Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

[1EyedJack]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

It should really depend on what type of fantasy setting you are playing. Most fantasy setting closly mirror historic settings (fantasized with wizards dragons and such) If your setting is like dark ages Europe then monarchs are going to be the norm. If your game is a golden ages type of setting (like before the fall of Rome) then limmited monarchs and Democracies and Republics should exist. Keep in mind that Christanity actually helped keep the monarchs of Europe in power (Divine Right) so politcal systems should reflect prevlent religious veiws.

[assault]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

If your setting is like dark ages Europe then monarchs are going to be the norm.

 

True, although this is also the heyday of Saga-Era Iceland and similar semi-anarchic clan societies. You could probably include the odd Republican city state too, even though most of the historic ones were dominated by nobles or the Church at this point.

 

Also, of course, dark ages monarchs were weaker than those of the "High" middle ages and the Renaissance. The latter tended to have more power relative to their feudal subordinates. Furthermore, many (very) early dark age monarchies were elective rather than hereditary.

 

If your game is a golden ages type of setting (like before the fall of Rome) then limmited monarchs and Democracies and Republics should exist.

 

Actually, Rome pretty much ended the era of "Democracies and Republics" during the establishment of its empire. "Limited monarchs" tended to be barbarian rulers beyond their borders.

 

Keep in mind that Christanity actually helped keep the monarchs of Europe in power (Divine Right) so politcal systems should reflect prevlent religious veiws.

 

Yes. Of course that cuts both ways.

 

If you set the world up with the right religious views, the political systems you want become more plausible.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

I don't really recall any from fiction. I think it's mainly that Kings are easier from a writing point of view, have easily identifiable head, princes/princesses to get caught up in things, etc. Unless the writer specifically wants to get into the politics of a democracy or is trying to make a particular modern comparison, will probably avoid it.

 

GURPS Rome might have a good bit on the Republic era, but I don't know if it has any thoughts on "The Republic in a Fantasy game" where magic works, etc.

 

In my current recently-started fantasy game, I have several to varying degrees. One country founded by escaped slaves, have set up a pretty thorough one-adult-one-vote representative system. As time goes on if they get more spread out or lose their common focus of opposition to/defense against their former masters, holes more likely to appear in the system. Several of the city-states in my Greece-like area have varying degrees of democratic/republican government.

 

In mixed-race societies could have specific issues arising from that, especially if have standard "dwarves and elves live lots longer than humans" types. Living a long time could allow them to accumulate economic and political power and over time become a de facto ruling class. Or not. Depends on a lot of factors.

 

Republics might be MORE stable in a fantasy world, by having a lot more decision-makers. Authoritania has a strong king, but if he gets ensorcelled, can take the whole place down the tubes. Meanwhile, if Republicania's Consul gets ensorcelled, the Senate kicks him out when he starts acting crazy. Republicania could very well be more corrupt in general, but harder to get a majority corrupted about any one thing than it is to corrupt/control one person.

 

There was a thread a while back about the French Revolution in a fantasy setting, might be useful to refer to.

[Sociotard]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Republics might be MORE stable in a fantasy world, by having a lot more decision-makers. Authoritania has a strong king, but if he gets ensorcelled, can take the whole place down the tubes. Meanwhile, if Republicania's Consul gets ensorcelled, the Senate kicks him out when he starts acting crazy. Republicania could very well be more corrupt in general, but harder to get a majority corrupted about any one thing than it is to corrupt/control one person.

ooooh, nice! This sounds like a handy plot device.

 

Reps to you!

[Vestnik]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Well' date=' I ciould have been more careful, but the image I get from my own reading is that Saga-age Iceland was often a very violent society. Interestingly, much the same can be said for the Russian cossacks and the Carribbean pirates - all very democratic and very violent societies. I wonder sometimes if there's a connection between the freedom and the mayhem or not.[/quote']

 

Not that this has anything to dp with the subject directly at hand, but my last girlfriend's grandmother was a (Don) Cossack.

 

But she was a little girl when 1917 rolled around, and being a Cossack post-1917 was a lot different than being one pre-1917. And I unfortunately never got the chance to talk with her, being that she is now deceased.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Cossacks were all over the Russian frontiers/birderlands, weren't they?

