cases often lead to significant problems, including suspicion of infidelity or illegitimacy. In extreme instances, the child without magical talent might even be bypassed in the line of succession. There aren’t any ways to definitively prove lineage through something like DNA testing, so families without distinctive magic tend to be less strict—but societal expectations still weigh heavily on them.
Thus, same-sex noble marriages aren’t forbidden, but there remains a duty to produce a legitimate heir for the sake of family lineage and tradition. While adopting a child and presenting them as a legitimate heir can happen, this practice is heavily frowned upon. If discovered, it could lead to severe succession disputes within the noble family.
Because of these reasons, political marriages tend to be arranged between partners capable of producing biological heirs, mainly to avoid the issues mentioned earlier. Nothing explicitly forbids same-sex political marriages, but they’re simply less frequent. While socially acceptable, many nobles would prefer not to deal with the logistics of heirs through concubines or surrogates, and most people aren’t comfortable with the idea of their spouse taking a concubine.
Thus, having blood heirs remains widely regarded as the most stable way to maintain a noble house’s power, prestige, and legacy.
Overall, I wanted to build a world that wouldn’t restrict romance based on gender while still keeping things kind of “realistically” aligned with the way a medieval monarchy would work. Hopefully my explanation makes sense haha
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Hello, my friends. After years of brainstorming—and the frustration of losing my first draft a couple of months ago—I’ve finally put words to a .txt file again. This time, however, I’m writing in my native language because I’ve noticed my vocabulary has deteriorated to the point where I struggle to recall words or express my thoughts without defaulting to English.
That got me wondering: for those of you who aren’t native speakers, do you draft your writing directly in English, or do you write in your mother tongue first and translate later?
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I mean, you could. If you wanted to. Always worth remembering that, as the writer, you can do literally anything. Especially in the realm of magic.
“…but but but, genetics!”
It’s a magic sword, how does genetics enter into it?
“But the curse/prophecy says blood!”
And bloodline is a figurative term, parent and child don’t actually share blood, at least not after the umbilical is cut, and certainly not with a (cis) father. Magic operates on law, so you can just decide that the law of adoption makes people “of the same blood” in the sense of being of the same family line. Or marriage, for that matter, since that’s the other legal way to tie two people into one family.
“But it’s always been done this way!”
Aha.
“But I wanna!”
This, really, is the valid reason. If you have a magic sword-giving god, or a witch casting a curse, or anything like that, you can decide that they decided that the curse/blessing is only transmitted through generations by physically siring or bearing a child. You can decide to do this if you want the added complication, to restrict your characters into a certain story path and present them with obstacles.
The rule for writing fantasy: use magic to solve boring problems and create interesting ones.
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I write directly in English. But I uh, pretended to be English when I was a child and read a ton so I’m very comfortable with English, almost just as much as I am with my mother tongue.
Congratulations for picking up the pen again! 
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As a bilingual Filipino, I always write in English, and due to being a native Filipino speaker, I’m also able to translate materials (e.g. social media posts I can integrate into my games) from that language into English without losing their essence, which I’ve learned from Square Enix’s excellent localization practices.
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I write in English when I want the end result to be in English, because I’ve found that my prose flows better that way. If I’ll write first in Finnish and then translate it, it becomes oddly mechanical. (I have special projects I only write in Finnish though.)
I mean, even with this justification there’s always cousins.
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Yes. Since I didn’t have anyone to practice speaking English with, I started thinking in English to help my sentences and thoughts flow better. Not to mention, I am terrible at my native language (it’s my weakest and most disliked subject). That’s why I both think and write directly in English.
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I’ve been thinking about making a string that grows based on your choices, which in later files could read and be used to import data in other games. I’ll cross that bridge only if I truly feel it’s needed for some ideas I have.
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Yeah that’s a massive undertaking. I’ve been contemplating doing that too.
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