prokopetz:

Alternative cursed monarchies for your fantasy RPG settings:

• In an effort to transform the kingship into a pure meritocracy, a mighty enchantment was wrought to ensure that only the most skilled citizen of the kingdom could wield the power of rulership. Being somewhat absent-minded, the wizard in question neglected to specify most skilled at what, so past monarchs have included the kingdom’s best baker, the kingdom’s best shoemaker, and the kingdom’s best mom; how the spell judges comparative excellence at completely unrelated skill sets is as yet poorly understood.
• A century ago the king jokingly designated his favourite housecat as his heir, and was promptly killed in a hunting accident before he could rescind the order. Unfortunately, the king ruled by Divine Right, which actually passed to the cat, and thereafter to the cat’s descendants. Efforts to teach the current monarch to designate a human heir have failed because, well, it’s just a cat, albeit a cat whose commands – insofar as its human attendants are able to understand them – are divine law.
• The throne is enspelled so that the current monarch is obliged to rule with compassion and justice, with even the slightest impropriety resulting in unbearable suffering. The royal succession is carried out primarily by means of tricking foreign visitors who don’t know about the curse into accepting the crown – whereupon the newly-ex-monarch promptly runs away before they can change their mind!