 

And I assume that Cossack culture went through some vast changes between the 16th and 20th/21st centuries. At least, I got the idea (from reading Harold Lamb) that the Cossacks went from blood enemies of the czar to some of his best troops.

[Vestnik]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Cossacks were all over the Russian frontiers/birderlands, weren't they?

 

And I assume that Cossack culture went through some vast changes between the 16th and 20th/21st centuries. At least, I got the idea (from reading Harold Lamb) that the Cossacks went from blood enemies of the czar to some of his best troops.

 

Yes and yes. Actually the word has a variable meaning -- its widest meaning is just "ethnic Russian who lives in a rural environment near the border."

 

They were the descendents of escaped serfs, criminals, and persecuted religious minorities who fled the Russian Empire and settled beyond its borders, forming quasi-military societies. Then when the Empire expanded and caught up with them again, after a lot of military and other conflict, the tsar gave them a deal whereby they would retain their ability to have local government and religious freedom and be exempted from taxation in exchange for providing soldiers for the Imperial Army.

 

The Soviets tried to wipe out any sense of Cossack cultural identity in the relevant regions, but did not totally succeed. They obtained official recognition in Russian law as a distinct nationality in 2001-2002. (With about 250,000 self-declared Cossacks in Russia according to the census). I have an anthropological paper on the contemporary Cossacks I can send you if you want (in pdf).

 

EDIT: Here's Tolstoy's description of the origin of the Cossacks from his novel of the same name. Other good descriptions of Cossack life (both set in the Civil War) are Mikhail Sholokov's Quiet Flows the Don, which is one of my favorite books, and Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry. Anyway here's the extract, with link to the whole book in English translation:

 

Long long ago their Old Believer ancestors fled from Russia and settled beyond the Terek among the Chechens on the Greben, the first range of wooded mountains of Chechnya. Living among the Chechens the Cossacks intermarried with them and adopted the manners and customs of the hill tribes, though they still retained the Russian language in all its purity, as well as their Old Faith. A tradition, still fresh among them, declares that Tsar Ivan the Terrible came to the Terek, sent for their Elders, and gave them the land on this side of the river, exhorting them to remain friendly to Russia and promising not to enforce his rule upon them nor oblige them to change their faith. Even now the Cossack families claim relationship with the Chechens, and the love of freedom, of leisure, of plunder and of war, still form their chief characteristics. Only the harmful side of Russian influence shows itself—by interference at elections, by confiscation of church bells, and by the troops who are quartered in the country or march through it. A Cossack is inclined to hate less the dzhigit hillsman who maybe has killed his brother, than the soldier quartered on him to defend his village, but who has defiled his hut with tobacco-smoke. He respects his enemy the hillsman and despises the soldier, who is in his eyes an alien and an oppressor. In reality, from a Cossack's point of view a Russian peasant is a foreign, savage, despicable creature, of whom he sees a sample in the hawkers who come to the country and in the Ukrainian immigrants whom the Cossack contemptuously calls 'woolbeaters'. For him, to be smartly dressed means to be dressed like a Circassian. The best weapons are obtained from the hillsmen and the best horses are bought, or stolen, from them. A dashing young Cossack likes to show off his knowledge of Tartar, and when carousing talks Tartar even to his fellow Cossack. In spite of all these things this small Christian clan stranded in a tiny comer of the earth, surrounded by half-savage Mohammedan tribes and by soldiers, considers itself highly advanced, acknowledges none but Cossacks as human beings, and despises everybody else. http://www.fdungan.com/cossack.htm

[Clonus]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

 

The weapons you are talking about are spears, pikes and polearms, all of which are just fine for dealing with "professionals".

 

.

 

No, they really aren't. You have to know how to drill to make polearms effective. Otherwise a few men on horseback can tear right through you.

[Kristopher]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

No' date=' they really aren't. You have to know how to drill to make polearms effective. Otherwise a few men on horseback can tear right through you.[/quote']

 

And it takes more than a handful of spearmen or pikemen to be effective.

[Inu]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

No' date=' they really aren't. You have to know how to drill to make polearms effective. Otherwise a few men on horseback can tear right through you.[/quote']

Keep in mind that the 'warrior classes' weren't the only fighting men in, say, Medieval Europe. There were many semi-professional warriors among the freemen and other peasants. Additionally, given the non-standing-army nature of organised force, any reprisal for rebellion took some time to put together. In that time, experienced footmen could train others in various tactics. Finally, hubris on the part of the knights could lead to them underestimating the peasants.

