The thing that I really like the idea of is Machiavellian intrigue in the Hero planes - which seems to me to be a relatively important aspect of Pelorian politics (the Trials of Antirius, the Carmanian March, the Poor Wifes Son ritual, for example, to mention only some of the rituals used against the Emperor specifically). This seems to me to not only reflect Pelorian sources, but to be an excellent source of game ideas - and seems to be much more the Pelorian norm than open warfare. Which isn't to say that open warfare isn't likely to happen in the post-RE era - but its probably not the first step.
Given this characterisation of the Empire, its probably easy to see where my characterisation of the Imperial succession comes from - a hidden hero plane struggle of some complexity and high Lunar weirdness, with plenty of opportunity for enterprising and cunning heroquesters to achieve some useful outcome out of the process. Its also easy to see where Martin comes from - he wants to minimise the complexity of the magical succession, so he can get without ado to what he wants from a succession crisis - generals in the mundane world who can send big armies against each other. I personally am happy to have a model that will accomodate both, but a little disappointed that Martin wants a model that cuts out my kind of fun.
Not that I mind Nicks political machinations in the palace, either. Read I, Claudius or any other decent historical source dealing with the succession of Emperors (for just about any Empire), and it will seem like the natural course of events to have conspiracies and schemes within the palace. However, bearing in mind the magical power of the sort of people involved in high Lunar politics, it seems likely that plain old poisoned mushrooms and strangulations will not suffice all that often, and serious magical manouvers are involved more often than not.
> My Empire is not dominated by
>Bureaucratic
>schemers, in the end, in my world, they get a sword through the head from the
>heroic warrior type.
This sounds to me like the Dara Happan Empire, run by glorious war leaders (Imperator is a military title awarded by the army, and the whole cult of Yelm is a war leader cult at its heart), rather than the Lunar Empire - run by a religion that is in at least some respects a reaction against the Yelmic model. The Lunar empire was founded in part on raising up other powers to equal the old warrior-nobility. It has even gone to great effort to create a major part of the Lunar war machine that is not as dominated by warrior-nobles - the LCM.
Be careful, Martin, that your world is the same world as the one all the Lunars see, not just limited to one view of it.
That said, the Lunar Empire is probably full of old Dara Happan heroic warriors (and a few Yanafals Tarnils as well), yearning to put swords through the heads of Bureacratic schemers. And full of Bureacratic schemers yearning to engineer the arrest and execution of uppity heroic warrior types. And all of them succeed from time to time. The Lunar empire is full of contradictory forces, which is all part of the fun, and I want to see it kept that way.
Cheers David ------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #625
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