Imperial Bloodline
The Imperial Bloodlines are semi-fictional constructs relating to the Kaisership of Shireroth, serving as both a convenient shorthand for the true identity of a Kaiser, and as a fictional blood connection to all the other Kaisers.
Each bloodline represents a lineage of Kaisers, supposedly descended from Kaiser Raynor I, the mythical founder of Shireroth.
Origins and Use of the Bloodlines
According to the Fictional History, the founder of Shireroth and the first Kaiser, Raynor I, had three children.
The first was a daughter, and the other two were sons.
At the time of his death, succession by females was not allowed, and so the elder brother became Kaiser as Brrapa I.
However, this apparently did not prevent descendants of Raynor's daughter, or of his other son, from being eligible for the Kaisership, because after the death of Brrapa's son Erik I, the Kaisership was passed to a descendant of Raynor's daughter.
Each of Raynor's children was the progenitor of one of the Bloodlines, and these in turn branched off into yet other Bloodlines.
It seems likely that any of the descendants of Raynor I must belong to an Imperial Bloodline, documented or not, and would thus theoretically be eligible for the Kaisership.
This helps to explain the present real-life use of Bloodlines in the Kaisership. Because of the processes by which the Crown is passed on (see Kaiserial Succession), a relatively large number of individuals have managed to be Kaiser at one time or another, most of whom have done so several times.
Given that most Shirerithians like to at least pretend like their institutions are real, this brings up the interesting problem of individuals becoming Kaiser, reigning for a few months, leaving, then coming back later, a most un-monarchical sort of behavior.
The rationalization for this, in the context of the fictional background, is that it is not that an individual is coming back as Kaiser multiples times under different names; it is simply that the Kaisers in question are members of the same lineage!
As a result, each Kaiser becomes either a member of a pre-existing Bloodline, or begins a new one, and future Kaiserial incarnations of that individual are generally of the same lineage. As a result of this, most Bloodlines in current use can be identified with a single person, or with a specific set of people.
Individuals who are new to being Kaiser are either given a place in an older Bloodline, or found a new one. It is traditional for each Bloodline to have a set of reign names unique to it, from which Kaisers of that Bloodline will draw upon. For instance, the Line of Raynor uses only one name; all reigning members are called Raynor (e.g. Raynor I, Raynor VI,
Raynor X).
The Major Bloodlines
The following is a list of all the Major Bloodlines of Shireroth,past or present. Several of the Bloodlines are fictional (and most of them have some fictional members), having existed prior to the actual founding of Shireroth.
It should also be kept in mind that these are not the only Bloodlines; they are only Major by virtue of having produced Kaisers, but there are supposedly many minor Bloodlines,each descended from Raynor I, which are not named in any chronicle.
Theorganization of the bullets on the list reflects the descent of each Bloodline.