 

This didn't happen often, and yes, most confrontations between knights and peasants ended up with a lot of dead peasants (mostly when the peasants ran and got cut down from behind). But there were cases when peasants defeated whole armies of knights -- just ask the Flemish (I think) rebels with their godendags.

 

But yes, military might was mainly concentrated among the upper classes, and the lack of printing presses &c probably contributed as much to the lack of successes among the peasants -- by making it impossible to organise nation-wide resistance -- as did the swords and lances of knights. A few successes here and there cannot be said to mean that peasants could revolt at will... just that they did, and occasionally were successful. After all, if it happened a lot, the knights in Flanders wouldn't have been caught unawares by unconventional tactics.

 

I think I agree with your basic premise -- that democracies won't flourish where the lower classes aren't a threat. I'd state it slightly differently, however. I'd say that (SW paraphrase) those who have power are loathe to relinquish it. Voting is an exercise of political power; why on earth would the king, gentry, etc give up even a tiny fraction of that power and place it in the hands of the people? Military force is one reason. Economic power is another. Most Renaissance democracies sprang up in mercantile city-states. Sometimes, other factors can be at play. Moral reasons, or merely needing allies against a corrupt or stupid king, can lead to nobles talking to commoners and even giving them more power. Witness the 13th century rebellion of Simon de Montfort against Henry III. It's a moment with many interpretations, but either or both of the above reasons many apply. =) Certainly, de Montfort was loved by the commoners. Whether he did it for pragmatic or moral reasons -- or both -- he did certainly expand the political ambitions of commoners, if not their medium-term power.

 

A democracy in a fantasy setting is VERY unlikely to exist, granted. I like to refer to TORG world axioms: until the modern day, the 'social' axiom was simply not high enough to sustain pure democracies. People just didn't get it; the governments didn't work. But still, given the right series of serendipitous conjunctions, I could see it working... at least for a few generations.

[assault]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

A democracy in a fantasy setting is VERY unlikely to exist' date=' granted.[/quote']

 

True. After all, heroes never fight on the side of the poor and oppressed...

[assault]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

No' date=' they really aren't. You have to know how to drill to make polearms effective. Otherwise a few men on horseback can tear right through you.[/quote']

 

So?

 

And it takes more than a handful of spearmen or pikemen to be effective.

 

Likewise: So?

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

True' date=' the Great Experiment isn't over yet. [/quote']

 

(resraining myself from commenting)

 

In exalted, the "great civilzation that was" consisted of all the people with the best superpowers forming a republican oligarchy. Still, a civilzation where 300 people rule over maybe a billion, and none of the billion gets a vote, is disturbing. I could accept less than universal sufferage in my fiction, like ancient Greece, but that's too narrow.

 

For anything approaching alrge0scale representative democracy to work requires several things that cannot exist in most fantasy worlds; communication a a fast enough speed that quick social reactions are possible, a a populace where literacy and education are the norm, and enough peace and social stability that there is time to devote to such matters.

 

In pre-industrial societies, even in the most enlightened cultures the lower classes would have to work too long and too hard to devote much time to educating their children in non-practical matters. The peasant would know everything you would ever want to about the problems involved in raising food and animals, building and repairing tools and simple furnitiure, etc, but wouldn't have had time to learn to read beyond the most basic of level. Communication in a pre-industrial society is at the speed of the fastest reliable courier, and magic isn't likely to change that much (note that one must emphasize 'reliable" -- the bard telling stories of a threat from distant lands may well be a con artist talking out of his hat).

 

The Athenians would not even have come up with the concept of democracy did they not have a large force of slave laborers to do all their work for them and were they not producing a commodity in such great demand throughout their region that it was practically a license to print money. even then, Athens 'golden age" lasted less than a hundred and fifty years -- their democracy was not at all stable, and they ended up losing the Peleponnesian Wars to Sparta and eventually being absorbed by the openly autocratic Macedonians.

