Influence of invincible warriors?

The novel I'm currently working on is based on the idea of a family of invincible warriors (think Conan, or the Metabarons), who have almost no peers in the world. The strength seems to go only to the eldest child of the house and his sons, but not to their sons. For example: A has three kids, B (oldest), C and D. The three of them would be insanely strong, but only the children of B would inherit the amazing strength, with those of C and D being moderately stronger than the average human.

Note: I refer to "strength" as in "combat prowess" or "talent at killing other people", not only to raw physical power.

Problem with this setting is, I can't think of a way of turning them into the stars of the show without turning it into a case of Boring Invincible Hero, so I think I'll focus instead on how they change the lives of those around them. For example, their guards, servants, or even a group of assassins from faraway lands (ninjas, obviously) who realize that going against them is suicide.

What do you think might be a good angle to approach here? Or people who might be influenced by living near these people?

For some other information, the royal family usually stays small to avoid conflicts of power. It's set on a small kingdom located between an ever-expansionist empire to the north and a greedy confederacy to the south. They are still "sore" after a civil war twenty years before that left the country in shambles and almost caused it to be overwhelmed by invaders.

A few thoughts:

I could see various powers of one sort or another (kings, sorcerers, politicians, criminals, people who seek to rise in the world, etc.) wanting to contract them as agents of one sort or another (especially as bodyguards, assassins or one-person special-forces units); the question might be who they want to work for, who they turn down, who they're conflicted about, and why—and how those turned down or disappointed react. Regarding that last point, I note that the non-gifted children (as well as other family members, such as spouses) are potential targets for vengeance or leverage.

There's also the question of how this gift—and all the killing that it potentially incurs—affects these people. Are they psychologically affected? Do they seek out killing, or avoid it? Do they think about what might have been—whether they should have killed one or another target, or taken more such jobs, or gone forth to stop dictators, etc.?

Finally, what happens if a gifted individual—or perhaps even the whole family—decides to use their power to enact a coup d'état?

Besides the the questions the poster above me ellegantly put, there are several ways around Boring Invincible Hero you described. One is inter-rivalry between family members, other is simply having them as fearsome and extremely powerful human warriors (so they'd be humans in peak form), who could still be outmatched by supernatural threats.

Another possiblity is simply to have their enemies battle them with trickery. For instance, a enemy horde deploying a Zerg Rush against them (they might be great killers, but I'm assuming they can still be overwhelmed with numbers. Even Conan could be), poisoned weapons (or poisoned food in general), stealth assassins (they can't use their great warriorness while they're asleep, can they?) and assorted machinery (such as using trapdoors, cages, bombs, blinding lights and the works to keep them at bay).

Other two possibilities would be said family having some code of engagement of sorts against their enemies (such as, they cannot kill a defeated foe, they must hold back against all normal humans, only one family member can participate in a given war, must fight their foes in equal level or similar standards) and the family being victim of Crippling Overspecialization, with each member being invincible warriors but only in their chosen field, while sorely lacking in everythin else (great warriors, but terrible politicians) or even more specific (great archer, terrible swordsman).

They could be treated as Nukes and retained as a deterrent force, much like nuclear weapons today. Their threat lies not in their use, but in their very existence.

The purpose of war is to force your opponent to give you something you want. It's not necessarily killing him; the killing is only a means to some other end. Likewise, the point of a deterrent is to keep your enemy from attacking because he fears reprisal.

So another use would be as a one-man retaliatory strike. If your enemy crosses the border and burns a village, you send your guy to do the same to one of his. Tit-for-tat.

I would imagine that these guys would only need to be unleashed very rarely. Just seeing one on a battlefield could be enough to get the enemy to back down.

Of course, these guys would be able to command an enormous price for their service, so only the wealthiest countries could have one on long-term retainer. And if you have one, that means everybody else needs one. So you have either an arms race or a bidding war for who can have the most Conans. And if you're a smaller or poorer country, you'd need to make alliances with a country who has them in order to remain secure.

So that in turn would probably lead to several blocs of countries and their alliances centered around superwarrior deterrence. The superpowers compete with each other for bringing in lesser countries into their sphere of influence.

edited 5th Sep '14 1:48:45 PM by Lawyerdude

Thanks for the interest and sorry for the really late reply! I will try to answer all the questions.

Q: "There's also the question of how this gift—and all the killing that it potentially incurs—affects these people. Are they psychologically affected? Do they seek out killing, or avoid it? Do they think about what might have been—whether they should have killed one or another target, or taken more such jobs, or gone forth to stop dictators, etc.?"

A: I think of them as something akin to "benevolent sociopaths", if that makes sense. They do have morals and are not trigger happy, but once they think that killing someone is necessary, they feel no qualms about it. Other way of explaining it would be to say that they're immune to PTSD: when they realize that certain killings were necessary, that's the end of it. And if it wasn't, they do what they can do fix it if possible, without the gnawing of self doubt.

Q: "what happens if a gifted individual—or perhaps even the whole family—decides to use their power to enact a coup d'état?"

A: A very relevant detail that I should have mentioned is that for the last 150 years they have been the royal family in their own small country. Only now I realize that I said "the royal family" without explaining that said royal family is them.

Gaon, related to the "rules of engagement" part, they are among the most reputed warriors in the Circle of Khah, the equivalent in my world to Wuxia's Jianghu or pugilistic world, including two of the most powerful warriors in the world (to put it in One Piece's terms, think of a faction controlling an Admiral and a Yonkou at the same time, along with the shichibukai for good measure), which serves as a bit of a self imposed limitation. While not fools, they are certainly no intrigue masters, taking a friendly approach under which there's a very clear "leave me alone or else" vibe.

