Greetings!

You are a middling barbarian warlord, and your younger sister tells you that your younger brother and his wife are plotting to have you murdered, so that they can take the throne and inherit all the power--and also ensure that their kids become the heirs--and not yours.

What do you do? How do you react in this situation?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I kill the younger brother and his wife for treason; i also kill the younger sister for being a tattletale. Then I ravage the countryside, to deal with my grief over the death of my siblings.

Kill their kids to teach them a lesson

Or better yet make them kill their own kids

Quote from: SHARK on January 30, 2022, 03:14:37 PM
Greetings!

You are a middling barbarian warlord, and your younger sister tells you that your younger brother and his wife are plotting to have you murdered, so that they can take the throne and inherit all the power--and also ensure that their kids become the heirs--and not yours.

What do you do? How do you react in this situation?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Is my brother's wife hot? I mean, if she wants to be bedding the warlord, that can happen after the brother is dead. The brother has to go, and his kids might be a different story depending on what they're capabilities are and if they might be loyal to you after their traitor father is killed. Simply killing everyone gets pretty wasteful quick.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 30, 2022, 05:07:16 PM

Quote from: SHARK on January 30, 2022, 03:14:37 PM
Greetings!

You are a middling barbarian warlord, and your younger sister tells you that your younger brother and his wife are plotting to have you murdered, so that they can take the throne and inherit all the power--and also ensure that their kids become the heirs--and not yours.

What do you do? How do you react in this situation?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Is my brother's wife hot? I mean, if she wants to be bedding the warlord, that can happen after the brother is dead. The brother has to go, and his kids might be a different story depending on what they're capabilities are and if they might be loyal to you after their traitor father is killed. Simply killing everyone gets pretty wasteful quick.

The brother's wife is the *older* sister, and it depends on what you mean by "hot". Does she have to have *all* her teeth, for example?

Quote from: SHARK on January 30, 2022, 03:14:37 PM
Greetings!

You are a middling barbarian warlord, and your younger sister tells you that your younger brother and his wife are plotting to have you murdered, so that they can take the throne and inherit all the power--and also ensure that their kids become the heirs--and not yours.

What do you do? How do you react in this situation?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Do I trust the younger sister?  Could be a ploy by her to get them out of the way of her own ambitions.

Quote from: Joey2k on January 30, 2022, 03:50:04 PM
Kill their kids to teach them a lesson

Or better yet make them kill their own kids

I trusted you...and you broke my heart!

*kiss brother on the mouth*

-edit-

Quote from: SHARK on January 30, 2022, 03:14:37 PM
You are a middling barbarian warlord, and your younger sister tells you that your younger brother and his wife are plotting to have you murdered, so that they can take the throne and inherit all the power--and also ensure that their kids become the heirs--and not yours.

What do you do? How do you react in this situation?

I ask myself "What would Kim Jong-un do?"
I kill the brother his wife and all their children and make the sister a member of my politburo.

Kill the younger brother, his wife, any offspring, and then sell the youngest sister off for a rich dowry to a neighboring tribe.

If I was an actual barbarian warlord, that's how it'd get handled.

I fake my own death then disguise myself as one of the attending priests in the Coronation ceremony.  Then right before my brother is crowned, I grab the coronation sword, reveal myself, and use the sword to deliver justice in God's name. 

(I keep annother weapon handy in case the coronation sword doesn't hold up in battle.  Also I wear a mail shirt beneath my clerical robes.)

Greetings!

Yes, very cool, my friends! Interesting. As horrifying as it sounds, throughout history it was a very real thing. I was reading about the Vikings; the Franks; the German Barbarians; the Romans, o course; but also the Russians, the Mongols; Steppe Tribes like the Turks; the Indians; and the ancient Chinese.

Everywhere, they all faced similar problems and similar challenges. Warlords, Princes, Kings, or Emperors--they were often faced with one or more siblings plotting to have them murdered, their wives murdered, and their children;--so THEY could take the throne and have all the power and glory. Often also ensuring THEIR children would inherit the throne eventually as well. Much of the time, of course, aided in their scheming by a ruthless wife--or in the case of a treacherous sister, her scheming lover boy or husband, likewise looking to move in on things.

Teams of assassins, a paid-off slave or cook, or a massage girl paid to slip poison into your cinnamon roll at breakfast. The plans were equally grim towards any of your living children--men or women assassins would be paid to poison them, strangle them, or hold them down and stab them to death. Their bodies would then be thrown into a ditch somewhere and buried without ceremony.

Sometimes, the leader gets a few days of warning ahead of time; sometimes, it is but a matter of hours before the treachery is to unfold. Some leaders were able to respond just in time, to avoid being slaughtered themselves. Absolutely brutal stuff.

I'm thinking a player character in one of my campaigns may be faced with such a situation. *Laughing*

I wonder, though, if they are really emotionally ready to be confronted with such brutal circumstance?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

We'll bake pastries together and have a serious, honest chat as a family over tea.  And then we'll have a bake off!

(Yes, I probably would have my honor guard entourage secretly around me and readied, just in case.)

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 30, 2022, 08:45:50 PM
We'll bake pastries together and have a serious, honest chat as a family over tea.  And then we'll have a bake off!

(Yes, I probably would have my honor guard entourage secretly around me and readied, just in case.)

A bakeoff!  The perfect closer!

But the Battenburg cake is poison.

The Buche de Noel is also poison

The showstopper challenge is...What's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah. Poison.

Quote from: Zirunel on January 30, 2022, 09:42:00 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on January 30, 2022, 08:45:50 PM
We'll bake pastries together and have a serious, honest chat as a family over tea.  And then we'll have a bake off!

(Yes, I probably would have my honor guard entourage secretly around me and readied, just in case.)

A bakeoff!  The perfect closer!

But the Battenburg cake is poison.

The Buche de Noel is also poison

The showstopper challenge is...What's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah. Poison.

The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison.  The chalice with the palace has the brew that is true.