[assault]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

For anything approaching alrge0scale representative democracy to work requires several things that cannot exist in most fantasy worlds; communication a a fast enough speed that quick social reactions are possible' date=' a a populace where literacy and education are the norm, and enough peace and social stability that there is time to devote to such matters.[/quote']

 

Point by point:

communication a a fast enough speed that quick social reactions are possible: how quick is quick? Months? Weeks? Neither of these is a problem, especially when sea travel is an option.

 

a populace where literacy and education are the norm: probably unnecessary. Certainly there are relatively modern examples where this wasn't the case. The early USA, for starters.

 

Incidentally, we haven't particularly been focussing on either representative democracy or "on a large scale" up until now. However, it is possible for city-states to dominate considerable empires, so scale doesn't seem to be that big an issue.

 

enough peace and social stability that there is time to devote to such matters: One of the key element to "such matters" is how the state responds in wartime! Aside from that, how much "peace and social stability" do you need? How about not being at war this year? Furthermore, since when was "social stability" an issue in a genre where thousand year old states are a dime a dozen?

 

The Athenians would not even have come up with the concept of democracy did they not have a large force of slave laborers to do all their work for them and were they not producing a commodity in such great demand throughout their region that it was practically a license to print money.

 

Two things: the essence of ancient Greek democracy was that the franchise was extended to the non-slave owning small peasants. That was what distinguished it from oligarchic systems.

 

Furthermore, Athens was not the only democracy in the Greek world. In fact, it is possible it may not even have been the first - as opposed to the first ones to tell us about it.

[Markdoc]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Furthermore' date=' Athens was not the only democracy in the Greek world. In fact, it is possible it may not even have been the first - as opposed to the first ones to tell us about it.[/quote']

 

It was, as far as we can tell, one of the first - but it was certainly not the only one. Not surprising, since in Greek culture the democratic tradition sprung out of the idea of a council of senior tribesmen who advised the king: it seems to have been a widespread concept.

 

Where Athens is special is:

a) they were the first, as far as we can tell, to extend the franchise to all free male adult Athenians, and curtail the power of the landowning class, making them a democracy recognisable as such to us moderns (they still had a royal family, though, don't forget, so it wasn't exactly Boston-with-sunshine)

they were the biggest and weathiest city in Greece and actively attracted intellectuals. Therefore they left us plenty of literature telling us how wondeful their democracy was. Which, to be fair, if you were a male adult Athenian was probably true, at least compared to the alternatives.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Keep in mind that the 'warrior classes' weren't the only fighting men in' date=' say, Medieval Europe. There were many semi-professional warriors among the freemen and other peasants.[/quote']

 

Yep. You mention the flemish below, who were famous for their spearmen (later pikemen) from the early 1200's through to the early renaissance. You could also add the English Yeomen, the spanish Almugahvars, the Swiss axemen (later Pikemen), the German ministerales and Swabian swordsmen, etc. All of these were non-gentle soldiery and all of them took armies of knights on and defeated them, not just once, but often.

 

This didn't happen often' date=' and yes, most confrontations between knights and peasants ended up with a lot of dead peasants (mostly when the peasants ran and got cut down from behind). But there were cases when peasants defeated whole armies of knights -- just ask the Flemish (I think) rebels with their godendags.[/quote']

 

An important point - I can't think of any successful *peasant* warrior types: call a flemish militia-man a peasant and you'd be likely to get a Godentag in the face! The Flemish militia drew largely on the burgers of the various cities, all of whom had regular drill and which fielded mixed arms forces of spearmen, (and godentag men ), crossbowmen and a few knights (either real knights, owing fealty to the counts of Flanders or wealthy burghers who fought in knightly fashion). Infantry were always the core of any Flemish army though. The defeats of various knightly armies in Flanders can hardly have been due to "unconventional tactics" - various noble houses hired flemish mercenaries for centuries: they knew what they were getting.

 

But all of these non-gentle warrior types had one thing in common: they came from societies where the the non-gentle landowners outweighed the feudal powers structure. In Flanders it was the city-dwelling Burghers. They weren't democratic in the modern sense, but they did run their cities largely via charter through a council elected by the wealthier citizens. The Swiss in fact did have a democracy, even if only men voted - there, pretty much *all* the men voted, and it is from the Swiss that we get the slogan "One man, one vote". The Almughavars were drawn from the poorly-feudalised mountainous regions of Spain, where a primitive form of village democracy held sway - certainly the Almughavars themselves were democratic, their captians and officers being chosen by vote - and on some occasions the command rotating over several officers, as in old Greek armies - when they could not agree on who should lead.

