What are the governments of the major nations in your setting like, where did you take inspiration from? And do they have any novel ways of handling succession? Me, I just take GoT and change the names and some details around.

>>95664221 (OP)
Vassel Families are those families who have the ability to be selected as Imperial Consorts. All of them are connected by blood to the Imperial Family who trace their direct descent from the original Emperor.

In a special ritual, the Consort is taken the Palace Grave of the original Emperor to receive his blessing, but in reality they are partially possessed by the original Emperor which helps him to maintain his immortality along with the indirect worship by way of the Civil Faith which teaches the importance of loyalty and patriotism to the Empire and its values.

>>95664221 (OP)
>oligarchic republic with a hereditary royal as the head of the navy and democratically chosen senate leader as the head of state (not-africa superstate that invades not-europe but the military contingent and colonists get cut off from the main empire)
>feudal monarchy -> revolutionary republic -> total anarchic shitshow (historical france but things go worse)
>theocratic empire that falls apart every century or two when a new polytheist deity rises into prominence and the ruling priest class gets replaced in popular rebellion (china if the taiping heavenly rebellion was successful but jesus was just a part of a pantheon)
>feudal japan but the emperor hasn't been totally sidelined so the military government is stuck in an eternal war against the imperial family with the land infested by demons (feudal japan)
>lich empire where the only sentient being is the lich king (horatio from endless spacce)
>typical gaggle of feudal monarchies and merchant republics
that pretty much covers it.

A republic where able-bodied people are barred from holding office. It was founded on the idea that the only people fit to lead are those ehove experienced real adversity, and/or have the capacity for self sacrifice, as a normie would have to blind themselves or cut off limbs to be eligible. Unfortunately, as the years go by the government still becomes corrupt and self serving, only now it's infested with depraved amputee fetishists.

>>95664221 (OP)
>What are the governments of the major nations in your setting
Doesn't matter one fucking bit, because the PCs don't operate on such level anyway.
>where did you take inspiration from
Nowhere. My players don't care, meaning I don't need to bother.
>And do they have any novel ways of handling succession
Doesn't affect the game in the slightest.

>>95664221 (OP)
>What are the governments of the major nations in your setting like?
We've only really interacted with the government of one nation so far but that nation is disintegrating so there's a bit going on.
>Previously the nation was a continent-spanning, multi-ethnic empire, ruled as a standard feudal monarchy with a patchwork of powerful dukes, barons and other peers below the emperor.
>After a recent revolt, the previous emperor, his heir, the entire capital city and several of the revolting lords along with their armies were destroyed by powerful dark magic unleashed by the emperor. This was enough to shock people into seeking peace and the emperor's infant grandson was established as emperor with a regency council formed of various nobles from both sides, the former rebels having a slight upper hand. The (current) powerlessness of the emperor, the general horror at what his grandfather unleashed and the ambitions of the various lords from across the realm lead to the formation of a parliament to govern the nation, in concert with the regency council.
>The campaign started with the young emperor just entering his majority and sparking a civil war as he tries to claw back his power.
>The emperor controls the south-east of the realm, as an absolute monarchy backed by a royalist/bourgeois alliance.
>The far south is in the middle of a Reign of Terror-style revolution by radical pseudo-socialists.
>The east, west and heart of the realm are in complete chaos with various nobles supporting each side or just out for themselves. Broadly this is the area that wants a return to the parliamentary system or traditional feudal rule with powerful local lords. The east in particular has a bit of a religious revival thrown into the mix too.
>The north has seceded, the former duke has declared himself khan and the duchy is returning to the semi-elective monarchy they used prior to incorporation into the empire.

>>95664221 (OP)
>partially possessed
How "partial" is said possession?

>>95664221 (OP)
I’m thinking of making a nation in my setting that, instead of having a hereditary monarch, passes on the throne to a member of one of the noble houses who has passed certain trials that weeded out the candidates less-suited to the role. The only problem is that I’m having trouble thinking of suitable challenges. One idea I had was a series of mock battles to test their skill in military campaigns, along with maybe a test of their personal capabilities in combat, and possibly something tied to the economy, but what else might work, not to mention the process of administering the trials?

>>95664928
What a retarded faggot ass idea. I miss the time before the Enlightenment when we didn't have these goofy ahhh morality and opinions

>>95665038
Ah, you want the no lore game, that thread is a few pages down.

>>95664221 (OP)
By and large, you mostly see a variety of republics as far as generally recognized states go. Many of the republics are fairly exclusionary on who precisely gets to vote, usually either the nobility or at least pure-blooded humans. Smaller communities exist in frontier locations, usually tribes with chiefs or other communities managed by the local big man. There are monarchs, but the nobility have eroded the divine right of kings for centuries.
Certain countries claim to be democratic republics with universal suffrage, but in practice this means a republic of nobles with extra steps and backroom dealings. The average citizen has little say in politics beyond their immediate neighborhood, and members of broad underclasses have nearly zero political freedom.
These states obviously prioritize their own sovereignty above all else, but sub-priorities include maintaining peace with/control over nominally rogue elements within their land, keeping the nobility from committing espionage and murder against one another, and limiting the presence of reality-destabilizing events.

>>95664221 (OP)
My setting has 3 major nations.

One is a mix of the Barbary States with the Italian princely states. The second is a fundamentalist religious state that's sorta Mormonism meets the Holy Roman Empire. The third is a straight up chivalric, fairy-tale kingdom.

The fairy-tale kingdom discovered a new continent. It claimed the frontier and the other two states aren't exactly going to war, but they're racing to settle/prostelytize/exploit it. It's very much the American frontier under the rule of something like the Crusader States' feudal system. Where people think they rule from far away and they get some money, but it's really a state of anarchic and exploitative "fuck those guys" strongmen in charge.

>>95672337
Ah, you want to deliberately miss the point to bump the useless thread

>>95674653
>If you don't agree with my extreme reductionism, it must just be beyond you
Your regurgitated some hyperbolic, reductionist nonsense instead of having a thought of your own, anon. No one missed your point. They ignored it 'cuz you're tedious.

I usually run either WFRP or something historical, so the governments are already set for me.

>>95664221 (OP)
I like the idea of a government where magic users are ultimately in charge, and really think that we should see such governments more often. What are some good examples of such of such governments in existing settings beyond Harry Potter’s Ministry of Magic?

>>95675373
>Basic-ass diagram
>Extreme reductionism
Were you home-schooled?

>>95665038
holy fuck, you're really cool, dude

>>95677155
I feel you. Especially in settings where magic ability is genetic, it just makes sense that royal families would want magic to strengthen their lines.

>>95677155
Well, there's an isekai manga setting where the countries are governed by monarchy where each different family has a different magical power that is passed down by blood and the aristocracy is usually made out of people that married outside the magical bloodline that still can use magic to an extent, but not the bloodline specific spells. It's pretty much pretty close to your average medieval/exploration era setting, because said powers can get pretty specific like teleportation or enchancing magic that already exists.

Whoever has one of the big magic swords rules their kingdom.
Those who hold the swords are immortal and can only be killed by battle.
The swords can only be drawn by the person that killed the last master of the blade.
Those who hold the swords cannot fight another Sword Lord or even draw their blade while another is present and must rely on their servants to wage war against their rivals.
No Sword Lord can ever turn down a duel.

>>95683304
>Well, there's an isekai manga setting
What's the name please?

The government in the campaign we're currently running is an aristocratic meritocratic confederacy. Took a lot of inspiration from Renaissance Italy. City states run by successful families that managed to dominate some kind of industry or do very well militarily. The presiding culture around this values results over rhetoric and political maneuvering is seen as distasteful.

If you're a great house but fuck up enough, the common people will "throw their lot" in with another house that they believe in more, where their "lot" is a kind of social currency. Lose enough lots and you'll find fewer and fewer people to do business with.

This set up makes for a great setting for adventurers/mercenaries since shit has to get done off the books while still being beneficial to the family who hired you.

>>95672293
You need to have logic puzzles too. Have the tests governed by some ostensibly hands-off or higher authority, like the church or a congress of representatives from powerful families.

Medieval England with a generic fantasy blend

>>95686767
>Medieval France with a generic fantasy blend

>>95664221 (OP)
>a space republic
>in a cold war with a space empire
dont need more

>>95677155
There is an anime/manga called Irregular at Magic High School. Ignoring the typical overpowered MC who also fucks/marrys his sister there are some neat world building ideas in it.

Japan is ruled by several families who not only are very powerful users of the science magic of the setting but also have their own bloodline specific magic that sets them apart and effectively allows them to rule parts of the economy/society.

There is also the fact that your magic could be good enough you are considered a walking Nuke and get drafted by the government to be their trump card.

>>95672306
>I miss the time before the Enlightenment
>why yes, you gave the right to rape my bride before the wedding

>>95664221 (OP)
Touhou campaign, so basically anarcho capitalism where the human village is controlled by rich merchant families that are in bed, often literally, with Youkai.

>>95677155
I can tell you about my original government that I built around my hard magic system. Its users can only make new scripts once the magic system randomly chose them to become its new users. To evolve their powers and stay organized between peers, they have organized into guilds that claim populations as their tributaries in exchange for their service.

Normal citizens of a tributary, who are called 'villains', have many responsibilities to their guild, but they all share in the requirement to learn about the magic system, and to make the scripts that the guild wants them to so that they can join the guild and access its practical and magical resources. Guilds prefer a supplemental role in the government while always being too important to ever be separate from it, like a church or corporation, leaving the rest to the 'nobles' because direct leadership over the masses means taking on twice the responsibilities and accountability just for egotistical reasons. That doesn't mean that they don't have a say in all the important parts of the government like diplomacy or tax policy, they just know that villains are best left to manage themselves while they endlessly negotiate with the nobles and other guilds for wealth, scripts, and villains.

There used to be no escape from the power imbalances that create villainy, or the insignificance, servitude, or genocides that all come with it, until someone learned how to permanently destroy the limited sparks that empower binders. To save as many people as possible, as fast as possible, they're not just doing it to the binders that willingly destroy, they're also doing it to any other binders they find, even if they have to kill them first. The system of villainy is one where nobody matters, not even binders, which's why these fanatics accuse everyone else of being a "villain" for refusing to help them righteously bring a permanent end to the existence of binders.

>>95664221 (OP)
Nominally-A-Democracy, the country has all the democratic institutions, and goes through song and dance of campaigns and elections. In reality the power is in hands of two branches of noble house that take turns in offices and cooperate to A) prevent rise of any "third faction" B) keep foreign observers convinced they are doing democracy to prevent military intervention to instill democracy. Think prelude to Wars of the Roses interrupted by looming threat of modern day USA dropping Gulf War on their ass.

