Significance of Regency

[Malleus Aforethought]

At a couple of points in NPIA, Regencies come up. Random asks for one when he and Corwin are traveling towards Amber, and Caine asks Corwin for one (or Corwin offers one) in exchange for Caine's aid as part of Cowin and Bleys's invasion plans. Now, given the way Amber evolved, this is probably one of the ideas that Zelazny abandoned as the story unfolded. However, it's an interesting idea from an Amber DRPG perspective.

What are your thoughts regarding how these might be implemented? What's their significance in the context of Amber? Are they part of Amber? Or maybe rule over a Shadow of the Realm?

[Drascus]

At a couple of points in NPIA, Regencies come up. Random asks for one when he and Corwin are traveling towards Amber, and Caine asks Corwin for one (or Corwin offers one) in exchange for Caine's aid as part of Cowin and Bleys's invasion plans. Now, given the way Amber evolved, this is probably one of the ideas that Zelazny abandoned as the story unfolded. However, it's an interesting idea from an Amber DRPG perspective.

What are your thoughts regarding how these might be implemented? What's their significance in the context of Amber? Are they part of Amber? Or maybe rule over a Shadow of the Realm?

I imagine the regent has a lot of power, deals with a ton of stuff that the monarch doesn't want to deal with or doesn't have time to deal with.  Like a High Chancellor position.

Also if the monarch takes a vacation, the regent is in charge.

You have to really trust your regent though, because they have very good incentive to bump you off.

[jibbajibba]

Like a lot of stuff in Nine Princes the detail is confused when you come to play it. The request is for a regency not the regency which indicates multiple regents etc. There is no effort by Zelazny to try and explain how the kingdom works.
I took this void and built a politcal entity called The Sanctum that fills these gaps. There are Wardens (royal family members usually) that have powerful positions then a second tier of Dukes and a third tier of Masters. It gives me a structure as to how the kingdom runs and provides a space for the PCs to engage in politics. From a game perspective it also lets me feed information into the players and give them resources, guards don;t just wonder about they have a clear reporting line. Of course it also gives the players more stuff to spend points on
In addition to all that from the King's perspective it delegates responsibility whilst maintaining a tension between the various factions. No one has the absolute power of a regent. The Sanctum, and therefore the kingdom, is run by The OverWarden but he has no direct access to materiel so is nuetered and the king can rely on the internal tensions of the royal family to ensure no one can form a powerbase strong enough to overthrow him.

[Malleus Aforethought]

I imagine the regent has a lot of power, deals with a ton of stuff that the monarch doesn't want to deal with or doesn't have time to deal with.  Like a High Chancellor position.

Also if the monarch takes a vacation, the regent is in charge.

You have to really trust your regent though, because they have very good incentive to bump you off.

You give the definition of a ore traditional regent. I can't see that working too well in Amber. Anyone appointed regent would either be grist for the Family's intrigue mill, or if a Family member, dead. Oberon said he knew if he ever pronounced an heir, they would quickly be dead. Any traditional regent would have very low survival odds in Amber.

But I was looking for ideas about how others thought the concept could be implemented. The two ideas that come to mind for me are control of a Shadow of the Realm or control of an area of Amber's primary shadow of importance, whether for strategic purposes, or resources, or other political influence. To be significant, it would have to be more important than controlling half the military fleets of Amber (to tempt Caine).

[Rel Fexive]

Like a lot of stuff in Nine Princes the detail is confused when you come to play it. The request is for a regency not the regency which indicates multiple regents etc. There is no effort by Zelazny to try and explain how the kingdom works.
I took this void and built a politcal entity called The Sanctum that fills these gaps. There are Wardens (royal family members usually) that have powerful positions then a second tier of Dukes and a third tier of Masters. It gives me a structure as to how the kingdom runs and provides a space for the PCs to engage in politics. From a game perspective it also lets me feed information into the players and give them resources, guards don;t just wonder about they have a clear reporting line. Of course it also gives the players more stuff to spend points on
In addition to all that from the King's perspective it delegates responsibility whilst maintaining a tension between the various factions. No one has the absolute power of a regent. The Sanctum, and therefore the kingdom, is run by The OverWarden but he has no direct access to materiel so is nuetered and the king can rely on the internal tensions of the royal family to ensure no one can form a powerbase strong enough to overthrow him.

To be honest, why not call the Wardens 'Regents' instead and tie it together a bit?

[jibbajibba]

To be honest, why not call the Wardens 'Regents' instead and tie it together a bit?

Year that would work but as a name The Warden of Storms has a nice ring to it.

[Drascus]

You give the definition of a ore traditional regent. I can't see that working too well in Amber. Anyone appointed regent would either be grist for the Family's intrigue mill, or if a Family member, dead. Oberon said he knew if he ever pronounced an heir, they would quickly be dead. Any traditional regent would have very low survival odds in Amber.

But I was looking for ideas about how others thought the concept could be implemented. The two ideas that come to mind for me are control of a Shadow of the Realm or control of an area of Amber's primary shadow of importance, whether for strategic purposes, or resources, or other political influence. To be significant, it would have to be more important than controlling half the military fleets of Amber (to tempt Caine).

Well if you think about it, that's bad for the Regent but good for the ruler.  Makes a nice lightning rod for whoever took the throne, at the cost of making one specific member of the family more dangerous to you.

[Rel Fexive]

It's always worse being the Commander instead of the Prince.

[RPGPundit]

I would imagine that Regency would be a title of bureaucratic power in Amber; allowing the Caine group to expand their political influence and chokehold on the internal affairs of Amber; and probably making Caine a great deal of personal wealth and power, if he's crooked. Which we all know he would be.

RPGPundit