 

Not all of these warriors had democratic leanings, though - the English Yeomanry and tthe German Ministerales were thoroughly grounded in their respective feudal societies.

 

It's just to point out that non-feudal societies were able to compete quite effectively (the Low counntries maintained their independance on the backs of their spearmen for 4 centuries, despite more or less continuous attempts by France and/or Germany to subdue them) - I can easily imagine a democratic fantasy society based on either the Swiss (remote rural areas where the population as a whole is free, and where elected village leaders meet to decide national policy) or Flemish (a largely urban society with some degree of democracy at the city level, perhaps united either by treaties between cities or by a nominal - and not necessarily elected - figurehead leader) models. In fact, I have both models in my game.

 

cheers, Mark

[Inu]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

An important point - I can't think of any successful *peasant* warrior types: call a flemish militia-man a peasant and you'd be likely to get a Godentag in the face!

Yeah, I use the term 'peasant' a bit too freely. ^_- I have a fairly broad working knowledge of history, improving greatly in the middle ages, but I still have many gaps, and I too-often use the wrong term due to laziness more than anything else.

 

And in the interest of knowing more about the world around (and before) me, thank you for the extra detail in the rest of the post!

 

My current game is a D&D game set in Mystara, which TKDguy referred to earlier. I have a few nascent democracies there, such as the Republic of Darokin to which he referred. The more I know about the historical situations, the better I can flesh out my fictional ones.

[Markdoc]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Yeah' date=' I use the term 'peasant' a bit too freely. ^_- I have a fairly broad working knowledge of history, improving greatly in the middle ages, but I still have many gaps, and I too-often use the wrong term due to laziness more than anything else.[/quote']

 

Yeah, from your previous posts, I figured as much. What can I say: I'm a geek.

 

My current game is a D&D game set in Mystara' date=' which TKDguy referred to earlier. I have a few nascent democracies there, such as the Republic of Darokin to which he referred. The more I know about the historical situations, the better I can flesh out my fictional ones.[/quote']

 

Agreed. In my current game, I have the following "democratic" models, all drawing to some extent on historical parallels.

 

There's the Martic league, based loosely on the city-based economic networks like the Flemish, Hanseatic or North Italian cities. In these cities, every registered taxpayer (ie: craftsman, landowner or mechant) gets a vote for who sits on the city council, and slavery is illegal, so in theory, it's a full-fledged democracy. In practice, the guildmasters, crimelords and heads of merchant houses "organise" their affiliates and so the cities are ruled by power-blocs who routinely deliver a 95+% vote for their candidate in their ward.

 

There's the Eochail people, based loosely on Viking Iceland, where all adults (ie: householders) can vote, and cities or regions select a strongman or a small council to represent them on a wider scale, but the political structure there is pretty weak - most politics is at the town/city level.

 

And there's the Ephesian league, based loosely on the Greek city states where "schools of philosophy" have been replaced with schools of magic. In this setting, although all adult citizens have the right (indeed, duty) to vote in referenda, famous schools of magic and their alumni carry a lot of political weight - which in turn attracts those who want to make a career in politics. Mages don't get any more votes than anyone else, but everyone knows that they are brainy, well-plugged into what's going on (and responsible for much of the city's defence) so their words often sway the votes of others. You don't have to be a great mage to get people's attention, if half your drinking buddies are great mages and you're married to the archmage's niece because you all went to school together.

 

cheers, Mark

[Inu]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Yeah' date=' from your previous posts, I figured as much. What can I say: I'm a geek.[/quote']Me too. ; Thanks for the compliment, too! (I haven't posted opposite you much; there's a tiny measure of awe going on there for your incredibly broad knowledge.) (Okay, that's over. Back to the thread. What's this taste on my tongue?)

Agreed. In my current game, I have the following "democratic" models, all drawing to some extent on historical parallels.

 

There's the Martic league, based loosely on the city-based economic networks like the Flemish, Hanseatic or North Italian cities. In these cities, every registered taxpayer (ie: craftsman, landowner or mechant) gets a vote for who sits on the city council, and slavery is illegal, so in theory, it's a full-fledged democracy. In practice, the guildmasters, crimelords and heads of merchant houses "organise" their affiliates and so the cities are ruled by power-blocs who routinely deliver a 95+% vote for their candidate in their ward.