Excellent point about the nukes, Lawyerdude, you have given me much food for thought.

I guess that the real terror of a one man army is that it's like an engineered frankenstein-esque wolf in a perfect sheep clothing: unless you have a very precise description, it shouldn't be too hard for him to pass frontiers unnoticed, especially if they have the resources of even a small kingdom as backup for false papers and such. Perhaps because of that they'd be spied all the time, and any of them getting out of the radar enough to trigger panic in the neighboring countries. If one of them disappeared, he could appear anywhere: he's not a 10 feet tall demon that you can see from a mile around, he might be that shepherd, or that minstrel, or the vagabond beggar on the corner. And when that happens, even if you know they can be killed with enough numbers, probably no country has enough soldiers to keep all their strategic assets fully guarded for long periods of time.

What happens if one of them dies without having any children? Does the line of invincible warriors end, or does it somehow get passed on to one of their siblings?

It gets passed to the next in line. Another important aspect is that it doesn't discriminate between those born into wedlock or out of it, it's only the order in which they were born that matters.

Is there a limit to how far it can be passed? Like if the current family all dies (Rock falls etc.) could it be passed to some old geezer that happened to be a cousin of the last holder?

Yes, the source of their strength is not genetics but something of a mystical nature.

What exactly is the gift? Is it an independent being or thing or just a phenomenon?

So is there only one invincible warrior at a time, with their strength passing to their firstborn when they die, or is it a one-invincible-warrior-per-generation sorta thing?

Regardless, having only 1 - 3 of these guys at a time means that, if they're actually travelling around doing the fighting and killing they do best, then they're not back home making sure everything runs ship-shape. I can see a scenario where the invincible warrior(s) could be out conquering enemies and kicking ass, but have to stay home almost all of the time because you can't have your Head of State disappearing for weeks or months at a time. I can also see a scenario where the invincible warrior(s) do spend a lot of time fighting, but the minister(s) they have running things while they're gone get used to being top dog and come to resent being subservient to the invincible warrior(s). This could lead the minister(s) to manufacture conflicts in foreign lands so that the invincible warrior(s) spend most of their time on the battlefield and as little time as possible at home, allowing the minister(s) to run things pretty much how they want.

edited 7th Sep '14 10:00:14 PM by RavenWilder

Q: "What exactly is the gift? Is it an independent being or thing or just a phenomenon?"

A: The gift is the last remnant of energy of a massive demon that was summoned a couple hundred years back. The founder of the dinasty was a female general who fought him while another army stormed the fortress of the sorcerer who summoned him. With the man dead, the demon returned to its own plane, but before doing that he cursed/ blessed (YMMV) the general, ensuring that at least shreds of his essence would remain into the world.

Q: "So is there only one invincible warrior at a time, with their strength passing to their firstborn when they die, or is it a one-invincible-warrior-per-generation sorta thing?"

A: The strength goes to all the sons of the current descendant, but only his first born will transmit that strength to his descendants.

Example: A is the first born of the previous representative of the dynasty. He has three sons, B, C and D. The three of them are amazingly strong, but only B's sons will inherit his strength, while the sons of C and D will be stronger than average, but far from those of the main line of the family, and their sons will be normal humans.

It's very strange for a demon to bestow anything without a price. What's the price for the gift, I wonder.

So far you've considered how kingdoms might use the family but they could act as a faction in their own right, like a royal family or noble house but without such large lands. They could easily build up enough power to achieve their aims without always resorting to violence. Since most kingdoms would want to stay on good terms with the family they could end up occupying land within or between other factions and have a lot of freedom within these countries even if they aren't technically nobility. I'd imagine they would be treated like foreign royalty since they have no title within the countries but still a lot of power. On the other hand if they don't have such a desire to build wealth or have some kind of hidden aims they could travel around completing their own goals without interruption from the kingdoms.

The neighbouring kingdoms wouldn't just be worried about them allying with the enemy but also them simply causing trouble, if a noble angers one of them you could lose a noble family, cause a misunderstanding and have one of your villages destroyed, ect... I'd imagine the kingdoms would give them a lot of leeway on the condition they don't resort to violence but of course they can only go so far.

"It's very strange for a demon to bestow anything without a price. What's the price for the gift, I wonder." This reminded me of Ravenor, from the Tabletopgame/Warhammer40000 inquisition novels. A major super-daemon possesses a member of the party, and when discovered proceeds to heal an incurable disease from the member of the party who discovers this. When the inquisitor later confronts her, she says "He healed me! What kind of daemon does that!?" Inquisitor's answer: "A clever one"

I'm also a fan of morally grey demons and angels, so not because he was summoned and forced to fight against humans does it mean that he has any particular ill will towards them, maybe he was a bit of a Punch-Clock Villain, I haven't decided yet.

"They could easily build up enough power to achieve their aims without always resorting to violence." Yes, I agree on this one. Their stance is usually one of "live and let live", and when they get annoyed the most efficient solution is usually to stay out of their way and let them cool off. It reminds me of a Conan The Barbarian comic, where the stygians managed to anger Conan so much that he took all of his armies and marched there to ask for explanations. The armies of the countries that stood between Aquilonia and Stygia wisely decided to look to the other side.

Also, they ARE royalty in their own country, even if they don't have the insane pedigree of the nobility of neighboring countries.

edited 8th Sep '14 5:06:50 PM by Gamabunta