I abolutely love this game! Ive actually played this game using playing cards in a very very similar way and is great to see it done well!
This is approximately how I played the game(i changed it frequently to try and mke it better/experiment):
Take pack of cards
Seperate face cards from numbers
one black king red queen start at the top with a token on king for ruling
players can play from a deck of face cards to 'marry' other cards(place next to).
Also can play to 'birth' kids if married, first kid is first heir etc.
draw from the 'destiny deck' of the number cards, lower than 3 kills the top row of people and pass the ruling token down to the heir.
aces can be used to assassinate/kill people who are married to try and edge your dude in.