Alsueud
Among the Alfilant, strength is often considered one of the most important elements for their leader, the Malik, to display. As such, it should come as no surprise that their notion of inherited positions of power comes with a particularly vicious slant.
When a Malik dies, their successor will not take the throne immediately in the vast majority of cases. Instead, the Malik-to-be must wait for sunset on the day of coronation, the Alsueud, to take place before they will be officially recognized as the true leader of the people. At first this may not sound so bad; a short wait before absolute power still ends in absolute power, after all. The problem is with a minor stipulation included in this wait time: Should anyone slay the heir before that all-important sunset, the killer shall take the heir's place and be officially recognized when the day arrives. And yet even this is not so simple. After all, to slay the heir is not to become the Malik. It's to replace the heir. This opens up the murderer themselves to murder, and their murderer as well, and so on and so forth.
During this period of legalized murderer, the heir will still be surrounded by guards, though they serve a decidedly different purpose during this period. Should any would-be assassins attempt to attack the heir together, in any capacity other than a fair, one-on-one kill, the usurper and all assistants forfeit their claim to the throne and will be executed on the spot. This can lead to a bit of trickiness if they suffer this fate after succeeding in their assassination, but in nearly every case there are lines of succession in place to ward off any permanent stalemates.
In any event, most individuals with an eye on the throne have learned to leave the current heir alone for the majority of the time between the prior Malik's death and the Alsueud. Anyone taking on the mantle early will simply paint a target on their backs and be forced to live with the dread of impatient murderers lurking around every corner. Instead, many will wait until the day of the Alsueud itself, limiting the amount of time other usurpers will have to follow them up and add another name to the list of dead heirs. This has become such a common practice that the Alsueud itself has become less of a day-long coronation ritual and more of a bloodsport. Alfilant will come from far and wide to watch the current heir combat those who would wrest the title of Malik from them, one after another. It is rare for the first delegated heir to survive to be crowned. Instead, the title of Malik will often go to whoever managed to best time the setting of the sun with how long it would take them to finish off the latest person in line.
Of course, every once in a very long while, someone of particularly noteworthy strength and skill will enter the line of succession - whether through bloodshed or by name - and will actually manage to take all comers, surviving wave after wave of those less worthy to rule their people. When these individuals come to power, the Alfilant can rest easy knowing that their leader is not simply the most conniving or most clever, but is truly the strongest there is.
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