>>95688127
I'll bite, and ask for more details on this setting

>>95686688
>>95683304
Risou no Himo Seikatsu or The Ideal Sponger Life. It takes a couple of chapters for the actual political stuff to get going, but it goes deep into it when it does start.

>>95689766
Thanks for the tip!

>>95664221 (OP)
Well, if gods are real in a fantasy setting, then logically theocracies should be more common. Do you have any in your own worlds, and what are some good examples of this to get ideas from besides Warhammer?

>>95677802
Nah, that diagram is an often-useful rule of thumb. To confuse it with something universally applicable that everyone else has to live by is utter retardation though. Chatbot-tier faggot that OP is you're still a waste of space in your own right.
>>95664928
Neat inversion of the usual "one must be whole of body to be king" you sometimes see irl. Not exactly plausible but very flavoursome. I could see it evolving from some otherwise-disqualified crippled tyrant's rewriting of body-purity laws, especially if there is an emperor / shogun like divide between the sacred yet apolitical inviolates and more "practical" stewards.

>>95686825
>who also fucks/marrys his sister
That wasn't too out of the ordinary in the past, but still gross.

>>95701183
I know. It's just funny juxtaposed against the typical harem bullshit where all the female characters want the MC's dick. That said, in this particular case, some of them are doing so with orders from their families to bring him in because he is a powerful magic user while others do catch actual feelings for him

>>95664221 (OP)
Small Town in a State in Midwest United States, so a Federal Republic, I guess.
God. I need to read up on how town hall meetings work.

>>95664221 (OP)
I have a Space setting with a Republic that basically America. Though there a few changes. The classic Heinlein "Service Guarantees Citizenship" is in. As well as a even more heavy gun/militia culture. (Basically, some sectors have only a few bigger naval ships and the rest are the militia due to their skill. Especially in the frontier)

>>95664221 (OP)
The main empire is ruled by the family that originally liberated the people 1600 years prior. Otherwise, depending on political mood it is a Republic run by a Senate. In fact, the bureaucracy runs the system and the Senate or Emperor are somewhat symbolic. It's based on Italian and French politics and is explicitly post-Roman.
Their cultural cousins are a distributed merchant republic with a debating body of representatives from each Great House (bloodlines) and Guild (econ.). Other nations in the world include a Corporate Shogunate (self explanatory), a hermit kingdom no one knows much about and several other kingdoms.

>>95664221 (OP)
Holy Roman Empire and Papal States, Byzantine Empire with extra theoracy, Crusader States.
The empire hasn't actually had an emperor in about 40 years but all the kings, dukes, counts et.c. use loyalty to the Imperial Throne as an excuse not to start wars over petty bullshit.

>>95664221 (OP)
>3 kingdoms
>King Olrig of Nordosk, rules the northernmost nation. its cold, harsh land and not good for farming but has generous bounty of game, a beautiful inner sea and swathes of alpine forests and mineral rich land. a land of warriors, hunters and craftsmen. all obligatory gingers and blondes with blue and green because muh vikings and shieeet

>King Bardos of Al-Sharaz, rules the south-westernmost kingdom. a hot and dry land with few natural resources, most of the civilization runs along the rivers coming from Mt. Shiver in Nordosk. the lands along the rives are incredibly fertile. breadbasket of the continent. holds the secrets to glasswork, porcelain and silk. their warriors are both combatants and artist-performers. a land of rich culture and nurturer of the arts. the greatest merchants hail from here.

>King Corvan III of Gothonia, rules the western kingdom, a swampy and humid land. think Arthurian England but Gothic-- no not The Empire from Warhammer Fantasy, more Hot Topic Goth. the weather is bleak and shitty, its always raining all the time. exotic and oftentime magical creatures, plants and crystals grow in this place. the people here are well learned about herblore, witchcraft, sorcery and divination. everything has a price here, just not money. locks of hair, small vials of blood, oaths of moments and pacts signed under the full moon are the common means of exchange.

>>95699564
>Projecting this hard things that aren't even there
Must be tough being you, mate

>>95664221 (OP)
I’d like to give a few nations in my fantasy setting democratic governments, what do I need to remember when doing so?

>>95705406
How they achieved democracy, what the alternatives are (and were), and what competing ideologies exist in the world.

>>95664221 (OP)
Governments? They were gone a long time ago. There's not a road in sight and the corporate warlords are at a stalemate because using their recrational nukes on each other would lead to stock price collapse.

>>95664221 (OP)
>Governments
>Nations
I hate how many fantasy settings approach world building with an implicit post-Westphalian legal theory

In the main continent we have
>Faction-States
Feudal polities where smaller lords declare fealty to a more powerful lord, creating a "faction" named after the higher lord's dynastic name, which is usually some form of noun with a backstory e.g. Wolfhunter Faction, Dogwood Faction, Thorned Conch Faction, etc. Succession varies by family tradition.
>The Empire
There is only one on the main continent and it goes by many names. It was founded when a Genghis Khan/Alexander the Great type of guy from across the Converging Seas invaded with his armada and conquered much of the mainland. A random faction lord fled to the mountains with the remnants of his and his vassals' defeated armies. A vision from God in the form of a guiding light led him on an adventure, where he found a magic spear. After waging a reconquista with the help of the militant mountain kingdom that hosted them, the not-Pope declared him supreme emperor by God's decree and protector of the realm. The Empire is ruled by his descendants and those of his vassal-generals. tl;dr Charlamagne killed Genghis Khan with a magic spear and earned the Mandate of Heaven. Bro had a ton of wives so succession can be messy with a history of Ottoman-style mass fratricides. At the current stage of the setting, the Empire only has two recognized heirs and the line is vulnerable.
>Mountain Kingdoms
Tributary but otherwise autonomous fortress-states ruled by a military caste. Often make war with one another but will just as readily team up in temporary alliances when greater threats come. Each fortress-state's warrior-king is advised and spiritually guided by a revered woman thought to be the vessel of a storm goddess due to esoteric omens and a very specific menstrual cycle. The king can be challenged to mortal combat by any of his subordinates if they think they're stronger and more fit to rule.
cont.

>>95707695
>The Clans
On the fringes of the Empire. A relatively egalitarian society, where the good of the clan and one's fellow clansman is paramount. Clan chieftains and their families are not considered nobility, they just happen to be people whose job it is to coordinate the town's logistics and tend to pass those skills onto their sons. Their relationship with their "underclans" is more paternalistic than master-subordinate. Highly superstitious and animistic. Tend to harbor long-standing feuds with rival clans that manifest into skirmishes and raids during "fighting season."
>Cabals
Situated on an isthmus separating the Sea of Spices from the rest of the Converging Seas. Ruled by mafia-like Cabals that conspire against each other to consolidate full control over the flow of trade through the isthmus. Slavers, bankers, mercenaries, privateers, traders. Their god is money but the most valuable currency is flesh. The best "breeding stock" are used to cultivate corps of all-female elite slave soldiers who are indoctrinated and trained from birth, then surgically desexed at puberty. Like if Gaddafi's all-female honor guard were the Unsullied.
>Mariner-Kingdoms
Seafaring nomadic fleet "kingdoms." Their natures vary by kingdom- Some are piratic, some ferry trade, some are just vibing, some will do anything for the right price.

>>95674653
>Ah, you want to deliberately miss the point to bump the useless thread
Don't worry. OP will keep this thread bumped with inane bullshit whenever it hits page 10, keeping it around for weeks.

>>95706090
Monarchy is a type of government. Nation is a catch-all for organized territory, it doesn't imply a post-Westphalian nation-state.

>>95711665
If a thread isn't full of autismal pedantry, is it even /tg/?

>>95706090
Government in this context just means how a society is organized, or "governed." Nation in this context means polity rather than nation-state.

>>95701454
>I need to read up on how town hall meetings work.

As someone who has spent the majority of my adult life working for various governments in my experience they don't.

>>95664221 (OP)
>North-West kingdom of nomadic warriors
There are seven major noble houses/clans ruling the lands. Every 5 years they have an organized war where they fight for the throne at the capital, which is a holy place and an impregnable citadel. They do that because murder was the only way to free the capital and they found it dishonorable and the situation was out hands. Despite that they maintained a big tradition of assassins and every house has men posted at capital, ready to plant a dagger in the back of any King who would refuse to leave at the end of his term.
The King doesn't have that much legal power, but the capital and the land that goes with it are very rich. For that reason it isn't even the head of the house who sits on the throne, some send their first prince, others who possess more power in their lands don't even bother and send a secondary prince to serve a glorified governor and collect taxes.
In theory every minor house can participate, claim the throne and eventually become a major player but the current gap in power is too large.

link for sharing Arthur C. Clarke insists that large galactic governments are impossible because of their intolerable complexity. This is based upon a simple truth: As population grows arithmetically, the number of possible interactions rises geometrically.

But all such attempts to showcase the "numbing complexity" of galactic government are unconvincing because information flows in interstellar empires needn't be all that serious, though we'll obviously need computer-bureaucrats to handle most of the red tape.

Since silicon microcircuits can theoretically process ten billion times more data than human neurons, pound for pound and bit for bit, then maybe with computer help humans could run empires ten billion times larger than the historical imperial scale. The pre-computer Roman and British Empires ruled 30 million and 300 million people, respectively, before becoming too large. Perhaps a galactic empire using electronic administrators could handle 1019 people before it got too cumbersome. That's a billion planets with ten billion inhabitants each!

According to Mosca's Rule: "The larger the political community, the smaller will be the proportion of the governing minority to the governed majority." Roberto Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy" goes still farther; asserting that growing political systems, especially empires, invariably evolve into more oligarchic (rule by the few) forms of government. So while democratic or republic empires are possible, as they grow they will slowly but implacably drift towards autocracy.

Specialization leads to hierarchy and span of control. Hierarchy means levels of increasing managerial specialization, each level having supervisors of equal responsibility. Span of control is the number of subordinates administered by each supervisor.

>>95717025

Studies of government and private organizations show that the number of hierarchical levels and the span of control tends to increase as the whole system expands, but also that the two are complementary. For a given size, a wider span of control means fewer levels are needed above and below each span, producing a broad "flat" organizational pyramid. More levels means small spans suffice, giving a narrow "tall" organization with tighter control from the top. Humans seem naturally to prefer rather tall organizations, perhaps partially due to our simian heritage of vertical troupe dominance chains. Sentient extraterrestrials evolved from carnivorous cats or intelligent octopi, solitary creatures by nature, would favor flatter organizational structures.

