Heaven Canceler
Behind You!
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TBF, even with the Romans they usually only adopted folks with blood ties to them.
Even the Good Emperors. Hadrian was a relative of Trajan, and others were relatives.
Well yeah you would still prefer some distant relative over a total stranger simply because they are likely to have some clue about the job etc.. and the blood relation gives some more legitimacy. There was talk about changing the Japanese Imperial family into male-female inheritance instead of pure male when it looked like no male heir would be born after all.
But I was talking about an extraordinary situation where every relative is dead somehow or etc.. in that case raising a heir from childhood may be for the best. I guess an alternative may be adopting someone from a powerful noble house and making them an heir, but that could lead to even more problems. It is all rather problematic..
Well, yeah, which leads to the question: if the king is without a direct heir, who's the default heir, and did said heir perhaps have a hand in the curse in the first place? Should that heir also be removed, and the title given to the third in line? Or is even that too obvious, and it's another party hoping to benefit from the two or three upper echelons of the kingdom being at each others' throats?
It is certainly an interesting scenario, a lot of it depends on who exactly the king is. Does he care about the long-term existence of the kingdom or is more "meh" on it. Does he love his kids/heirs or are they just some people he is related to?
Some would just say screw it and split the kingdom among the heirs if everyone has equal hold and enough support to make succession a pain if they are ignored. This of course depends on how powerful the king is vs. how popular the heirs are etc..
This is a rather guess-heavy thing with so little information on the realm. Like, we don't even know how important it is to get a heir decision going. Is the king super old and expects to die any day now? Or does the curse include a death clause if it isn't removed within X-days? Or is rule temporary to X-years like some variation of the Holy Roman Empire? Are there other nations with rulers who have a claim on the throne and who could get support for an invasion if no heir is found etc...