Five hundred years ago, Queen Marev the Practical looked at the third succession war in her lifetime and made a decision that her advisors called insane and historians now call inevitable. She abolished bloodline succession entirely. The new law was simple enough to fit on a single page.
Whoever kills the current ruler becomes the ruler. No exceptions. No councils of succession. No regency periods. You kill the king, you are the king. You kill the queen, you are the queen. Full title, full authority, full responsibility. Effective immediately.
She then invited anyone who disagreed to make their argument.
Nobody did.
She ruled for another thirty-one years and died of a fever in her sleep, which remains the single most controversial death in recorded history because it meant her chambermaid, who was holding her hand when she stopped breathing, inherited the largest empire on the continent.
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