D&D General If the king has no children could he name his wives cousin, whose young enough to be her son, as heir to the throne?, after all he's only a in law

[pukunui]

Many of us thought the same of le Redoutable (you know, the “sorry for using so much bandwidth” guy) on the WotC forums back in the day. He turned out to be 100% earnest.

Yeah, he's still around, and I'm still not convinced he's genuine either.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It....depends on the laws of succession for that country. Most are not keen on the royal bloodline changing like this, but it's not strictly a problem in all contexts. If the king adopts the queen's young cousin as his own son, then that could be enough to satisfy the requirement of dynastic continuity (e.g. Roman emperors rarely passed control of the empire--the "princeps" position, since they didn't like the idea of "kings" despite being kings--to their direct biological children, often passing it to adopted nephews or other likewise not-directly-related but adopted-into-the-family official heir.)

 

[Ath-kethin]

Something a friend of mine (who lives in a country ruled by a king) pointed out is that a royal heir's acceptance depends mostly on how well known/liked they are prior to ascending to the throne. If the heir apparent has been kept a secret and is unknown to the populace/nobility but appears suddenly at the end of the king's life, they're likely to see resistance from the nobility AND the people, and likely spark a civil war.

If, however, the heir is someone well known and well-regarded, the transition is likely to be more accepted and easier no matter what their relationship to the current ruler is.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As far as I can tell, the crown (the entity, rather than the object) is really just a fancy name for the royal will. On that will is ownership of the kingdom itself. Which means, in theory, the crown can go to whomever the current holder wants.

The only caveat here is that property rights have to be backed up with threat of violence. If there isn't anyone around to back up your claim then you don't own the thing, no matter who you are or what it is. So it is only through the allegiance of the nobility who hold the reins of the military that the king is able to own the kingdom.

Rules of Succession are kind of a promise by the King that the crown will be passed down following a certain pattern. Your rules of succession may be different than modern England's. There is no "one" way of doing it. But if the recipient of the crown is unpopular enough with the nobility, whether the rules of succession are being followed may be a moot point... Because it's the nobles with their capacity for violence that backs up claims to ownership, not the crown. If there is a disagreement between the nobles who should rule, then you end up with something like the War of the Roses.

But I am not an expert so take this with a grain of salt.

For most of European history, at least, not quite. The monarch is expected to follow the law, and the nobility will enforce it upon them should they deviate. There are exceptions, when a declared heir is well liked enough usually, but the nobility would rather choose the next king from amongst their “highest” patriarchs or most beloved and proven leaders, than accept some dingus the king was fond of for no good reason.

But yeah even in “I am the State” France, the king was subject to the law when it came to succession.

Also here’s a fun video on Carolingian succession, which informs basically all European succession laws that followed it, and was informed by the succession laws that preceded it.

 

[delericho]

In addition to the points raised by others, there are a couple of issues particular to a magical universe that may apply:

• In the real world, an awful lot of monarchs claimed that their authority was due to Divine Right. In a fantasy universe, that may literally be true - the gods may directly choose the heir, or might have mandated rules by which succession has to happen. The king may or may not get a say.
• In a fantasy universe there also have to be consideration given to the possibility that the king names an heir while under magical influence. That suggests to me that the laws of succession may well be more likely to be codified and unchangeable than they are in the real world.

All that said, I'd mostly say go for it. Indeed, while musing on any sort of GoT-inspired campaign, oddities in succession is exactly where I'd look for as an inciting event.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Also pointing out that if the most powerful nobles don't agree with the planned succession, well, "hunting-accidents" do happen... So no guaranteee that the chosen heir will even survive long enough to become heir.

And if this is for a fantays-setting with powerful magic, that can bring someone back from the dead, well is the king still King if he is brought back from the dead, or has his claim to the throne then passed to someone else?

 

[Ath-kethin]

Also pointing out that if the most powerful nobles don't agree with the planned succession, well, "hunting-accidents" do happen... So no guaranteee that the chosen heir will even survive long enough to become heir.

And if this is for a fantays-setting with powerful magic, that can bring someone back from the dead, well is the king still King if he is brought back from the dead, or has his claim to the throne then passed to someone else?

That's a really good point, and in Eberron setting canon we've even seen a ruler (who is a vampire) pretend to be his own descendant.

Of course, if a character died of old age, even True Resurrection won't bring them back, so non-undead magic options probably wouldn't help a whole lot on many cases.