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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Glyfair" data-source="post: 1288382" data-attributes="member: 53">This combination reminds me of a fantasy series that is somewhat recent.  The series was called the Runelords.  The writing was ok, but it had some interesting issues that were brought up.Essentially, the rulers were connected to certain followers by runes.  The followers had to willing take the runes, although they could be forced to willingly accept them (take the rune or your family dies).  The runes gifted the ruler with an aspect of the follower.  So, if you gave the gift of wisdom, you wouldn't be very wise but your ruler would gain your wisdom.  If you gave the gift of speed, you wouldn't be able to move except very, very slow, but your ruler would be faster.The arch-enemy (at least in the first couple of books), had many, many gifts so that he was superhuman.  The standard of wars tended to be to try to kill as many of the people who had gifted the rulers as possible so they lost some power.While the series didn't go as deeply into the concept as I would have liked, it did touch on some of the issues you bring up.  Of course, it had the added moral issue of taking your benefits from someone else who had to lose them.</blockquote>