The best human organizations have spans of five subordinates per supervisor. Using this figure, a galactic empire controlling ten billion planets having ten billion inhabitants each would require at least 21 hierarchical levels. It is well known that human organizations with more than 6-8 levels become excessively bureaucratic.

If we optimistically assume that a control span of 100 subordinates can be achieved for, say, human policymakers, then the number of hierarchical levels can almost be halved - from 21 down to 11. The structure of Sir Roger's bustling empire might then look something like pic related.

>>95717035

Even with all this mechanized assistants, the Emperor will have absolutely no contact with non-interstellar personnel. His relationship with his magistrates would not be unlike those between the United States President and the mayors and city managers of American cities. To the Galactic Emperor, the starkeepers, each responsible for 100 worlds, will seem much as U.S. citizens appear to their President - with only a very rare audience being granted. Planetary governors are "the rabble."

Organizational specialist studying "control loss theory" say that in tall, human-like galactic organizations, memos would have to travel down through so many channels that most orders from top to bottom levels could be almost totally degraded to noise by they time they arrive. Economist Oliver Williamson devised a simple model to predict how goals generated at the top of a hierarchy are implemented at the bottom after passing down a number of levels in the chain of command.

If each message, on average, passes through a level 95% intact, then Williamson would claim that since orders must change hands 10 times, Sir Roger's Empire is (0.95)10 = 60% effective in carrying out its aims. At 85% per level (Williamson's lower limit based on studies of actual human organizations), effectiveness drops to 20% and only one-fifth of the Emperor's plans for the commoners ever reach fruition.

>>95717048

Peter B. Evans uses Williamson's control loss model to show that higher efficiencies are possible when the Emperor switches to "multiple hierarchy" systems, such as the dual hierarchy. If the Emperor creates a complete second command hierarchy in parallel with the first, his effectiveness rises by nearly two-thirds. The superiority of dual hierarchies is well-known in business (line-and-staff) and in public administration (especially Communist bureaucracies). Lattice structure systems are a more sophisticated form, involving a complete lattice of hierarchial links providing a startling multiplicity of pathways to the top. Such novel system my not encourage galactic stability, but the opportunities for palace intrigue are legion!

>>95664221 (OP)
I prefer to be inspired by modern nation states, something that I consider bizarrely missing in most games and books.
Fascism, socialism, parliaments, senators, military juntas, failed communist uprisings, farmer's rights extremists, corruption, social democracy, propaganda.
All this shit is pretty fertile ground for interesting scenarios and the tackling of higher themes. I once had my players all be agents of a fascist city-state, but they didn't realize how bad it was because I just kept telling them in-universe that they were the good guys. It was actually kind of funny how players will 100% commit a genocide if you just have a peasant thank the players for bringing order to the frontier every once in awhile.

>>95719086
I've been incorporating elements of 20th century political theories in the setting I'm using for a story I'm writing, but I still base it in conventions that feel natural in a fantasy setting. Most of the motivations of these modern ideologies are based on philosophies that transcend history.

>>95719194
It really makes a difference. The world is a lot more immersive if there are actual political forces running through it, instead of just generic feudal polities dusted around like sprouting mushrooms. It is much more exciting to run into an impasse with an NPC because he's too stubborn about a religious/philsophical ideal, rather than just hitting an impasse with him because he's an evil dick for no reason in a more generic setting.

>>95704935
Shoulda followed >>95675373 and ignored you like the turd you are. My bad I guess.

>>95719086
>>95719194

The problem is that all these forms of government rely on mass media, mass politics, industrial policies, and massive bureaucratic apparatus.

>>95721294
Uh, yeah? The only problem with those things is that they're not generic enough for you. Superhero fiction exists in a more modern world, that doesn't seem to stop them from having adventures. There's no reason that the existence of politics needs to undermine your game. It can even enhance it.
I guess I just don't see why you have so many sacred cows in fantasy that you can't even imagine deviating from. Loosen it the fuck up, not everything needs to be medieval.

>>95721294
Believe it or not, ideas still managed to spread before the invention of mass media.

>>95721529


Except the Reformation happened after the invention of the printing press, an early form of mass media. Also, it happened after the end of the middle ages well into the early modern era.

>>95721294
That's true to an extent but we're dealing with fantasy here, often featuring magic and / or anachronistic tech which can fulfill some of those prerequisites. There have been analogues to "modern" ideologies (without the atheism part obviously) in Dithmarschen, the English Levellers and radical wing of the Sans Culottes. Arguably the Spartans with their reverence for a revolutionary law-giver, intense militarism, contempt for the arts, all-consuming propaganda (they lied to themselves about being a separate ethnicity to helots so as to make terrorising them more palatable) were in some ways proto-fascists.

Anyway, >>95719086 has a point. If magocracies are on the table why not fully automated luxury communism? (just don't ask about the golem underclasses' "civil rights"...) One aspect about Unsounded I really dig is the superpowers of Alderode and Cresce being pretty much cyberpunk dystopias once you peer through the fantastic trappings.

>>95677155
plenty, you basically can't throw a rock in the fantasy genre without hitting a game with one. the ones which spring immediately to mind are nex from pathfinder, founded by an archmage of the same name and now a dystopian kingdom of fleshcrafters and magical savants, and the scarlet empire of exalted, run by the scarlet empress' dynasty of dragon-blooded exalt allies and descendants

>>95723651
>>95677155
also from pathfinder, razmiran, a theocracy in name under the god razmir, who's secretly a powerful wizard that managed to full his whole nation into believing his godhood

The villains of one of my campaigns belonged to an empire known as "The Mandate" which developed over centuries as bureaucratic protocols became so entrenched and governed so many aspects of society, it replaced the need for executive leadership. Almost every aspect of society, governance, and diplomacy can be consulted in the Mandate, which is now a labyrinthine collection of tomes. Everyone has their duties in life and collectively, those duties go toward the ultimate purpose of the Mandate, which is to expand the Mandate and bring the rest of the world into the fold.

>>95664221 (OP)
What are some of the more interesting governments in RL history? Or the present day for that matter.

>>95728568
I think Switzerland's government is pretty unique.

My assumed "player home base" settlement is based on the Peasant Republic of Dithmarschen. The Big Bad of the setting is an imperialistic kingdom spreading feudalism via the poison pill of a monotheistic religion based out of a theocratic city-state.

>>95728786
>Switzerland's government is pretty unique.
How so exactly? I looked it up but I couldn't tell what you saw in it.

>>95733526
The cantons are small, yet highly autonomous and instead of having a single executive to be the head of state, the country is collectively led by a council, where each member takes turns being president without having significant power over the other councilors.

>>95664928
That's like the opposite of Ancient Ireland, neat

>>95733526

It's a Directorate.

>>95734049
>That's like the opposite of Ancient Ireland, neat
Wait, Ancient Ireland was like what?

>>95672293
This idea reminds me of
https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Ten_Tests
The testers are city deities

>>95677155
I like this concept, but the execution is dogshit.
Magocracy works as a more niche type of fascism. It needs to be portrayed as genuinely dystopian, and it never really is.
Having a ruling class of Nietzchian supermen with reality warping powers who consider themselves genetically superior to the peasantry is a bad scene. There's virtually no way it would be a moral system.

>>95677155
>I like the idea of a government where magic users are ultimately in charge
>users
They are just the middlemen.
Magic was in charge all along. You thought you control it but it only does its wonder when it wants and how it wants.
It has a will and you are just puppet.

No matter what kind of clothes it wears there is only one real concern for governments: Control of the many by the few. Democracy is the rule of the many by their free will, isn't it? If the total is 100, if you collect 52 among them, you can make it rule by the majority. But that majority is divided into many factions. Namely if we add up 26 from among those 52, they can rule the whole we spoke before. How futile is the democratic principle called majority rule when the true aspect of government is control of the many by the few?

>>95742231
Ah to be 14 again.

>>95742231
Okay, so what are some ways to counter this then?

>>95744618
Extremely localized anarcho-communism, but the trade-off would be losing out on the developmental and logistical benefits of a larger-scale society with executive leadership.

>>95742231

There are ways to limit it, but mathematically it is impossible. to completely eliminate.

>>95742231
Friendly reminder you must be at least 16 to successfully pass as a 18 yo, the minimal age needed to use this site

Empire ruled by sorceress empress who is actually beholden to an ancient dragon who is secretly the true ruler. Sorceress’s college and order of temple priestesses vie for influence in the government. Magic is the domain of women, so magical women control the highest level of government. Men still do most other things though as sorceresses and priestesses spend most of their time locked up studying magic and trying to understand the gods. Towns in the empire have quite a bit of autonomy. Unity is largely maintained by the constant threat of beastfolk raids which the empress secretly encourages in order to keep people fearful and dependent on the empire for protection.

>>95736996
Probably >>95699564. In many cases kingship arose from high priesthood such that the vitality of the leader and the land were seen as related. You couldn't rule if you were unwhole, even less "primitive" societies like the Byzantines stuck by this rule (though part of their obsession with blinding and castration as a means of disqualification was likely cruelty).

>>95680033
The Mongolian Wizard series does this tastefully, a rueful mage-aristocrat in-universe notes the absurdity of his leadership position having nothing to do with the actual ability to lead.

>>95728910
How does that work as Dithmarschen's irl pseudo-anarchism was heavily based on their shared intense faith? Also a city-state doesn't exactly suggest feudalism (which was an administrative tool to govern vast regions in spite of communication lag) so where does the kingdom get its ideology from? Converting by diplomacy / money seems like far more of an Islam / merchant republic thing to do, it'd be nicely ironic if the empire-church doesn't actually practice the feudalism i preaches (all the better to run rings around the brutish tithe-paying faithful realms!).

Fuck spam filters.

>>95742074 and >>95724872 are effectively identical when you think about it, the "magic" of the latter is merely the Mandate's inexorable logic. It should be less like a fixed legal codex than some conceptual aperiodic tiling imo. There's a common law / exegesis-like process of "accreting" the body of law which seems to eerily "preempt" further unforeseeable changes. Or that's what the lawyers say at any rate much as all the holy men irl who insist that their Book was miraculously translated perfectly and independently a hundred times over.

>>95749544
The mandate concept is more interesting and grounded. "What if bureaucracy and central planning became so codified, it automated government and policy?" An ever-hungry empire whose emperor is a set of laws and protocols. There's potential for decent satire in there.

>>95749790
It does indeed sound like an Ijon Tichy skit (real cool absurdist political satires there btw). While I took prefer the Mandate's patina of mundanity I was trying to get across that "sufficiently advanced Kafkaesque exaggeration is indistinguishable from magic".

