GLRP:EMs:Royal Spies & Guard:2011:Ouroboros:Rulers of the Pyramid
Title: Rulers of the Pyramid
Author: Baron von Leith
The Pharaoh of Zealan was an absolute monarch. His wife was the Majestic Adoratrice of Apathas. She was the highest ranking sorceress of the land; her role was to see that the magical forces of Zealan were controlled and balanced. The Pharaoh had many wives and concubines. He could choose one of his sons, from any of them, as his heir. The Adoratrice was to be faithful to the Pharaoh, except for certain religious ceremonies or if one of the gods should honor her with his presence. She would adopt a powerful young sorceress as her heiress, usually one of her own daughters. Pharaoh and Adoratrice usually had a business, rather than romantic, relationship. Sometimes it was that of business rivals. When pharaoh was away at the head of his army, the adoratrice was regent and thus head of both branches of government, temporal and magical.
Some pharaohs, even with dozens of wives, had no sons. Some adoratrices had no magically talented daughters and would balk at taking the daughter of a lesser wife or court rival as her apprentice. The nobles, an affable and patient class, would quietly jockey for position at these times. Any man a widowed adoratrice married would become pharaoh. Any pharaoh could order his wife, technically his subject, to adopt a particular girl.
The check to that, of course, was that a young sorceress could quite credibly die during training.
Many pharaohs and their adoratrices did love each other. A story the ancient peoples told of Zealan's Great Lake, what we now call Gravewater Lake, is that an early pharaoh, Zv had it constructed for the delight of his wife, Shq.
This was dismissed as a myth, until recently when ancient tablets were discovered that give instructions for merging various small bodies of water, that pharaoh's wife, "might enjoy sailing and fishing upon these waters and take delight in them all her days."
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