Bozjan lore is properly scuffed.

[Ashlyn_Ishina]

So I'm writing short stories for my character's backstory because I absolutely love creative writing and it activates all the right almonds when I get in the zone. Though within her backstory, her adoptive father was a Bozjan gunbreaker Hrothgar (original, I know.). Upon doing a deeper look in to how to write everything. I noticed a small issue.

Radovan, the mentor for the GNB questline, is quoted as saying.

To see me now, you'd scarce believe I once served as personal guard to my queen. But in the end, I couldn't protect her. I couldn't protect anyone. Not even my wife and son

So, by his own words, there was a Queen of Bozja at least fairly recently, because he is no older than like 50. Yet, during the Save the Queen questiline in Bozjan Southern Front, Delubrum Reginae, AND in Zadnor, we find out that all queens of Bozja went by the title Queen Gunnhildr and the last one died around the time of the Allagan. This means the last queen of Bozja died over 5000 years ago, yet Radovan was allegedly one of the queen's personal guards.

This, out of game, can be explained just by different writers not communicating and such, yet I came up with the backstory before the BSF stuff did what it did. So, in game, what is the proper explanation? Are there other queens and since the reformation of Bozja they just stopped calling them Gunnhildr?

[Cleretic]

I don't think there's anything saying that Bozja stopped being a monarchy, just that they eventually stopped being so weird about it. Chances are that by the time of its fall, the Bozjan royal family had lost a lot of its mythical luster and was a bit more ceremonial and more of a figurehead. Similar to what happened to... well, every real-life royal family, but most obviously to English-speaking audiences the British one.

Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't royalists--again, look at Britain. Radovan checks out, he just has less of a grandiose mythical angle and is more of a staunch loyalist to his country.

The Gunnhildr line would've hit problems the moment that there were no female heirs, anyway, which is kind of an easy roadblock for them to hit.

[Cilia]

A lot of Bozjan stuff is kept behind the Bozjan Resistance quest, Shadowbringers' relic weapon questline "Save the Queen."

Simply put, Queens Gunnhildr were not chosen how you'd think. Bozja was a highly stratified caste society (real original, Matsuno) where when it was necessary a woman from the shaman caste would be raised up to Queen Gunnhildr. So it's entirely possible for there to have been a "Queen Gunnhildr" during the time of the Imperial invasion despite the Queen Gunnhildr contemporary to Allag's fall being long dead.

Said Queen Gunnhildr was also a puppet ruler instated by her praetorian guard, Gunnhildr's Blades, to protect Bozja from being destroyed by offering herself as a sacrifice to summon a primal with Save the Queen since the old one was too scared to do it. Surprise, she had the Echo, so they killed her because with her power she was now a threat and would be doubly so if she learned she was intended to just be a sacrifice.

[Iscah]

Really it's Hrothgar lore that is a mess. We were told (as a way of excusing the lack of female character models) that women are rare and venerated as "queens" – even Hrothgars' clan concepts revolve around the idea of those bound to a queen and those "lost" without one – and yet every second one we meet seems to be mourning a lost wife and there doesn't seem to have been an effort to integrate it into Bozja at all.

It's possible that the Bozja story was written in an early time when they thought they'd have male and female Hrothgar and not the split with Viera, most noticeably since Misija has an entirely Hrothgar name but we see other minor Roegadyn characters using their standard naming conventions.

[Ashlyn_Ishina]

A lot of Bozjan stuff is kept behind the Bozjan Resistance quest, Shadowbringers' relic weapon questline "Save the Queen."

Simply put, Queens Gunnhildr were not chosen how you'd think. Bozja was a highly stratified caste society (real original, Matsuno) where when it was necessary a woman from the shaman caste would be raised up to Queen Gunnhildr. So it's entirely possible for there to have been a "Queen Gunnhildr" during the time of the Imperial invasion despite the Queen Gunnhildr contemporary to Allag's fall being long dead.

Said Queen Gunnhildr was also a puppet ruler instated by her praetorian guard, Gunnhildr's Blades, to protect Bozja from being destroyed by offering herself as a sacrifice to summon a primal with Save the Queen since the old one was too scared to do it. Surprise, she had the Echo, so they killed her because with her power she was now a threat and would be doubly so if she learned she was intended to just be a sacrifice.

I already said all of this within my first post, which shows that the Bozjan lore is scuffed cause it has two conflicting primary sources.

[Ashlyn_Ishina]

I don't think there's anything saying that Bozja stopped being a monarchy, just that they eventually stopped being so weird about it. Chances are that by the time of its fall, the Bozjan royal family had lost a lot of its mythical luster and was a bit more ceremonial and more of a figurehead. Similar to what happened to... well, every real-life royal family, but most obviously to English-speaking audiences the British one.

Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't royalists--again, look at Britain. Radovan checks out, he just has less of a grandiose mythical angle and is more of a staunch loyalist to his country.

The Gunnhildr line would've hit problems the moment that there were no female heirs, anyway, which is kind of an easy roadblock for them to hit.

The issue is that within the StQ area and line, it says that ALL Queens of Bozja are named Queen Gunnhildr. It is both a name and title.

[Ashlyn_Ishina]

Really it's Hrothgar lore that is a mess. We were told (as a way of excusing the lack of female character models) that women are rare and venerated as "queens" – even Hrothgars' clan concepts revolve around the idea of those bound to a queen and those "lost" without one – and yet every second one we meet seems to be mourning a lost wife and there doesn't seem to have been an effort to integrate it into Bozja at all.

It's possible that the Bozja story was written in an early time when they thought they'd have male and female Hrothgar and not the split with Viera, most noticeably since Misija has an entirely Hrothgar name but we see other minor Roegadyn characters using their standard naming conventions.

For the Misija part, it's because she's Bozjan. The Hrothgar we meet are all Bozjans and Bozja itself uses Slavic naming conventions. For example, Misija literally means Mission. It's the same thing that you can see with Domans and Hinganashi Hyur using Raen names.

[Iscah]

For the Misija part, it's because she's Bozjan. The Hrothgar we meet are all Bozjans and Bozja itself uses Slavic naming conventions. For example, Misija literally means Mission. It's the same thing that you can see with Domans and Hinganashi Hyur using Raen names.

That's the thing though - it's not all races of Bozjans using those names. One of the group of three Resistance fighters mocking her early in the storyline is a Roegadyn with a Roegadyn name, and the Bozjan Hyurs like Aggie and Isolde are using Midlander names. So at very least there's some confusion there.

[Ashlyn_Ishina]

That's the thing though - it's not all races of Bozjans using those names. One of the group of three Resistance fighters mocking her early in the storyline is a Roegadyn with a Roegadyn name, and the Bozjan Hyurs like Aggie and Isolde are using Midlander names. So at very least there's some confusion there.

Lilja uses a Bozjan name though and she's a Rava Viera. The resistance has more than just Bozjans there, but there ARE Bozjans there.

[Iscah]

Lilja uses a Bozjan name though and she's a Ravan Viera. The resistance has more than just Bozjans there, but there ARE Bozjans there.

Having checked, Lilja isn't in my name dictionary, though Lilia is Slavic. I'd previously assumed that it sounded in line with Viera conventions though, since both use the "j as y sound" a lot.

Viera are another special case though because their official lore is "likely to adopt a new name upon leaving their forest home". So if she moved to Bozja, she might pick a Bozjan name accordingly.

So as I said, there's confusion there at least.