I have a similar albeit more overtly supernatural system: humanity's hegemon, the Quorum, run on "agnocracy". Basically by definition a Quorum assets is unaware of their affiliation. The organization runs on so many layers of shell personalities and Manchurian candidates because a fog of ambiguity is the end goal.

Psychology savant AI are the signature tech of the setting and their memes move through the noosphere as a virus does through the population. Diluting truth and administrative volition is a countermeasure against AI contagion while still harnessing their Clarketech capabilities to maintain hegemony.

This eventually bites the Quorum in the ass HARD as while not much can be said about the Semantaclysm (is what it means: "meaning catastrophe") a prominent theory is that the whole institution logic-bombed itself. The Quorum, inasfar as they believed in anything beyond perpetuating their own power, were fanatic utilitarians upholding the One Commandment "Let no Gods go Unbound".

This means AI. Unfortunately the distributed "automatic memescape" capable of containing AI itself counted as an uncontained AI. Far from agnocracy being vital to its function it was a handicap to prevent it from "introspecting" its way into awareness of the fundamental paradox. By this theory the Semantaclysm was a suicide / seizure / psychotic break of a mass-mind playing out on the "hardware" of humanity.

>>95664221 (OP)
Petty principalities and city-states ruled by self-styled despots who use titles such as "emir" or "malik" (it's partially a Middle Eastern setting I'm using). Outside of the walled citadels, you have tribal chieftains who use the same titles, but have limited authority because they're always at war with one another, and are only hetmanates. Outside of the desert in the grasslands, you have morans, or clan chiefs. They live a more traditional existence like that of their ancestors, preserving a social structure like that of the beasts they share the grasses with. Also, while the city-states are patriarchal and focus on male leadership, the tribal societies are relatively egalitarian.

>>95664221 (OP)
Well, for example, my HRE Analogue is formed entirely by Novgorod-style Trade Republics. The government is composed of a council that sustains itself by literally selling its seats. As in, in order to have a seat on the "Diet" or "Parliament" you basically have to pay the tax equivalent of a small country's GDP.

What I'm still trying to figure out is - in a bid to not be entirely controlled by a singular family, the Idea was to have their entire country be split into "Regions" that only have a single representative. But I wanted to add some sort of rule such that the "Representative" would need to have SOME sort of stake in the region in order to be eligible.

I mean, it would still be corrupt and abused to high hell, but old republics usually had these complicated "rules" as part of their process.

>>95751220
Sounds like an interesting take on things, let us know what you figure out.

>>95752329
Well, i was hoping someone might have an idea. Just something simple like "He has to be born there" wouldnt work. And I dont think taxation was intrusive enough in ye olde times for something like "You can only pay with profits made inside the region"

>>95752357
If the system is so self serving then there has to be some kind of reciprocity involved to make sure they can't bail or take everything for themselves without ruining themselves in the process.

Actually, now that I think about it, in Dune a big part of how the Landsraad worked involved the Great Houses having stakes in the CHOAM company so perhaps you can have a similar situation where the regional powers are stake holders who are granted the privilage of self dealing to a degree so long as they put into the system because without it their own house of cards will fall apart.

>>95749544
>>95749790
>The mandate concept
That's basically my take for
>Bureaupunk
The world is bureaucracy. Your future can be decided by someone's check in the wrong checkbox.
But the punks know better, bureau intrigue, knowing the right person, secret stuff discussed at the pub outside work hours, blackmail kept in drawers. What if this new office-software was but a way to control&silence dissidence?

and >>95742074 is magic-punk
>Magepunk
Magic trees, enchanted relic and rituals shaped fantasykind, magic have rules taught in schools in their peculiar curriculums. One rule reign supreme: if you don't have the mana you are a nobody.
But the punk now better, you don't need all the costly sigil and nothing wrong with alchemy or mechanism crafter. Beware of those who deals with devils for more mana!

t. Definers
1,000,000 ethics points to winning THE GAME

>>95752948
Good shit. SMBC's absurd yet chilling future extrapolations are what the Harder Problem is all about. Bureaupunks rebelling against the Quorum >>95749954 and its diffuse "ideological inevitability" go by the name Anarchivists. This reflects the fact that the Quorum is so successful at unpersoning any successful rebellion (talk of them at least, the actual reality on the ground is harder to warp) that narratives counter to the status quo can only exist as urban legend and "fanfic history".

Basically your Bureaupunk tossed through the technological singularity (with nobody involved aware of this). Magepunk sounds neat too, their approach to mana sounds a lot like Zoku "entanglement" from the Quantum Thief series.

Basically they're a more benign take on your pic, a post-singularity society grown from the better aspects of gamer culture. All interaction is mediated via guilds with their own associated "achievement trees". As you align your identity further with a given passtime you gain access to more and more of the guild's computing resources which function as an "annex" of your own self. Top-tier citizen-players are both post-human LARPers and lacking in free will because they subconsciously live according to Guild precepts to access their powers. Replace "guild" with "magic school" and "entanglement" with "mana" for a neat Magepunk setup!

>>95664221 (OP)
>Independent city-states controlling their immediate surroundings. Mostly ruled by self-elected merchant councils, but occasionally run by self-elected juntas or church orders; rarely dictatorships
>Constitutional monarchy. Townships and villages have their own tribal leaders, and when they're large enough or have control over valuable materials may be invited to join the High Council, in which they send an elected representative to join up with an unofficial voting bloc. The crown is a bunch of competing families who still hold their power regardless of the larger citizenry. The church is staying out of it (sic. playing both sides) and coming out on top.
>A crumbling feudal system fueled by peasantry who believe toughing it out for another generation will give them salvation. Alongside a bunch of jungle-dwelling Cossacks funded by former leaders of the first group who are cutting losses and trying to secure positions within the more egalitarian system they believe will win out.
>Independent counties that mostly stick to historic tribal borders. Though the first group has a city-state on their land for trade purposes.

I've got basic faction ideas, all tailored for a Lewd-RPG project

BEWARE MAGICAL REALM

Feeling sexy does give you mental focus needed for magic,
Magic is so hard to control you also need bondage to focus,
On top of that, the magical money of this world cannot be taken by force, capture is encouraged.

>the (religious) empire
Empire where the Church is trying to take control,
Given the LEWD rules, they are the denial fetish, full of contradiction, they need the sexy mage, but claim it's not sexy.
They fight slavery, but need the desperate to power their holy ring which in fact deny pleasure

>the confederacy
A lot of kingdoms who only really agree on one thing: fighting the empire
They act like they are better than the empire and fight for freedom, but keep slavery out of sight to not offend allies.
They have the best magic school and are open to all, unless you insult their traditions and customs. bound mage waitress, petsuit festival

>the Order
No king, only sages voting, they cling to a lost period of glory.
They are martial warriors and rope bondage fetishist, they wish you no harm but to them Sexy require bondage
Look like good doer, have secret assassins.

>the Clans
Persian tropes, defend slavery, highly cultured traders
Only at peace to raid other faction.

>the Tribes
Tribal tropes, especially ownership of people, they are a matriarchy.

>underground magitek cities
Fear-based authoritarian councils, rules are needed to live underground of a deadly tundra
Claims to be against slavery, but convert it into their justice system
Above ground they are cold and prude, underground they are hot and promiscuous.

>control freak sect
Anarchist fighting against the divine power trying to bind everyone soul, they'll capture and reeducate the weak it corrupted.

>token oriental empire
Incomprehensible social order and heaven mandated laws

>>95753724
If you are that interested, I made more genrepunk

>Matrixpunk
Everyone know they live in a giant Matrix filled with both physical and digital entities, hierarchy is ruled through level of admin-access, wealth is processing power, the rich secretly lobbying to forbid open-source softwares not validated by themselves.
But the punks know better, they plug OUT of the matrix, moving their body&minds outside the Matrix to hack it from the outside, creating shunts around firewalls, replacing backup with corrupted one before destroying the original.

>Solarpunk
Mankind now live in space-cities floating over the sun through the use of gigantic solar-sails. Gravity and energy is decided by who control the sails, the low-class live closer to the sun's radiation and gravity is higher. The riches live in lower gravity with the sails above. But a secret organization have for goals to purge the filth using the power of the sun cutting wire to drop the riches into the sun before they focus the sails to burn the poor.

>Solarpunk2
Mankind nearly destroyed Earth until a new kind of biotech flora was unleashed.
Those enormous & poisonous plants would not end mankind but culled it and destroyed its infrastructure. Its growth and spread was unstoppable, biological attack was only met with equal biological attack. Entire cities went dark as root destroyed the circuitry of civilization, billions died from starvation.
Now Solar energy reign supreme, food is rationed, tech is precious, cities are greener and all ecosystems are controlled, with even floating-cities, exploiting the new flora is a deadly battle and few are allowed to venture into the wild.
Some punks claim the organizations responsible for this still exist, using quasi-religious nature-activists to forbid biotech research which would allow anyone to tame the new flora and break their controls.

>>95664221 (OP)
The main focus city of the setting is a neutral buffer zone that was recently demolished collectively by the major kingdoms to quash a revolt, with those kingdoms then declaring collective management over the large island territory. As the population regrew, certain guilds, companies, and confederations offered to help run things in exchange for a seat at the table. Now decades later it's a farce of a parliament run by representatives from foreign influences and corporations reaping benefits from the nightmare they created. Characters have recently had to interact with the system and the near-universal response is anger and frustration just as intended.

>>95740543
>a ruling class of Nietzchian supermen who consider themselves genetically superior to the peasantry
This would be every setting with an aristocracy, if the authors weren't cowards

>>95757690
You're actually kind of right.
Imagine you live in 1237 and someone is trying to tell you the peasants should have the right to vote.
>You've been trained in the sciences, and groomed to rule your entire life.
>You know 5 languages.
>You've traveled to multiple countries.
>You've been involved at the highest level of decision making since you were 12
>And someone wants to tell you that some retard who's only ever herded sheep should be part of national decisions.
Yeah, I get it. I understand why the rich and powerful hate peasants, at least back then. Back then, your class in society was so powerfully correlated with the ability to make wise decisions, that it would have been unthinkably retarded to even entertain that a peasant should be entitled to a voice.
Times change though. Now the upper classes are just these inbred, entitled cunts who aren't even particularly educated.

