[Dragaera] Gambling/Drug Use in a Jhereg Reign

[Scott Schultz]

On 8:37 AM Alain Feeny wrote:
>> Then again,
>> there is only 1 recorded case of an emperor being assassinated, so
>> presumably things get worked out.

>We don't know how all of the other successions occurred.

Paarfi, in talking about the history of the Palace, IIRC, tells about an
Emperor who was killed by falling masonry. The fellow who took the Orb was a
Vallista who also happened to be the architect who was managing the
construction of the beginnings of the Palace.

While Paarfi doesn't make any inferences from this event, it's suggestive of
an assassination that succeeded by exploiting the sort of weakness that Vlad
exploited in order to pass the lie detector test. An archstone isn't a
threat in and of itself, so the Orb wouldn't have any reason to protect an
Emperor from it. If anyone could Rube Goldberg up a contraption that looked
innocuous but was actually deadly, it would be a Vallista.

Accident or assassination, it seems reasonable that the Orb learned
something from the event and that a successful repetition of it is unlikely.