Kinds of Tyrants (DnD Other)
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Every game has a bad king. He's an evil rich man with high taxes and low worker's compensation, but mostly he just kills his people. It's okay to kill his guards and steal from wait a minute...
There are several kinds of tyrants. This should help explain why you're fighting the guy.
Clockwork Tyrant: A good numbers-man can make the trains run on time. A Clockwork Tyrant owns all the trains. This King is obsessed with efficiency; every resource, every hour and every creature must be put to use. Sometimes people like this, sometimes they don't: it depends whether they're considered efficient. After all, they only need two food rations a day to function.
Dogma Tyrant: In the clash of ideas, this king believes his country is a refuge for an ideology. (It could be a political system or social order, or even an allegiance to a side in a World War.) Whether he feels it's under siege fro abroad or that it must lay siege to another way of thinking, he will fight enemies both foreign and domestic in his Dogma War.
Ego Tyrant: However he won the throne, his mind is dominated by insecurity that he will lose it. He will demand control and loyalty at every level of his government. He may not even trust the people he rules enough to look them in the eye. The only thing he trusts they'll understand is respect via fear.
Faction Tyrant: The king's loyalties lie with his people: but only the people he considers as his. He picks a faction - a race, alignment, religion, character class, or even a social class (such as nobility) or a profession or craft (such as stonemasonry, if the king was once one himself). Overnight they become upper-class citizens, at the expense of the rest. The king spends his reign doting on his chosen people, giving them authority and immunity under law and paying them what they 'deserve.' He hunts down any radicals or alliances of people he sees as political threats to his faction. But this schism grows deeper: he may choose a second faction and make them his enemy,which he exploits and persecutes relentlessly, not for the wrongs any of them commit, but in blame for some imagined wrong.
Glory Tyrant: Nothing says power like gold. A Glory Tyrant exists for splendor - both his own and his kingdom's. He may think himself a god or that he is ordained by one, or believe his decisions are in harmony with divine wills - in all cases he believes himself to be infallible. His money goes to feasts and parades, monuments and decorated men in arms. He must win the people's cheers and their reverence; if he cannot, he will fight any crusade to stir a passion in their hearts.
Industrial Tyrant: Money makes the world go round, but such a world is far from smooth to live in. An Industrial Tyrant holds the economy above all else: increased profit and access to resources at any level can justify the means. This isn't sinister in itself, but wheels of progress often roll over minorities in their way. If an indigenous people has lived on the mithral-rich mountain for a thousand years without using it, they'd better move. Riches are determined by a mix of talent and circumstance: a skilled worker can go far, but one with expensive tools and items has a natural advantage. The poor, working with lower Skills or in low-wage professions if working at all, are often too caught up in their own problems to be resentful.
Tyrant of Tradition: In an ever-changing omniverse, some will demand that people never stray from their roots. A Tyrant of Tradition believes the culture and lifestyle of their ethnicity must be followed by law. The kingdom becomes isolationist to preserve itself, and regards other races and subtypes of creatures, and especially adventurers, with deep suspicion. They are not welcome here.
Warlord Tyrant: This is the traditional evil dictator. A conquerer with an army, a general obsessed with strength and the use thereof, he will always expand his empire to include the neighbor nextdoor. They may be an older class of barbarian, a tribal leader who shuns modern things like shirts; or they may be civilized tacticians, flush with modern technology and with a flourishing capital of metal and stone. Wise warlords may know to accept peace with a powerful enemy, and can conceive of things like retreats and ceasefires; mad ones cannot.
Tyrant of Whim: And you thought Glory Tyrants had their head in the clouds. The King may not know how to run things, but he gets these crazy ideas and just has to fund them. He sees himself as just and benevolent, but doesn't try too hard to be so. He believes he is inspired and that his will is right, and is only cruel when someone tells him otherwise; thus he is not evil, just incompetent. In the meantime he'll comission art projects and government functions that just seemed right when he thought it should be done that way. Andy Warhol wishes he had his job.
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