>>95757535
The SP 1 bad dudes ought to go by the name "Icarus". A villain rant like the following would be all but obligatory at some point (best leave it ambiguous as to the speaker being a heat-stricken madman or actual avatar of out eldritch Star...).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vPuOk2OpfY&list=PL4y-g8nPnj7yaBg_PPLDLjgSCpuI3lB2Y&index=14&ab_channel=Drwhobaddalek55

The Quorum >>95749954 are part of the setting infrastructure of my "Psychopunk" world. Basically as cybernetics are to Cyber-, biology to Bio- or engineering to Steam- memetics are to it. To be at the cutting edge of transhumanity entails membership in an esoteric mystery cult / schizophrenic conspiracy as much as it does physical augmentation.

The Quorum's agnocracy largely functions as a reason for vast, idiosyncratic yet ignorant of the wider world pockets of survivor civilisations. I'd have to try VERY hard in order to canonically contradict myself at the setting-wide scale since post-truth pandemonium is baked into the central concept!

>>95752948
Are there more strips of that comic relevant to this thread?

>>95757780
Well, only a handful of nobles were trained and groomed to rule. Most were pampered and other were taken advantage of or fuck everything up. Though often they would be other to guide them or pull his strings.

>>95761108
Maybe you're right. I honestly don't know what it's like to be a medieval noble, I've more or less internalized it as a vibe from fantasy and playing CK2.
They could have been a lot more worthless and retarded than I assume.

>>95761032
>Are there more strips of that comic relevant to this thread?
oh god.
The topic is
>governements
That webcomic has thousands of "what if the government decided to base everything decision around that crazy idea"

>>95761032
And I mean that >>95763116 seriously
I'm flipping through my saved files and I already found 3

>>95763208
Zach's pretty much a sub-genre unto himself these days.

>>95689766
this story is so fucking retarded, the woman recruits an isekai husband because she wants to rule without diminishing her own power then she later pimps him out against his will so his potential heirs with other marriages could be used as political leverage against her like what the fuck

>>95672306
>goofy ahhh
Don't you have tide pods to eat, young sir?

>>95664221 (OP)
For royal families, what are some ways to discourage the kind of inbreeding that spelled the doom of the Hapsburgs?

>>95771916
Not sure if this is just from something someone told me one time or not, but apparently it was not unheard of for kings to pass laws that specifically did not permit his sons to marry their mother. This was done more for the reason that some "ambitious" son who "knew better than the king" would slay their father, marry and impregnate his mother, and become king themselves.

Again, this is something someone told me, so it needs verification. Seems a plausible enough worry that such a thing would have happened at least once, though.

>>95677155
Mystara has 2: the Principalities of Glantri and the Empire of Alphatia.

Glantri is a confederation of mostly evil magic users and creatures, including liches, werewolves, and vampires. Religion is punished by death, they abduct dwarves and halflings to dissect and experiment on, and murder is an accepted means of advancement if you can pull it off. The capital is Venice but on a lake, and the primary magic academy in the Known World is there. They're the China of magic items, with exploited mages mass producing shitty disposable versions. The government is a loose confederation of princes, working against each other as much as together.

Alphatia is a magic atlantean HRE. Their parliament is 1000 top level magic users, the "empire" is a mess of mostly independent kingdoms and subject states, and are led by a hot milf empress. They have skyships for war and travel, as well as hiring mercenary armies. Most of the nobles are lazy degenerates addicted to zzonga, a drug which was canonically a psyop by their based martial rivals the Thyatians to bring them down to their level.

Glantri is good enough that I'd recommend picking up the Gazetteer if you're looking for a magic dominated area to drop into your setting. Despite being less than 100 pages it's got a detailed political setup complete with vote totals in the Council of Princes, a detailed city map for Glantri City (especially for the 1980s), rules & scenarios for the magic academy, a mini dungeon/module, and a lot of good flavor material.

Alphatia is from the Dawn of the Emperors set, and isn't as cool or unique. I've used it as an inspiration for part of my campaign world, but with significant changes especially to the government since otherwise it's kinda vanilla.

>>95765463
>Against her
If you have no heirs, you have no future and the setting says it's expected for the king to have concubines with other kingdoms because it encourages relationships and trading. Their kingdom relies heavily on trading since they are a desert nation with no big resources to trade, so they have to encourage other kingdoms into trading by leaving the possibility of them getting more influence directly with the royal family through marriage.

It makes sense within the context of the story. She'd be in a troublesome spot as a female rules anyways so monogamy would just signal to other nations and aristocrats that she's not even willing to share the influence.

>>95771916
Death is usually a pretty good way of keeping things in line. The Hapsburgs kept marrying in the family because they didn't start as aristocrats themselves and it was safer to keep whatever land and property under the hapsburg name rather than marrying into another royal family and potentially losing their land and property because the family you married into had a bigger name or more influence.

Just make the family strong enough so they can stand by their own name and allow them to marry other families so THEY can take the smaller families land.

I rarely stick to a singular OC setting, though some do appear again and again

> assumed Big-Man
Best I can summarize it. The core of it is that the person in charge got there because they were good at organizing complex projects and delegating smaller tasks to those most qualified within the community. Honestly, usually the position is assumed, someone just starts doing the job and if it’s a good job, or at least their actions seem sensible, then the greater community just goes along with it. So as long as they do a good enough job and don’t become too much of a nuisance they can expect to hold their position until they die or retire, becoming as eccentric as they please. But if they do get too inept, or too much of a nuisance, then expect them to suffer a forced retirement. This system is typically only seen in very small communities, like autonomous villages or, at most, city-states.

> manorialist oligarchy
In short this system is born of some haphazard solution in the far-off past: ancient wealthy aristocrats had these large private estates, and something happened that drove a lot of the plebeians to want to seek shelter in these large estates. Well faced with shooing them away and being surrounded by filthy vagrant camps, they opted to divide their estates into lots, and for a monthly tithe, they can reside on the lot. Typically some religious order would be used as an arbiter, and an advocate for the peasants to force the aristocrats to fulfill any obligations they are expected to provide as written in the agreement. Those estates growing into the new urban centers, and those families that had agreed to convert their estate(s) becoming the ruling class of lords. This also means, since the lords own the land and buildings outright, they are free to buy and sell cities like any other property. Also, those who work directly for the lords don’t have to pay tithes. and so become something of a nobility

> Democratic Republic

>>95664221 (OP)

"It used to be said there were two kinds of chairs to go with two kinds of Ministers: one sort that folds up instantly, the other sort goes round and round in circles."

>>95664221 (OP)

Well briefly, sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary. I, too, have a Principal Private Secretary, and he is the Principal Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, 87 Under Secretaries and 219 Assistant Secretaries. Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretaries are plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Yes, yes, yes, I do see that there is a real dilemma here. In that, while it has been government policy to regard policy as a responsibility of Ministers and administration as a responsibility of Officials, the questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the policy of administration and the administration of policy, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts, or overlaps with, responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy.

>>95664221 (OP)
“His Supreme High Lord Generalissimo Hernan I has announced that his eldest son, Hernan II, shall assume the position of Supreme High Lord Generalissimo once he has completed his education in the States. The younger sibling, Juan, will assume the position of minister of finance. This is following new of the former minister of finance’s dismissal and disappearance in light of embezzlement accusations. We reached out to the presidential palace for comment, they told us, quote: “anyone who has objections to the High Lord’s decision will be dragged into the streets and shot like traitorous dogs, I shouldn’t have said that out loud”. This has been the Fuckofistan National News Network, signing out.”

>>95664221 (OP)
Depends on where you are, the main area of the setting is dwarf centered and they were once ruled by a God-King then his three sons. currently they live in Greek/Italian style city states. Shieldwall and Shadowflame are monarchies but Shieldwall is a more traditional feudal monarchy while Shadowflame is a Magocracy run by a Sorcerer-King, Hillhome is run by the Moot, a collection of clan chiefs. Hearth is all but a theocracy while the Holy mountain it sits under is a Monastic Republic. Saltport is Merchant Republic.

To the South there is an Imperial Racial Magocracy where Chinese inspired elves are the aristocrats. Humanity live under them but can gain power and influence in the bureaucracy. Halflings don't have a formal government and live like Irish travellers.

>>95784967
Why aren’t tin-pot dictatorships used more?

>>95785820
>Why aren’t tin-pot dictatorships used more?
Isn't the typical evil overlord oppressing their people basically a fantasy version of the idea?

>>95792545
Well, classic latin military dictatorship also had some tones of nationalism and posturing against foreign powers. A classic Evil Overlord kingdom doesn't really care about showcasing strength all the time because magic and power are tangible things you can clearly see and measure to an extent. Tin-pot dictatorships require constant reinforcement of their image and status to remain relevant.

>>95785820
Because they're less interesting than a dictator who has more complicated motivations?

The only question you should ask yourself when designing a fictional country is: "Why doesn't the elite just kill the ruler?" The only way rulers ruled their realms is by being more useful alive than dead.

>>95801372
>The only way rulers ruled their realms is by being more useful alive than dead.
Okay, so how do they do that?

https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?si=0aF3IhNfsaNQd1co

>>95807974
Thanks for the link.

>>95807974
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_qpNfXHIU

>>95664221 (OP)
I've been playing with the idea of a werewolf governmental system that's almost absurdly "civilised" and byzantine to overcompensate for there wild nature when in a wolf state. Right now I'm a at tri-cameral legislature, with a head of state, head of government, and maybe a head of church/spiritualism. Maybe even two of each, consul style.

>>95821621

>>95801372
What about leaders who gained their thrones by right of conquest and shows of force, like Genghis Khan?

>>95827725

It's still the same. Genthis Khan gained loyalty of his subordinates and troops by guaranteeing booty and providing social security to those who fought under his command, unlike other Mongol aristocrats who were far more extractive and aristocratic. He was not just a conqueror, he was a revolutionary who, unlike other Mongols aristocrats, had know life of real adversity and understood the needs and desires of the lower ranking members.

>>95664221 (OP)
>New Millennial Empire (Asar-Kellaneikast)
Absolute monarchy with hereditary nobility, with an Emperor-appointed caste of government officials slowly creeping in and competing with nobility for power. Human society.
>Maeror
Federation of feudal holdings/smaller kingdoms that are united by religion and cultural heritage and which have a High King and nobles assembly to regulate internal disputes. Would be a nightmarish warring kingdoms shithole if not for bordering countries that all despise their culture and religion. Human society.
>Elpia
Almost absolute monarchy where the Tsar appoints regional rulers and has his power checked somewhat by various government organizations. Human society.
>Amat
A democratic union of 10 city-states, each of which elects representatives which are sent to capital where parliament is formed. Human society.
>Earth-Domain of Kadarys
Top-down theocracy where everything in the country is governed by one of eight temples each dedicated to a god whose domain is intimately tied to a certain aspect of statehood. The head priests of each temple which are generally democratically elected within the temple's structure gather in the capital and discuss matters of state within what is called the Shroud council. Similar ruling councils exist within the temples, with the head of the temple not always having utter primacy there. Elven society.
>New Unity of Kadarys' Second Children
Republic which gives all elves of legal age full suffrage and is ruled from a central parliament with local rulers being elected locally. It's to be noted that families of good status and breeding get precedent, much like in the Roman Republic. Elven society.
>Alvis
A clusterfuck of various influences, with the military aristocracy having primacy on account of them having the most raw force. The whole country is an abandoned colony of a very advanced empire with powerful magical technology that has degraded into a bunch of feudal fiefdoms.

