Family History
King Fratnimaniksori
Lived in Era 11, got 1 heir(s) (Slaxswerd II) and was the leader of Bunkabrytari
Fratnimaniksori, son of Slaxswerdh is indeed a king, just as his father - still, there is a huge difference between the rule of them both. Fratnimaniksori has practically no power at all, and is considered a marionette by most people that know anything about him. Even though Slaxswerdh was not a military mastermind (he lost nearly every battle he fought) one could still say he possessed some kind of power over people. That is not the case with Fratnimaniksori; Except for his lands being rather sparsely populated after his fathers rule which is by the way widely accepted as one of the worst ever, he also had to agree with letting the council (representatives of the people) possess the same degree of power as himself! He had no choice, however, and so the deal was made. Had he not accepted the terms, he would not have any power at all.
The major part of his military forces are not owned by himself - but by his "underlings". They get a large portion of land from where they can collect taxes and so on (some of the taxes still go to the King, thank god). In exchange for all that, they have but one duty towards the king: They have to go to war for him. This system is not very efficient actually, but it is sufficient. In other words, the society is pretty much a feudal society.
As for the more individual matters, Fratnimaniksori is a typical king. He likes to eat different kinds of meat, hunt, train with twohanded swords, paint, play the flute, discuss politics (he is not especially good at politics, but he still has the power to perform executions so if you anger him you might just lose your head, which is why he wins all the time - the dead cannot speak) and sing.
He likes puff & slash clothes alot, why he wears them all the time, so he has some kind of sence for fashion. Physically, not all is well though. Once, when he was simply taking a walk in the park, he was struck by lightning so that his hair caught fire. The top of his head was so damaged that hair could no longer grow. Nowadays, he always have different sets of wigs for different occasions. The wigs are always brown, in order to suit the colour of his long, nice beard that cover the whole of his face. Another important detail that should not be overlooked is his wooden leg. No one knows for sure who it really was who sneaked on to him that night and chopped his leg off with a two handed sword that seemed to be about 182 cm long, weighing about 2.7 kg, but it was probably just a friendly prank that went quite a bit wrong.
Speaking of swords, Fratnimaniksori's perhaps dearest possession is his twohanded sword that measures about 170 cm - of course with parrying hooks just below the ricasso, which is clad in leather. One time he accidentally poked the tip of the blade in his eyeball, so now he is blind one one eye. Other than that, he is just and ordinary man who is also a king in a feudal society.
King Slaxswerd II
Lived in Era 11, got 1 heir(s) (Froksnirmani) and was the leader of Bunkabrytari
Slaxswerd, whose name derives from his grandfather's name Slaxswerdh, was the only reasonable choice when a new king was needed. When Fratnimaniksori failed he was killed by an angry mob on a trip out to one of his palaces. Slaxswerd, being Fratnimaniksori's oldest son was therefore chosen.
One of the first thing Slaxswerd decided to do was to give the temple a more authoritative position. That way the temple would stand behind him no matter what; Nearly every man or woman believed in the gods and prayed for them regularly, when harvesting, hunting, in the evening and in the morning and so on. If they angered the gods they thought famine and disease would strike them and their families. The few that did not believe in such things was either declared a witch or a sorcerer or a demon and killed in the name of the temple and the law. When a baby was born, he or she was quickly taken to the temple so that the priest could protect it from the invisible demons seeked to corrupt every new born's soul. From this, one can see how deeply rooted and important religion was to the population. Having the temple's high priests behind you makes controlling the people much easier.
The road to a strong royal power had been cleared; Slaxswerd began reforming the laws and tax system to increase the kingdoms economy and to prepare for war. In these worried times, one of his primary concerns was to have his own standing army of professional soldiers.
If one committed murder he was hanged, whether it was unprovoced or not - what good was people taking the law in their own hands for the king? They had to be punished as well. Theft, assault and most other crimes would mostly result in fines, but sometimes (depending on the seriousness of the crime) he would be struck between 10 to 50 times with a whip. This is the good part about this system: When the fines were paid, only some of the money went directly to the victim. About one third of the money actually went to the crown and one sixth went to the temple according to their agreement, leaving just about half left to the victim. Crimes had come to be looked at as an offense to the temple and to the crown, which was not to be taken lightly.
The taxes were all raised and the reason why the taxes had not been raised earlier is simply because the earlier kings did not have enough power. The extra taxes were needed in order to afford building castles and other fortifications, palaces and most of all hiring mercenaries.
This way, the king can more easily make use of abundance and hence play a more active role in the kingdom. Fratnimaniksori's greatest problem apart from the enemy forces that skirmished his lands was his lack of power; The power was so decentralised that he could not mobilize enough resources or military forces in order to solve the problems and get rid of the enemies. Now, the people stand united behind Slaxswerd II.