The Throne Above Thrones

The Throne above Thrones is the umbilical cord of Nephele, an impossible infinite pillar that is neither real nor unreal. It is said that its first user created the world. It is said that its last user will be the last living thing in the universe, and it will be their responsibility to begin it anew. It is said that this has already happened. Every Prince is a candidate chosen by their followers and crowned by the physical laws of the Throne as the next potential one to ascend and sit upon it.

It's not really sitting, as you can imagine. In order to take control of the Throne, you must destroy the previous holder. Successful attempts always involve waiting until they have become too vast and alien to care any more about being defeated. Taking possession of the Throne obliterates the Prince's physical form immediately, expands their mind past their former personality soon afterwards, and diffuses all remnants of what made them recognizable as a mortal being within a few decades. Upon defeat, at the end of their ability to maintain their reign, a former person sitting on the throne will not die - life and death will be as meaningless to them as they are to gravity, or to mathematics, or to the fixed speed of light.

The person who takes the Throne is no longer a Prince - they are referred to, depending on gender, as a King, Queen, or Monarch. "Monarch" is the accepted gender-neutral term for any unknown or hypothetical person inhabiting the Throne. Early in their term, a Monarch may recognize their friends and retain their mortal priorities, but the Throne's work is both its punishment and its reward, and this may not last as they become more distant and godlike. Taking the Throne is irreversible, but a Monarch's hold on it is never permanent. It takes an average of twenty five to thirty years for a single Monarch to dissolve outwards and fully ascend to be interwoven with the fabric of the universe. This is how long a "reign" will last. They will then usually be unseated and the cycle will begin again. For the entire duration of a Monarch's "reign," in addition to still granting their own Court their Prince-gift, a Monarch will grant a Throne-gift, something that applies to the entire globe regardless of whether they are the Monarch's friends, enemies, or otherwise. If a Monarch of any kind is on the throne, every living person can use that Monarch's Throne-gift. This gift will not be a flashy, active, castable spell, but something broad, subtle, and passive. It will serve to make the world more in line with the way the mortal Prince wished it would be.

Here are some example Monarchs, some canonical and some not,  to get an idea of how Throne-gifts can transition and change the landscape of the globe.

- The Monarch of Unity: As a Prince, the Prince of Unity accrued a large base of power using their Court-gift that allowed all of their followers to blur together their emotions and efforts over long distances, and allowing every follower to cast each other's effort-magics. Upon taking the Throne, their Throne-gift granted a similar ability to everyone in the world. For the full 27-year reign of the King of Unity, all living people on Nephele regardless of their Court could borrow, by touch, the magic of another consenting person and cast it instead of the person it belonged to.

- The Queen of Steel: A Prince that rose through her ability to work with her enemies and even turn them to her side, The Prince of Steel's court gift was suited to a political environment rife with assassinations, as she worked to overthrow a corrupt but powerful government. She could control the metal in any weapon used against her or her people, and prevent it from doing any of them any harm. As Queen, during the 22 year reign of the Queen of Steel, no knife, gun, or other metal weapon intended to cause harm would have any effect on its target if harming that target would be a betrayal.

- The Queen of Souls: The Prince of Souls rose to prominence as a humanitarian and medical worker who contributed vastly to Nephele's understanding of medicine and healing. As she gained followers, she and her Court both became uncanny in their ability to bring the injured and disease-ridden back from the brink of death, by catching a departing soul and gently tethering it back into its mortal coil. As Queen of Souls, a new avenue of magical sight allowed medical science to discover the physical seat of the soul inside of the body, and for any mundane surgeon to be able to operate on it.

Most, if not all military conflicts on Nephele are fought by Princes directly or indirectly competing for the Throne. Taking it means needing everything that powerful people have always wanted: money, resources, land, loyalty, weapons. The Throne is the ultimate King-of-the-Hill trophy, and the cycle of bloodshed for it is perpetual. In many ways, taking the Throne is an ultimate sacrifice. It is the surrender of a person's physical body in order to buy the power to shape the face of the world for a time. In many other ways, it is the ultimate act of narcissism; a person has to believe that the entire world would be better if they were able to dictate exactly how it should be different.