Re the n-emperor problem, Vlad's _Yendi_-era offhand remark about reborn Phoenixes is in my view simply not good evidence. For one thing, it's Vlad, and for another it's _Y_-era. Perhaps more convincingly, we know that there have been only two R-Phoenixes, as we learnt at the beginning of _PG_ (conveyed in Paarfi's highest mode, by the way), so one can't make much of a claim. For that matter, Zerika the First doesn't apply. So you're basically arguing from Tortallik/Z_IV, which is as likely a Great Cycle edge-effect as anything else. And even if it weren't, the House Phoenix is simply different from the others. Incidentally, I wonder what will happen after a cycle of Great Cycles... On Tue, 12 Aug 2003, Jon Carey wrote: > > I believe I have solved the question of how many rulers any given reign can > have, and that answer is: multiple. It may be the case that only one ruler > reigns before the cycle turns, but it's possible that that is a rarity, > judging from this excerpt, which I will paraphrase. It comes from _Yendi_ > on page 64. > > Basically, Vlad makes a comment that indicates that the only way to tell if > a Phoenix is a reborn Phoenix is if they turn decadent at their reign or > not. > > Now this doesn't immediately answer the question at hand, but it *implies* > something that is almost irrefutable--the comment implies there is confusion > as to the nature of the Phoenix Emperor, but that simply cannot be, if there > is only one Emperor per reign. Otherwise, the second consecutive Phoenix to > rule would inevitably be the "reborn" one. As it is, this indicates that > there are successive "decadent" Phoenixes, and from there, we may > extrapolate that there are consequently successive rulers in other houses > too.