Queen Ptraci II

Queen Ptraci II, or Ptraci the Short-Tempered, was a monarch of Inutilia in 1720. She founded the House of Marinis, the most recent dynasty; she also revived the monarchist regime after it was ended in 1465 and replaced with a series of Patricians (or Matricians, in the case of Lady Isobel Swordfish).

She was the first feminist ruler of the country, and also the last, having copped a lot of criticism for her discriminatory set of regulations that prevented men from having any say in running the kingdom at all.

Early life
Ptraci grew up in the neighbouring country of Valan. At the age of 13 she was told the secret that was passed down to oldest children of her entire family: namely, that they were direct descendants of King Horatio X, the last monarch in the Teppican Dynasty, who was overthrown by a population sick and tired with the bad governance of the previous monarchs. Proof of the direct lineage were a very unmystical sword, which she promptly learned to use; and an old rusty ring with the Inutilian seal embossed on it.

Upon hearing her family history, Ptraci did what no member of her family had ever done before: decided to do something about it, and regain her birthright. Due to the political situation she knew it would be safe for her to march into the city and announce herself - over the last forty-odd years, Inutilia had drained its military resources and lost two-thirds of its male population.

Rise to power
Ptraci travelled to the capital city, Dimidium Apis, in 1718. She attempted to get a non-suspicious job in the City Watch, where her prowess with edged weapons swiftly became very useful indeed. Unfortunately a female police officer wielding a dirty great sword drew a lot of attention, and eventually the captain regarded her as deeply suspicious, so he had her dragged up to the palace to explain herself to Lord Orange, the Patrician, in 1720.

Ptraci had been expecting this for a while, and had secretly enlisted most of the palace staff in her personal army and given them all weapons. Upon entering the throne room she announced her identity, and demanded that Lord Orange resign and allow her to take up her rightful position as queen. She also drew attention to the fact that the greater part of the city now bore arms in her name, and that she had arranged for most of them to be directly outside the palace. Because of her use of the gunboat diplomacy technique, he was forced to back down.

Singular regulations
Queen Ptraci soon received a lot of support from the female population of Inutilia as she passed a variety of laws giving women equal opportunities to men, putting Inutilia well ahead of any other country in regards to equal rights. This included a rule stating that the oldest child of a monarch would inherit the throne regardless of gender.

However, she went beyond this and passed a second set of rules severely limiting opportunities for men. As the Silver Wars had decimated the male population, she could get away with this without becoming unpopular; the general consensus amongst female citizens was 'see how you like it'.

Her daughter, Juliet III, inherited the throne in 1782, and reversed all of her mother's sexist laws.