A Twilight of Empires

Sex

Seriously, there are several topics where love and marriage come into play in A Twilight of Empires, in addition to the basic rules. The impact is usually minor, leaving the player free to reflect on such issues in the real world. But these rules are added here to reflect that the actions of foolish mortals in-game can have effects of epic proportions.

Inheritance

Now when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much ... Oh, so you know that part. When either the mommy or the daddy are exceptional in a given stat, e.g. Diplomacy, their child will have this reflected in its corresponding stat according to the table below. The effect of each parent is used, i.e. they are cumulative.

Parental Stat Value	Effect on Child Stat
12	+2
9, 10, 11	+1
5, 6, 7, 8	+0
1, 2, 3, 4	-1

Marriage

Having attractive and personable kids is a plus. Which is to say, if you are offering a royal marriage as part of a diplomatic effort (Diplomacy 7.2.4.14) this will be modified by the Charisma stat of the kid involved. The size of the effect is exactly as the table above. Now, a player will only know the Charisma of a Prince(sse) who has been promoted to leader status. The GM will, however, attempt to hint at the sex appeal (not entirely physical, as we know) of the offspring in the newsfax and elsewhere.

Risky Business

Suppose you have a prince or princess in the family listings, maybe 28 years old, and as yet unwed. There is now a chance that such a nubile relative will stray a bit from enforced celibacy. In such cases the GM will roll to see whether that family member has an affair.

Should the affair result in children, the unwed relative may do a number of things. If female, she will usually be forced into a marriage to some no-name, and is thus unavailable as an enticement in diplomacy (see above). If male, he will usually just have a child by a "concubine," a child who may have a claim to the throne someday. In either case there may be a scandal, there may be checks against the loyalty of the person involved ... It can get ugly. Best to marry them off while they are young.

As always, your comments are invited.