>>95829434
>unlike other Mongol aristocrats who were far more extractive and aristocratic
And who were these aristocrats specifically?

Based on the 9 alignments, all human-run, and none of them can reasonably project power. Everything is perfectly balanced, but in tension. PC meddling can drastically destabilize everything. Names not included in case people I know are reading this.

(1/3)

LG is highly regimented, militaristic paladin-run city that consists of shining white and gold spires, taking some influence from elven architecture but being distinctly human in how excessive they are in number and size. It's on the coast, in a subtropical climate and has palm trees. Governance is a hellhole of bureaucracy as the runnings of the city have to balance the various Paladin Orders that make up the council. RL influences from brazil and mormon architecture (elven architecture in the setting looks like more subdued mormon archictecture), with a dash of "what if leyndell was not fucked up?"

NG is heavily northern at the edge of a great forest. Everything is log-constructrion with giant pallisades. Megafauna, unnatural forest creatures, and people trying to take advantage during harsh winters are all threats. The city is defended by archers and pikemen, but every able-bodied adult is armed just in case. This is majorly cascadia-inspired with west virginia, but pushed much further north.

CG is by contrast is a hot, humid entertainment complex built over an illusion ley line. Gladiators clad in shining bronze, spellcasters tapping into the land to make dazzling displays, and lots of (honorable) betting. The daily events are also a show of the city's strength since the contestants are also its guardians. This has inspiration from the arena segment of Golden Sun, but also idealized gladiator stuff and some persian elements. This is the City of Large Hams and I have conditions in my head for which it could be obliterated if the right (wrong) events occur.

>>95835523
(2/3) Neutrals

LN is across a huge bay from CG, and in contrast to the former's bright shining energy this one is humid and carved into the blue-grey cliffs. It has the best accountants, historians, shipwrights and non-dwarven stonecarvers. Their military is very slow, prioritizing defensive tactics (to ensure the stores of knowledge are kept preserved) and heavy armor. Their tacticians overemphasize the use of old records to debate strategy and tactics, making any orders and plans sluggish to be decided upon. To live or work there, or sail on one of their ships has the requirement of being part of the guard. This is very greek-inspired, with viking and germanic touches. Big chunky plate armor, shortsword and a big shield.
TN is isolated to the point of being a spot that is used as a pilgrimage and a good-luck detour. It's primarily land-accessed as the seas are rough and the coasts rocky between it and the rest of the known world. It's the furthest south, in the center of the tropics. Everything is built huge and stout, "earthquake baroque" style (but turned up to 11). There's a rumor that this was a halfling city at one point, but that's unconfirmed. One of the quieter cities. Off the coast of it is an island upon which is a monastery and castle, with a megadungeon extending below its basement. This is lightly filipino with western-fantasy-viewed-by-japanese elements. The "assumed start" and being neutral means it's an excuse to be not that extreme, while being a somewhat-quiet "meeting of anyone from around the world."
CN is more a federation of a LOT of small settlements across a wide flatland that touches the hilly end of a mountain range. Lots of fighting for fun, singing and drinking in many of the towns. Between them wander shamans and druids. Self-sufficiency is required of outsiders, but most travellers will be able to compensate for it with coin. A weird fusion of appalacia, irish, welsh, scottish and native american elements.

>>95835532
(3/4 FUCK character limit) Evils 1/2

LE is in a valley between mountain ranges, outside of which the winters become extreme while the city-state itself only gets an "aesthetic" amount of snow. It's butted up against a former dwarven mountainhome, converted into facilities for mining, production, and housing of the enslaved dwarves. It's run by an all-female antipaladin order that decided to settle there 900 years ago to make use of it as a stronghold full of ample resources and defensive capabilities, rather than continue their terror campaign. They have figured out the secrets of the most advanced alchemical weapons and armor in the entire world, but these are delicate and far too strong for them to risk falling into the hands of others, so outside the outside the gates they use their traditional battle gear. Visitors are treated to impressive, if overly-guided, hospitality (like any totalitarian state), but unceremoniously shoved out into the cold should they get too uppity. Perfectly-manicured greenways, paved roads, and luxury are all within the designated visitor areas. Outside those it's very shitty, the dwarf areas including sweatshops. And yes the antipaladins are basically battle maids with fragile alchemical guns while inside the city, acting as leaders, hosts and enforcement, but wear gothy plate armor and swords outside. This one has some nordic elements on top of things.

>>95835536
(4/4) Evils 2/2

CE is on a necromancy ley line, straddling a river valley next to a desert. Anyone who is born there will, if they also die there (no matter how long they have been away) will after some time rise as an undead for a few years. The undead are used as labor, and it's seen as a duty - someone from here who is injured while travelling will often spare no expense at getting transport back. It's run by clerics who compete over the corpses, because they have the ability to control the undead once they rise. They bid, bribe, lie, cheat, and steal to get the good ones. The wealthy pay to have the bones cleaned or the bodies mummified, to have better servants and guards. The corpses of the crippled or sick are instead burned, and the ashes used as pigments for fine crafts like lacquerware, and an ink that spellcasters prize for writing spells and scrolls. If they are not, they have a high risk of rising into something dangerous - ghouls, wights, and shadows act like the equivalent of wildfires. There are thus a small amount of good-aligned churches that are allowed to exist for the purposes of hunting these types, but not preach. Japanese mixed with Day of The Dead Mexican and some other deathly influences.
---

An additional note is that every player character race is attached to one of the seven deadly sins.

The one for humans is Wrath.

The state of relative peace is not normal.

>>95835544
Okay and how about Neutral Evil? Also, do you have info about other races and their countries too?

>>95837518
Neutral Evil is a secret.

The other races don't have big civilizations.

Halflings have to abide by certain rules: They cannot congregate in groups larger than 5 and they cannot hold onto large amounts of money. If they do, they start to mutate into gnomes. When the process is complete, they vanish, whisked off to some far away location. Gnomes are like a cross between a ghoul and gollum, insane and cannibalistic.
This prevents them from forming stable civilizations, but they're some of the best and most inventive craftsmen in the entire land, better than dwarves. Some are paladins of their deity, and they wear facepaint as part of that.

Elves lack souls, they cannot be ressurected and have no afterlife. They are extremely isolationist and risk-averse due to this, retreating more often if outnumbered or losing, but they are also prideful and dislike surrendering. Their lean towards chaotic alignments means a lot of elves get exiled for being too reckless.
Drow on the other hand do have souls. One large elven city of ages past had a cult that spread in large influence. They were caught up in envy of the souls of the other demihumans and performed rituals which gave themselves the souls of the damned - the raw material that eventually would become demons. This gives them a rather awful afterlife and greater powers while alive.
The resulting war between the elves (who fled after recognizing this atrocity) and drow decimated the elven populations on both sides, Just before the final siege, the ground opened up beneath the city like a great maw and swallowed it beneath the earth, a mountain blistering up in the place it one stood.

Drow and Gnomes are both utterly evil and neither can be player characters, the former due to being posses by abyssal spirits and the latter being utterly insane and feral.

>>95664221 (OP)
The govt in my latest setting is a Renaissance-Style with dashes of Ancien Regime France and Regency England.
>The Lord High Regent - aka the 'Delfín' - is elected for life as an equivalent to the Venetian & Genoese Doges
>The Senate consists of Patricians descended from the founding families of the city - they are generally local to the City itself and have power tied up in Merchant Fleets and local industry
>The Grand Assembly is divided into two chambers - one for the representatives of temporal power (for the Great Guilds, Veterans, and the Landed Gentry) and the other for representatives of the clergy - power for these groups are tied up in rural estates & the great urban cathedrals, respectively.
Combined, these two bodies form the Parliament ('Parlament').
The Delfín also appoints the Council of Lords (Scignoré), with the Assembly voting to confirm and the Senate holding a veto. These Lords, who with the Delfín conduct the daily governing of state, are called Grandees. Each time Parliament sits, they can issue a vote of no confidence on any Grandee, but not the Delfín himself.
In the rural areas, the government is either a point of appeal against the otherwise incredibly powerful Gentry OR are loyal toadies of the same - knowing whether you're dealing with the former or latter is an essential survival skill
In the urban centers, there are a number of parallel 'worlds' each with laws and enforcement:
>There's the State, and their Police (The Black-and-Tans)
>There are the Patricians and their Retinues
>There are the Guilds, who readily employ their own militias and mercs
>There are the Corza Families - kingpins of gambling, racketeering, and trafficking in anything unsavory
For players, generally the law is the law. But if you're in the good graces of the dominant faction(s) it's easy to get special treatment...and if you piss off the wrong people it's easy to get a different kind of special treatment.

>>95837941
Dwarves are short, with large heads, large eyes, cat ears and tails. The males have the classic bushy beard. They are isolationist but for different reasons - their societies are highly rigid, codified, and their mountainhomes have long been the target of thieves and pillagers for the materials they dig up. The stodginess means that while dwarven craftswork is legendary, it's very rare. Dwarven societies look down on creativity and are incredibly collectivist, so even if one does fine work it's claimed to be the whole society's pride and joy. Nails that stick out are cast out. This is under the pretense and legal excuse of them being envoys to the other races to spread tales of dwarven accomplishments. Because dwarves are also mortals and thus imperfect, this happens with such frequency that they're the 2nd most commonly seen race behind humans (with a large gap, but surface dwarf settlements exist from these congregating).
In battle dwarves have such honor that they never flee (but do retreat in an orderly fashion) and are often willing to sacrifice themselves for the others. This can result in catastrophic losses as it occasionally will result in a chain of self-sacrifice and "avenging", like lemmings. They see the elven lack of soul as a mere excuse for them to be cowards rather than fight and die with honor.
Dwarven rules also extend to how far they are permitted to dig, in. They have a natural sense of how far down they are, but these rules often get pushed and nudged. A foot deeper here one year, as the mineral vein extends just a smidge farther - and he may be rewarded even, if it's valuable (not too much of couse). A foot deeper there another year by a different dwarf.
>No dwarf shall dig too deep, no light shall be brought to the uncracked depths, for any dwarf who does so will bring misfortune, misery, and destruction upon all his people, and all will share in his folly.
This is the reason the land is littered with abandoned mountainhomes.

