Boden Argent II

King Boden Argent (a.k.a. The Silver Philosopher)

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Boden was fairly tubby, especially compared to most other Silver Kings, as he spent most of his days thinking and philosophizing as opposed to training in combat.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Boden II was born during a time of relative peace in the Silver Kingdom , with the last major battle between humans and elves over fifty years ago. This led to warfare and combat being much less of a focus during his teachings as a prince. When he became a king, he was much less interested in combat and ruling than he was about philosophizing. Fortunately, he married the ex-soldier Bethan, who took more of the responsibilities of being a king from her husband, and did such a good job that she is often considered the real king by historians. While his wife ran the Silver Kingdom, Boden went on to write a variety of books on morals, ethics, and the role of religion in a person's life. His most famous book is The Silver Code, a book that looked at the life of people within the Silver City and the similarities and differences between their morals, leading into a discussion on how one can derive morals from this. This book led to the creation of the ethical theory known as Stablism, which he would expound upon more in later books. While Stablism was never embraced by the Silver Kingdom, The Golden One took Boden's writings to heart and made it the basis for the laws of the Golden Empire.

Sexuality

Straight

Education

Boden had a robust education by tutors. His was one of the first educations of a Silver Prince that focused less on any combat skills and promoted philosophy and academics, which heavily influenced his later life choices.

Employment

Boden spent his entire life as the Silver King, or the heir apparent of the Silver King. However, his wife, Bethan, often took on more duties than him when it came to running the Kingdom.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Boden created an entire ethical code known as Stablism that would later shape the laws of the Golden Empire.

Morality & Philosophy

Boden's governing philosophy, as well as the one he created, is known as Stablism. Stablism is a code of ethics that describes moral actions as ones that do not disrupt the flow of society. He came to this conclusion in his book The Silver Code, where he analyzed a variety of people's lives within the Silver City, and found that people had a variety of moral beliefs. In order to reconcile this with his idea of unitary morality within cultures, Boden came up with the idea that people enjoyed living in a stable, safe society, and therefore actions that promoted that stability were ultimately moral. This meant actions like crime, violence, and warfare are amoral, as well as protests and civil disobedience. He later elaborated more on Stablism in later books, most notably The Myth of the First Boden, where he discusses the mythification of national heroes, like his namesake Boden I, and the role that hero characters have in society. Within the framework of Stablism, "heroes" serve the purpose of battling any outside threats to social stability while also preventing large scale un-stabilizing factors like warfare.
Stablism was not very popular during Boden's lifetime, both as many citizens of the Silver Kingdom felt that Boden was extremely lazy as his wife basically ran the Kingdom. However, another large part was the great criticism from the people of the Silver Kingdom. These criticisms include how Stablism encourages a passiveness when it comes to social issues, as attempting to change the status quo to encourage a better society, as it would disrupt the stability. Additionally, with the addition of heroes, it encourages normal people to leave all of their problems in the hands of a handful of generally privileged people, which is fairly impractical in the long run, as well as how unrealistic a world without war is. However, The Golden One would later take Stablism and morph it into an obsession with falling in line and avoiding any and all disruptions domestically, while also keeping up a constant state of warfare to create stability through that instead of continuous peace. This revised version of Stablism became much more popular than Boden's original.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Boden sought to discover the core of the morals of various people throughout the world.

Hygiene

Boden had extremely poor health, as he never spent much time moving about and would partake in large feasts in the few kingly duties he took part in. In fact, he eventually died of a heart attack, leaving his wife in charge of the Silver Kingdom until his son was of age.

Social

Religious Views

Boden believed that an organized religion was an essential part of keeping a society safe, as explained in his book The Church and Stability. He believed that a local church would act as a societal anchor, helping to remind people of the proper path to keep the society stable and safe. Various church activities, like a weekly mass, would help keep people in a nice lull to prevent them from actively disrupting society. So strong was this conviction of his that he funded many churches throughout the Silver Kingdom, leading to a high religiosity within the Silver Kingdom for centuries.

Alignment

Lawful Neutral

Species

Human

Ethnicity

Centrum

Honorary & Occupational Titles

The Silver King

Life

923 NE 972 NE 49 years old

Birthplace

The Silver Palace

Gender

Male

Eyes

Hazel

Hair

Brown, short

Height

5'6''

Weight

150 lbs

Aligned Organization

Silver Kingdom

Known Languages

Common, Elvish, and a little bit of Primordial