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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rystil Arden" data-source="post: 3488786" data-attributes="member: 29014">[SBLOCK=Fenris]Yep, you never get more than one Shield ability.As to Justice, having it as a Heroic flaw doesn't necessarily make the knight "morally loose"--she just expresses her lawful and good tendencies in different ways.Alright, well, I figured it was overly complicated, but since you did say you like higher immersion:  Actually, the real reason that it can be okay to have differing ranges amongst the males is that Charisma is not directly related to appearance like it is for Rowaini females--through a combination of genetic tendencies and strong societal pressures, Rowaini females (at least the ones with the +4 Charisma bonus that means they have the enhanced genetic tendencies) have a direct one-to-one mapping between appearance and Charisma, so in other words, higher-Charisma Rowaini females are always also more beautiful and closer to the Rowaini ideal, and lower-Charisma Rowaini females are always more plain and more waifish.  The good genetics leads to increased Charisma/beauty for the daughters as well, as well as healthy sons, but some of that for the sons leads into Strength and Con as well, plus the males aren't forced to be tied between their appearances and Charisma, so it all works out.  Most of both of these come from the mothers (moreso than in humans, whose only direct carryover from the mother is the mitochondrial DNA). Thus, it is actually highly unlikely that a low-ranking noble family can actually keep the reputation of continually having astoundingly beautiful daughters--let's say there's a fluke daughter of incredible beauty (or even one mother whose daughters are consistently like this).  They'll marry upwards and start producing beautiful daughters for the higher-ranking family, and the males of the lower-ranking family will probably get a plainer higher-ranking wife (perhaps from one of the allies made by marrying beautiful daughters up) or a moderate wife from the same stratum.  Since the mothers are the main influence on the daughters' beauty, that means that the family is now unlikely to produce the same crop of beautiful daughters again.  It's the way the strange almost-economic flow of beautiful Rowaini women works and makes the lower-class beautiful wife a good future investment, and this is how it works to keep everything fairly stable as far as the most beautiful women being the highest rank (For instance, let's say a non-peerage noble like a baronet marries an astoundingly attractive incredible fluke peasant woman who somehow has 21 Cha (this is astonishingly unlikely and an extreme example).  They have 5 daughters and 4 sons, and the daughters range from 18 to 22 Cha (1 of each).  All 5 of them marry upwards, and the 22 Cha daughter even marries a Viscount!  The sons just marry normal baronet daughters, except the firstborn, who snags the daughter of the baron whose son married the 21 Cha daughter, a girl who is below-average attractiveness for a baron's daughter but about as attractive as his brother's wives.  Within one generation, the baronet's family is nearly back-to-normal, though there will be minor stray edge effects from the mother's good genes in the sons.  Meanwhile, the 22 Cha daughter who became the viscount's wife is still a fluke for her status, so when her three daughters vary from 20-22 Cha, her viscount father is in luck--he marries off his most beautiful daughter to a Marquis!  Even the 20 Cha daughter winds up with the local count/earl.  As you can see, the families quickly normalise back to a usualish distribution amongst daughters.  If we followed the Marquis's family, the daughters might even wind up married to dukes (where that perfect 22 Cha, while still not exactly common, is more likely), and the Duke's 22 Cha daughter could easily be in the running for Queen)While it is certainly aristocratic and oppressive in many ways, in one way, it is quite interesting that in this way, a peasant girl can have a great-great-granddaughter who becomes queen, all through legitimate marriages rather than involving bastards.[/SBLOCK]</blockquote>

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