You do make a lot of sense good sir. At the end of the day I had the whole continent upside-down in my head...Warrl wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2020 4:54 amWell, people with royal titles are of varying importance. For a real-world example, every person in Saudi Arabia who is descended from the first Saudi king thereof - Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, lived 1875-1953, reigned 1921-1953 - is legally a prince or princess. Ibn Saud had about 100 children. The country still practices polygamy; while contraceptives are legal, women in general are not well-educated in their availability or use, and estimates are that only about 1/3 of married women of child-bearing age use them. As one result, there are today an estimated 15,000 princes and princesses. I suspect that there's no concern about the 8th son of a 23rd son of an 18th son of a 40th son being at risk as a member of the police force or even the military.Technic[Bot] wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:19 am Another thing that bothers me about Reni is: What is she doing there? As a dragon she might have little authority over other dragons but she is a Human Royal. What is a princess doing helping guard a village so near a border when there is a war going on? I mean she definitely can take care of herself but still.
Now as for Reni... she's a Princess, but is she legally in line for the throne at all? She could be blocked from inheriting because she's female, OR because she's a dragon not a human. Dragons apparently don't have a formal government for her family's kingdom to ally with, and she's not exactly prime marriage bait to forge or solidify connections with another human family. (As one factor, my guess is that - relative to being mature enough for mating - she's older than Maeve but not as old as Karen. If I'm right, she's probably something like a 4th cousin 7 times removed of the current monarch.)
Spoiler! How the Nth cousin X times removed stuff works
And then... she's near the human-tiger border. Not the human-wolf border. The war has so far been between the humans and the wolves; relations between humans and tigers were apparently cordial enough that the wolves had a reasonable concern of a human-tiger alliance against them. In other words, Reni is not in an area where conflict is expected. Oh, and of course she's more capable than the average princess of taking care of herself in a trouble spot and of getting herself away from a trouble spot.
Next question: why was the Riftwall Tavern allowed to exist there, with its door to the war zone on the other side of the kingdom possibly functional - not known to be rendered nonfunctional and beyond being repaired from the other end? Why was said door not under constant armed guard, or with magical alarms on it that sound somewhere else such as the guard headquarters when anyone comes through, or secured SOMEHOW?
Seriously, that door should be in the wall of a dedicated shed, with lots of arrow-slits in the walls and magical alarms active any time there's reason to suspect violence might be going on at the other end. In which circumstances they should also lock the shed doors, so that anyone coming through can be inspected by the guard before being permitted to exit the shed.
Or the door should be permanently destroyed.
Who's at fault for this poor security? Everyone who's been the head mage of the Edinmire area, or a commander over such a mage, since the door was first created. Including both Trace and Keiren. And possibly Nora. Not Reni, she's not that good at magic yet.
Still I image reni is valuable, even if she has no claim to the throne, simply cause she is a dragon, a powerful being on itself. And she is family to the rest of the royals. I mean she might have no real authority or power but I do assume her family cares for her enough to not send her to war.
But as you point out before trace arrived Edinmire was probably the safest place for a dragon royal to actually do something useful with minimal risk.
