The Borrowed Mandate — Custody of the Ulus¶
One ulus, one khan, one steward — and it will be us.
The third legitimacy disaster, the regency's counterpart to the Farr Proof and the Ghāzī Burden. Choosing chinggisid_regency in Age 1 is the cheap, high, easy road: monthly_legitimacy = +0.5, the tribes rally, the chancery drafts for a Borjigin seal. But the legitimacy is borrowed, and what comes under audit is not the regent but the fiction itself.
| Farr Proof | Ghāzī Burden | Borrowed Mandate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The claim | the king bears the farr | sword of the faith | steward of the khan |
| Under audit | the person's fortune | the realm's deeds | the fiction |
| Failure mode | the houses stop believing | the umma stops believing | rivalry and expiry |
The disaster (custody_of_the_ulus, displayed "The Borrowed Mandate") encodes the two ways the mandate fails, both demonstrated exhaustively in 1336–1357: rivalry (other courts hold other khans — the Jalayirid–Chupanid wars were fought over whose khan was the khan) and expiry (khans die, each replacement less credible — Muḥammad Khan, Sātī Beg, Sulaymān, puppets swapped like banners).
The two axes¶
The mandate is indivisible. A monthly census (custody_count_rivals) counts rival custodies: any other Erānzamīn member running the regency fiction or ruled by the Borjigin line. Togha Temür (GRG) is the seeded standing rival — the actual Borjigin sovereign in Khurasan, against whom every regency's fiction is junior. While any rival stands, The Duel of Khans drags per rival: a sized custody_contested modifier, −0.1 legitimacy per rival (so a 1337 field of three or four nearly cancels the +0.5 pump). Each rival you extinguish buys back a tenth of the mandate.
The mandate is mortal. This axis reuses the existing puppet-death machinery: on_borjigin_puppet_death → ilkhanate_flavor.2 (end the fiction at −100 legitimacy, or enthrone the heir), charade_counter counting successions, the sized charade_continues_mod stepping the depreciation. At four successions (rock bottom) no further enthronement is offered.
The apparatus¶
Panel buttons. The maintenance apparatus is gated on the contest going your way — you earn the fiction by drawing blood, not by spending gold:
- Press the Custody — the war handle. A picker lists every rival steward (this is the "who are the other khans" view); selecting one grants the
cb_eranzamin_successioncasus belli against them. Kills (annexing a rival, tracked viaon_military_annex→custody_kills) unlock the rest. - Demand Fealty — call a non-subject Ilkhanate Governorate to swear. Costs gold (khalʿat and gifts) + −10 legitimacy (a sole ruler need not ask) and yields +10 prestige on acceptance; the governor receives the gifts and becomes an ulus governorate. Event-based — the governor accepts or refuses by its own logic.
- Proclaim the True Custody — denounce the rivals. Gated: ≥1 kill or ≤3 rivals left; the bonus sizes with kills.
- Secure the Khan's Household — succession insurance, the Endure apparatus (ungated lifeline).
- The Khan's Name on Every Coin — the sikka fiction in silver. Gated: ≥2 kills or ≤2 rivals left.
- Summon the Kuriltai — the Sole Custody fork; needs zero rivals held 24 months.
Panel tracks: rivals standing → 0, sole-custody months / 24, successions survived / 4.
Resolutions¶
Sole Custody is a fork, not an ending. Winning the custody war gets you nothing durable — the fiction still expires. What it buys is the right to choose at the Kuriltai of Confirmation (custody.40):
- The Quiet Crown — the Shaykh Uvays move (1356): drop the fiction on your own terms, leaving
chinggisid_regencyat −25 (not the −100 panic exit). The legitimacy market opens — and the regency exclusions lift, so the Matter of Tork can now fire and Persia becomes formable. The regency as a ramp. - The Restored Yarliq — wed the golden line and make the khanate real. The Mongol endpoint; deliberately not Persia. The puppet-death cycle ends — the khan is your house now.
Endured (custody.50 — 300 months, ≥2 successions survived) is the weaker, dated fork: institutionalize the fiction permanently as the Gurkani Regime (the Timurid bargain — capped legitimacy, no pump, no step-down, no expiry, a permanent prestige/chancery ceiling), or take a late Quiet Crown at a survivor's −50.
The Fiction Expires (custody.90) — run out of credible khans (forced −100 exit at rock bottom): forced into amir_sultanate, the honest version of what the regency always was, plus a permanent diplomatic scar. The mask comes off in public.
Files¶
disasters/04_custody_of_the_ulus.txt · scripted_triggers/06_custody_triggers.txt · scripted_effects/07_custody_effects.txt · generic_actions/custody_actions.txt · events/custody_events.txt · on_action/08_custody_hooks.txt · gui/panels/disaster/custody_of_the_ulus.gui · static_modifiers/11_custody_modifiers.txt · gurkani_regime in 01_persian_reforms.txt. Full design: docs/design/custody_of_the_ulus_design.md.