Ruled by the Beautiful

Didn't MtG's Lorwyn already do exactly this?

I can only imagine the fucking conspiracies are brutal. Do you know how fast a ruler who's the most beautiful would go out?

>Get into power
>The person you were running against has a goon throw acid on your face
>That goon might be arrested, but you're ugly now, you lose, your competitor is now the ruler and pardons the goon.

>Anywhere you go people are trying to secretly fuck you over so that their contacts can become slightly more beautiful and go up the ranks farther than you.

>Even if you are able to stay safe and pretty, you'll be slightly less pretty in a couple of years
>Someone else will take over and you'll be demoted because of your ugly ass.

Perfect chaos.

>>54208268

Yep. They even had assassins whose job was not to kill, but to scar, to destroy someones position within the society.

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>>54208259
You'd have to be really careful letting anyone around your face. Maybe the most beautiful would wear veils or some form of protection for faces and hair? Even getting a haircut would be super dangerous as anyone could bribe the barber/servent to administer just one wrong cut.

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>>54208310
>going out in public without wearing an elaborate costume covering all your skin, along with a mask to protect your face

>>54208259
>>54208310
Well, with Elves being semi-immortal, they don't have to worry about age ruining their beauty at least.

It works better if you also have a sub-council made of everyone above a certain level of beauty, and they have to convene to decide who is the most beautiful. That way you won't have constant turnovers every 5 minutes because somebody forgot to put on makeup or didn't sleep as well last night.

And of course, magic that could prevent scarring or disfigurement would be highly valued.

>>54208259
>How would such a society work? What would this system be called?

A meritocracy, I suppose? It's just that the 'merit' happens to be beauty. But arguably it might be what they consider themselves. Those who rule by beauty have 'earned' their position by being beautiful.

Acid flinging assassins are now a thing. Expect any still living former ruler to be hideously deformed from some sort of attack.

Additionally, beauty standards change. So I forsee the 'uglier' members of society who still have a sense of ambition will strive towards the goal of changing beauty standards in anyway they can.

>>54208482
I'm not sure I dig the idea of acid flinging assassins. That'd be a bit like a meritocracy based around putting the smarted people in positions of power, and then having them fill eachother's houses with paint fumes to make their rivals retarded. That's the sort of thing that is just going to ruin the one thing they hold most dear. If the society truly holds beauty to such an ideal, then any such attempt would likely be treated as worse than murder. It certainly wouldn't clear up space for a rival to take their place, at least not without heavy scrutiny from everyone else that suddenly the second most beautiful person is now the most beautiful.

That sort of logic also only works if you assume that beauty rankings are updated constantly, and not around once a year (which would be pretty frequent for Elves). It would have to be, since otherwise a particularly beautiful traveler could just walk into town and be made ruler on the spot. While that would be a possibility, it should still require the usual processes of actually having to vote that they're the most beautiful and have everyone officially agree to switch.

Unless they have a magic mirror that always shows them who the most beautiful person objectively is, then you'll need to have some delays. And if you do have the mirror, you want to have strict punishment to people who try to make your nation less beautiful in petty attempts to gain power. Otherwise, it'll just boil down to being Drow and the whole beauty thing will be overshadowed by them being a bunch of backstabbing assholes.

>>54208259
A beautocracy?

>>54208259
The Eloi from H.G Wells' The Time Machine.

Not so closely that they would become uninteresting of course but I think you can find ideas in there.

>>54208259
You could make this a sort of divine right monarchy by making them firmly believe that beauty is a gift of the Gods given to them as an indication that they should rule. If this is the case, you'd have a great influence of the local religion since they determine who must be in charge (with cosmic visions and prophecies, make them inhale toxic gas it's alaways better with toxic gas)

You could make it a plutocracy since only the wealthiest can afford the most beautiful gowns, jewelleries and make up. If there is magic in your universe, mages specialized in transformation would become the richest of them all since people would queue for days to buy a spell.

Or ou could do a sort of twisted democracy where the most beautiful are elected by the people, creating a state of constant battle to please the people. That could lead to political debate changing into pole dance battles. Which I like.

>>54208259
I'd imagine then that the military would exist parallel to society. Especially after a major conflict. An entire generation of men would be scarred and vilified in general society. Without a parallel hierarchy, that's a recipe for a coup d'eta.