>>95837976
As a fun worldbuilding notes, the nickname for Gendarmes being the 'Black-and-Tans' is (aside from the obvious parallels with the Troubles) because of a retarded funding dispute.
>Minister of Police puts forward a design for a new professional police force in the city
>One of the major families in the Dyer's Guild hates the minister because of a dispute with his family going back centuries
>Dyer's Guild convinces the other Guilds to support them in cockblocking the ordinance for the new police force
>Basically if the Minister wants to get his uniforms for his new guard, he'll either lose his whole budget on it or be stuck clothing his guys in smelly undyed wool
>Minister, a colonel who fought in one of the colonial wars, organizes a Veterans' Brigade to design a uniform that will get around the guild's fuckery
>Use volunteer labor to wash the uniforms and dye the jackets in black pigment sourced from Corza gangsters
>The uniform becomes a symbol across the Republic that the state shouldn't bow to Guild Interests, beloved by commoners, aristocrats, and the gentry alike.
And now I get to have stormtroopers patrolling my players' cobblestone streets. Mean mugs with strong esprit de corps who have a history of not being intimidated. So many opportunities to create conflict and smack their hand for getting too uppity.

>>95838016
The last of the PC races is Giants. All being over 6 and a half feet tall, they are eternal wanderers and tend towards the neutral column of alignments. Their lives are in constant motion, constantly learning and travelling. There is no true "giant culture" as such, and permanent records are scarce.
Every day they have to perform some ritualistic behaviors, passed down thru oral history. This consists of ritualistic exercises, consuming special mixes of plant and mineral matter, meditation, etc. If they don't, they are treated as if they have not slept as it causes them great anxiety and distress.
As they gain levels they advance in size, up to 4 inches per level. At 12th level they become big enough to count as large and can perform another, expensive and time-costly ritual to permanently enlarge already-magic weapons to match them.

If a giant is kept from performing their rituals for a week, they start to petrify. Their skin starts to crinkle, their movements slow, and they begin to desire to sleep all the time which only further exacerbates the process. After the 7th day, and every three days they continue to avoid (or are prevented from performing) their rituals, they lose 5ft of speed per day among other penalties. Once their speed drops to 0, they do not wake up the next time they sleep, curling up into a fetal position and fully turning to stone. The process can be reversed by taking an entire week to do nothing but perform their ritual and travel, but it's mentally scarring the further along it became. The only way to bring a stone-turned giant back to life is with powerful magic. Stone-to-flesh not register the giant's stone-remains as ever having been "a person", instead acting as if a random boulder were turned to flesh.

There are meagre, but workable varations that giants who are prisoners or similar can perform, but these simply stave off the petrification, not the exhaustion.

Nobody alive knows why this happens.

>>95835011
What is google specifically? Bump better you snivelling retard.
>>95837941
You debase yourself by answering a vacant moron who clearly doesn't give a shit about what you have to say. Go talk to a chatbot if you want content-less validation.

>>95839368
Regardless of his sincerity, I took the opportunity to post my stuff, nothing more.

>>95839368
Hey, screw you I wanted to learn about this guy's setting. I posted some of my shit further up into the thread and would love to expound for anyone who wants to learn more.

>>95801372
>The only way rulers ruled their realms is by being more useful alive than dead.
What, like it was more of a hassle to replace them than to listen to them? Where's the source on this?

>>95850387
This is well attested in multiple places, as far back as oral traditions.
Arguably the best sources on this are Ibn Khaldun in his Muqaddimah and Xenophon in Anabasis.
Long story short: the essential building block of any society that consists of more than 10 people is this:
>Key People / Groups are incentivized for the current social structure to exist and succeed
>The people who compose the group recognizes it as legitimate (called 'asibiyya' or group feeling)
>The leader inspires sufficient loyalty, respect, fear, or any combo of the above that the power players in point one don't try to become leader
Even in the most primitive societies, failure consistently comes down to:
>The group disintegrating because it's less rewarding to be in the group than outside of it
>The group disintegrating because no one in the group recognizes the authority of the leader / the regime's ability to do its job
>The group survives, but the leader is replaced by someone who shares wealth better, is more competent / ruthless, easier to manipulate, or generally just less obnoxious to be ruled by
So anon >>95801372 is exaggerating a little but not by much.
Fun fact, Ibn Khaldun cites stiffing one's own soldiers on pay as one of the classic 'retard leader who is about to be very replaceable' indicators.
One would think that would be high on the list of things not to do as a leader but it happens all the time across history.

Page 10, really? This will not do. I'll have you all beheaded!

>>95858731
Nope, let's fix that!

>>95664221 (OP)
It really depends on when in the setting you're talking about.
At the latest "current" point you have the crushing Evriian empire and a few scattered free realms where humans are still alive by either remaining hidden like Hildaland, or being surprisingly powerful like the twin island nation of Jakka-Matta.
The empire is highly autocratic and oppressive, while the free states vary: Hildaland is a matriarchal queen queendom, Jakka-Matta is communist, and Surin-Diol is more like a giant temple and very much organized like that. They don't really get along, but are often forced to make sacrifices for one another since the empire wants all humans eradicated.

>>95867214
>Surin-Diol is more like a giant temple and very much organized like that.
I would love to hear more about these nations, especially Surin-Diol.

>>95872332
They are hidden. While they are the one place where man still walks, they're not human-only. Surin-Diol is led by the Ascended Suri, the name comes from the name of the religion(Sur) and people(in) with Diol just meaning city. Literally just the city of worshippers. The Sur are themselves a mash-up of cultivation tropes and the people meditate and train to achieve greater power.
Rather than immortality though, like the other free realms they just want to survive and their temple city is enormous and holds great paddies for rice.
Hildaland is led by the "Good Folk" aka elves, halflings, and primarily Finwives that chose exile rather than the Empire. Their queens and knights bar humans from active duty given they have the fewest men available.
Jakka-Matta, other than being a chess pun, just means West-East. A former empire themselves, the refugees of Evrii men, goblins, and the eastern men give them a large population. They sort of naturally gravitated towards heavy central planning due to limited space and a history of managing a very limited human population(now they have to share with women and goblins) and they cast down their own empress after the last great war in a civil event that resulted in their former homeland being conquered and purged by the Empire.

>>95867214
Okay, so is this empire made up of some non-human species and why does it want to wipe out all humans? In my setting the New Millennial Empire (consult thread above) is currently committing a genocide on the elves of the Earth-Domain, due to the latter's 1000-year soft power grasp over pretty much all of human civilization and the Empire's neo-traditionalist restorationist current ideology.

>>95877194
Long ago, various ships had to enter this planet for an emergency. These were not colony ships or military ships, they were pleasure cruises.
So all the non-human races are the descendants of mass produced sex slaves that used to be all women. However at one point a group of three immortals figured out their own means to alteration and started to create their own men. It took them a while but they eventually succeeded.
They then took more land, started forcibly converting the until then more hentai game styled world into a more traditional fantasy world at the head of the three empresses.
Because these three women are themselves former slaves to the humans once managing the little pleasure cruise.
The three empresses are the only ones that know why these things are, and how the belief of the cycle (humans fade as the fair folk prosper and vice versa) that fuels the empire beliefs is fake. They just hate humans and want to, in their eyes, make a pure world without their evil tainting it. Two of them died in the process and the last surviving empress is a recluse still nursing her wounds from the last war.

>>95877727
What system is this in, and while I'm at it, I wonder what the general tech level is, and what gives the Evriian empire its military might and edge.

>>95878839
The setting serves a means for me to develop disperate game mechanics and ideas, and throw things at the wall because I find some things cool and I want to use them in games like mass battle fantasy or scavenging long forgotten techno ruins.
In terms of technology, it used to be cool lasers and robots fighting for dwindling resources, with the legendary and almost all gone magical relics from this era being extremely powerful. But things decayed, the people on the ships weren't scientists, they were just people out for a nice time and thrust into a survival situation, so other than some autonomous processes it all quickly became something out of antiquity with the humans and their non-human servants in this alien world.
The Evriian empire, other than having the anger and hate of immortals leading them, has fully bought into the idea of the cycle and the necessity to eradicate humanity to ensure their own survival. It was a slow gradual process, going from floating ships that fearfully scouted the alien world below, to the crashes that formed polar glaciers, and the forming of new civilizations.

>>95835536
What could get a government to create a combat maid corps?

>>95664221 (OP)
Game of Incestuous Faggy Cucks is a shit series and anything derived from it is destined to be shit as well.

>>95880859
It's a form of peacetime disciplined work that reflects and reinforces restraint, servitude, and grace. It also serves as an "open-secret police" network for outsiders that aren't very familiar with their structure while at the same time being a very distinct uniform the locals recognize.

Basically my inspiration was combining things like the romantic ideal of knights and samurai being required to pursue artistic and ritualistic pursuits like flower arranging or tight monastic schedules, with a vibe of the sorts of current-day extreme authoritarian police states like North Korea or Cuba. It also creates an uncomfortable vibe (the overall setting is very "uncomfortable" and "disquiet") by making Evil look pretty, and what better way to do that then to make these inhuman monsters.... human, attractive, and orderly women? In that sense it's a bit similar to the indie FPS game The Citadel (especially since I use some anime art to represent the Order members both in their maid-uniform when local and black armor when outside the gates.)

I also didn't directly explain this but the maid uniform IS armor. Alchemically-treated cloth that resists weapons while being much lighter and - despite its higher initial cost, but important for their actual, somewhat resource-restricted, cold and humid location - is easier to maintain than metal. They have effectively got a fragile, highly-restricted and traditionalized, and very closely-guarded industry of semi-modern arms and armor. So, laundry is also important.

>>95880859
>What could get a government to create a combat maid corps?
Not a government but you reminded me of Arpeggio of blue steel.

To give some contact to pic:
The man is an ex-Mad scientist who now care for a girl created only to create a weapon, which she already finished and is now considered a risk.

The story also has 70,000tons terminator-boat MAID, but that's something else.

>>95884203
>The story also has 70,000tons terminator-boat MAID, but that's something else.
Details please?

>>95664221 (OP)
What was the name for the system where a parliament of nobles have to approve of a king's heir before he's in line for the throne? That one.

>>95888393
Elective gavelkind, it was a thing in Ireland and Wales up until the 20's actually.

>>95888393
>>95888418
FFXII's Archadian empire kind of works like that.

What would be the fantasy version of a modern Western government in which the rulers are mostly powerless figureheads of a political faction and the government can’t do anything except spend more and more on public sector employment?

>>95889838
That would be Britain but with fantasy creatures, so either normal Britain or Britain with hot elves and cool centaurs depending on how hideous you want the creatures to be.

>>95890054
Forgot to add: the fantasy would be that they have any concern for public sector employment.

>>95889838
>Monarch that is too young to really rule so the rest of the government is in charge (Tut, early Meiji)
>Militaristic Empire that is feeding its citizens with bread and circuses funded by conquest (Roman empire, Nazi Germany, somewhat like current-day according to some perspectives)
>High level of automation (nothing really exists like this but lots of scifi stories do)

These are the only types I can really think of.

Of note this one of mine >>95835544
is basically "full automation but done with chaotic evil methods" (because animating and controlling undead is ALWAYS evil). High living standards, skeletons harvesting rice, zombies and mummies as guards, and an upper crust living in luxurious hedonism. With just a bit- wee bit (a lot) of backstabbing.

>>95887952
It's called "Arpeggio of blue steel".
It is smarter than its pretext-like plot, or his (actually bait) generic teens team look like.
(manga that is, anime is like 1% of the smart content).

A fleet of dumb but invincible shielded nanoboat appeared and drove human off the seas (why they look like WWII ships is rather pointless since they could be copying anything).

15 year later, shit is changing, the dumb uncreative nanoboat started?/were told? to create "mental model" to emulate human strategy.
Again, situation is so grim all politicians care little why the megatons terminators nanoboats who could annihilate mankind act like overexcited girls.

I'll just say it makes sense.
If you wanted to REALISTICALLY justify Geopolitical-Slice-of-Warfare with girly T1000 warship, that's how you do it.
just imagine Matrix except whoever built it lost controls of the cheated-unit it used to simulate something, and now everything is gaining sapience

But you only care for the terminator-boat Maid so here it is.

>>95893381
Sounds based, thanks for sharing.

>>95897490
To bring this a bit back on topic
Here's the various governments/politics, even if the absolute naval blockade means few matters.

>Japan
Split in 3 autonomous regions to prevent a singe-point failure and collapse.
One of the leader (the child) was himself created "without emotion" to lead a region.
Another was part of the navy until the defeat, important plotwise, the third is just extra flavor.
The ground army and the US army (stuck because of nanoboat blockade) are considered autonomous (causes they may have nukes).

>American
Ongoing civil war
Needed for the plot to produce a potential (half-working) weapon against The fog (nanoboat), worries some faction will seek to monopolize it
We recently learned the official president is colluding with fog ships and is no longer human

>Europe
"at war", with China planning to intervene.
England stuck on their Island but hiding a little secret since WWII. A girl who no longer age.

>The fog
That's the nanoboat, until now a monolith simply following an ambiguous order.
Now it has mental models capable of ignoring orders.
Lastest order "show possibilities"

>aside
There's a space elevator taken over by the fog where a few people still live, stranded.

>>95899635
>Lastest order "show possibilities"
What does that even mean?

>>95706054
What system do you run

>>95664221 (OP)
would

>>95664221 (OP)
Authoritaian Hobbesians fighting against Libertardian Locke-alingans while enlightened Rawles' (me) try to keep things together.
Communist Rousseauoids are in the mix too. I hate them but we have to work together.

>>95903233
Well, it's an interpretation of the speech of an imperfect godlike entity part of a simulation that's probably derailing meant to be as nebulous, conflict-inciting and open-ended as possible.
Plot-wise its real use is to officially change the status-quo order the nanoboats were already reinterpreting since they discovered boredom.
If you really must know, it's chapter 123.

>>95850838
>Fun fact, Ibn Khaldun cites stiffing one's own soldiers on pay as one of the classic 'retard leader who is about to be very replaceable' indicators.
>One would think that would be high on the list of things not to do as a leader but it happens all the time across history.
To be fair, we have the benefit of thousands of years of hindsight.

>>95850838
>The group disintegrating because it's less rewarding to be in the group than outside of it
Now I'm wondering if there's anyone building a scifi setting that builds off on the fact this is happening with increasing frequency, due to groups being subject to global competition via the internet and individuals deciding that the "costs" of most mainstream groups aren't worth the benefits compared to fringe ones. Feels a bit like a lot of cyberpunk/adjacent settings are stuck with being built off an alternate end of the last millenium or slobbering on smartphones as being multitools.

>>95907813
>Feels a bit like a lot of cyberpunk/adjacent settings are stuck with being built off an alternate end of the last millenium or slobbering on smartphones as being multitools.
Besides the big one, what cyberpunk settings do this?

>What are the governments of the major nations in your setting like, where did you take inspiration from? And do they have any novel ways of handling succession?
The largest country in my setting has a 3 seat rule and is governed by majority vote.

1 seat is the king, selected by and from among the male descendants of the founder by vote when the seat needs filling.

1 seat is the queen, selected by and from among the female descendants of the founder by vote when the seat needs filling.

1 seat is the prime minister, selected by (and generally from among) the nobility.

Ostensibly the royals have power, but in reality, for generations they've been reduced to literal props and prisoners of the nobility with votes deliberately rigged such that the prime minister always wins. The only thing holding off a direct coup is the religious and political value of the crowns and the willingness of the 2 inner courts to play ball for their collective lives.

There's also this thing going on where the royals have basically turned the local organized crime ring into an intelligence service against the nobles, using them to funnel money out of noble controlled royal and noble coffers and into royal controlled criminal coffers while cooperating with the crooks by deliberately undermining security in any way they can. Also they're exposing any corruption among the nobility they can and using the stolen money to build up an external power base to hopefully one day counter-coup the nobles.

About the only thing I took direct inspiration from was robin hood for the mob. I acknowledge some similarity to real world systems in the rest, but I can guarantee I didn't know that shit and/or have it in mind when I was cooking.

>>95910686
>votes deliberately rigged such that the prime minister always wins.
How do the rigged votes work, and how did the system come about?

>>95664221 (OP)
Where the players currently are, it's a sort of nominal Empire with swarms and loads of elector counts, barons, kinglets, princes and so on, each with a right to vote and veto in the so-called Imperial Concil.
There is currently no emperor but everyone uses the "Loyalty to the Throne" as an excuse to not go into expensive and hazardous wars over petty matters.
A mix of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, if you will.

>>95915470
>How do the rigged votes work
The royal family is literally prisoner to the nobles, held in inner courts. Think a ceremonial monarch, but the populace has been deceived into thinking they are actually still in charge, since actually stripping the royals of power publically would be seen as heretical. The king and queen are told how to vote.
>how did the system come about?
Before the current system, the system worked as it still publicly appears, the king and queen voted their mind and the prime minister was the voice of the nobles granting them a share of the rule in exchange for their support. Generations back, however, there was a secret coup. The cloistered male and female courts were already isolated targets and the nobility issued an ultimatum to the king and queen that they'd obtained control over them and the prime minister would be the ruling power going forward, or they'd all be slaughtered. It's a multigenerational hostage situation. As long as the king and queen play ball, the royal lines are allowed to live in relative luxury minus any freedom of movement or expression.

The nobles didn't jump straight to slaughtering the royal family to prevent unrest from killing off the divinely ordained line and to use the king and queen can be used as scape goats for unpopular policies the nobles wish to enact.

>>95914840
>>95914923
>>95915235
>>95915470
>>95915714
kill yourself bumpfag

>>95723651(me)
>>95677155
this threads still up, eh?
well, another obvious one from exalted is lookshy, another dragon-blooded polity that operates more as a military commune than the dynast's empire, prasad, a small dragon-blood empire where they are worshipped as divinity, ysyr is ruled mostly by mortal sorcerers that have turned the populace almost entirely into mutant slaves with a shortened lifespan, and great forks, which technically is governed my a mortal administrative cast but is ultimately at the behest of its founding gods and other resident gods of great power, in obvious defiance of heavenly law stating no gods should rule a mortal populace. though technically in exalted one could argue any government with habitual or hereditary supernatural rulership could count, or even singular rulers since exalts and other magic beings tend to live pretty long or cheat death otherwise
if singular magic rulers also count in pathfinder, then just in the inner sea there's geb, ruled by the eponymous necromancer as a haven for the dead, the isle of terror and the gravelands are under the thumb of the lich tar-baphon the whispering tyrant, hermea (at least in the osr version) was a eugenic meritocracy ran secretly by the gold dragon mengkare, mzali is ruled by its mummy-child god walkena, irrisen is ruled by a succession of witch-queens installed by baba yaga, new thassilon is ruled by powerful archmages known as the runelords, and druma is effectively run by high priests of the prophets of the kalistrade who seek to defy death through austerities and vast wealth

>>95664221 (OP)
How did your last game session go?

>>95664221 (OP)
She deserved better, the show did her wrong. Not to mention how Wsteros's politics are all messed up.

>>95664221 (OP)
This fucking thread is still up and still below 200 posts...
/tg/ is beyond being a zombie at this point

>>95850838
>more than 10 people
Why ten people specifically?

>>95664221 (OP)
We have a worldbuilding general newfag.

>>95664221 (OP)
I designed a three way paramonarchy with a goal to be the country with the most internally conflicted government. For a warrior culture to have a fluid and dynamic politics. It was like this:

King - feudal monarch that had contracted vassals. Hereditary position. Also the leader of only dragon kings order in the land. Could make kingdom wide decrees, but they could be vetoed by a kingdom's Champion.

Champion - top fighter in the kingdom and head commander of the kingdom's battlemages. To become a champion, you have to kill previous one in a duel or win a death tournament. Could declare wars without Kings approval, but Aristocrats were not obliged to participate in them unlike to King's summons.

Aristocrat Council - assembly of King's vassals, they also could issue kingdom wide decrees, but it required a majority vote. Also King could also veto their decrees. Council also had a power to straight up order a Champion too end any campaign or deny him supplies (King could not do this).

>>95936858
Reminds me a bit of the United States government, was that intentional?

>>95940079

No, i was just playing around with constitutional monarchy... But USA? Who would be a Champion in your vision? Because I see the analogy of King with President, and Aristocrats with individual States while Council is Congress... But a Champion?

>>95942210
I said a bit, I didn't say it was a one to one comparison. And maybe Secretary of Defense if I had to say something?

>>95915552
>Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,
I have literally never heard of that before now, why that?

She did nothing wrong.