 

There's the Eochail people, based loosely on Viking Iceland, where all adults (ie: householders) can vote, and cities or regions select a strongman or a small council to represent them on a wider scale, but the political structure there is pretty weak - most politics is at the town/city level.

 

And there's the Ephesian league, based loosely on the Greek city states where "schools of philosophy" have been replaced with schools of magic. In this setting, although all adult citizens have the right (indeed, duty) to vote in referenda, famous schools of magic and their alumni carry a lot of political weight - which in turn attracts those who want to make a career in politics. Mages don't get any more votes than anyone else, but everyone knows that they are brainy, well-plugged into what's going on (and responsible for much of the city's defence) so their words often sway the votes of others. You don't have to be a great mage to get people's attention, if half your drinking buddies are great mages and you're married to the archmage's niece because you all went to school together.

Cool. =)

 

My version of the Republic of Darokin (somewhat different to the published one) is in the process of changing from a monarchy to a democratic state (a plutocracy in fact, republic in law). Basically, the king still has power; but the merchants in the cities have strong-armed him to the extent that the cities have been granted charters to permit them to pass their own laws. They still get a lot out of remaining part of the country, and not doing anything too far outside of the norm, but in effect the country is split between two powerbases -- money and land, each with their own governments -- the cities have a formally-recognised council that is increasingly threatening royal prerogative. As more and more of the country falls under the domination of the charters, the king is losing greater and greater real power; it's inevitable that he'll lose, in the end. The monarchy is dying,a nd there isn't really much that can be done to save it. All the better, say the guilds.

 

Inside the cities, people are elected by much the same list that you have in the Martic League, with votes largely being decided in the same way. It's a bit more free-for-all, but basically, rather than winning over individual voters, a candidate splashes around money to win over the local leaders, who effectively control the votes in their area. Money talks in Darokin, as do family contacts.

 

In terms of military, they have some of the oldest orders of knighthood in the world, as well as a professional army specialising in pikemen.

 

In the original setting, the line of kings died out a few hundred years before present; with no-one strong enough to reunite them, the country more or less fell into independent city-states, run by merchants. In recent generations, they got back together to form the republic. I decided to continue the monarchy into the present day in order to have the duelling power structures... and because I re-read The Three Musketeers and decided that I MUST rip it off entirely.

 

Anyway, that was longer than I intended... but since the thread is about fantasy democracies, I figured it wasn't exactly a derail. ^_- I hope it can be useful to people... and it's open to critique, naturally.

[Markdoc]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Hey, I thought it was interesting

 

In the Martic league, I used a slightly similar approach - two of the three largest cities were founded by wizard-kings (there were 5 but 2 ofthem are now moldering ruins). In Lacramar, the wizard kings (who, like any wizard worth his salt in my game world) were immortal (or at least, don't age) became stranger and stranger and less and less involved in running the city. The bureaucracy they had set up to handle mundane details essentially became self-perpetuating by selecting new members (hence, voting) and eventually became the government. The original wizard kings are (presumably) still there, inside their palace, but these days it's a securely guarded temple, not so much to keep the wizard kings in - if that were even possible - but to keep anyone else getting in to disturb them. Offerings and documents are presented in the temple and then whisked away by the hereditary priesthood, just to show the wizard kings that their servants are still on the job, should they ever become active again.

 

In Ilthmar, up the coast, the wizard kings likewise became strange and decadent, but the last representative there was plain nasty as well. Eventually, he drove the people to revolt and although most of the city burned down, he was eventually destroyed. The rebuilding there was overseen by an ad-hoc government of the various surving faction leaders and although over the centuries it's become similar in many ways to Lacramar - at least superficially - the different histories mean that the details and the type of people in charge are rather different.

 

The third large city in the league is much younger - it started as a base for raiding/trading for the Olmai (northern barbarian types) and as it grew too large to manage by warlordism, consciously copied the government of the older cities. So again, the government is similar in style but in this case, it is still mostly run by the descendants of the original founders - so the flavour is different. They've never had an aristocracy, but these days, not all families are equal.

 

So I've ended up with three democracies in one area, each with a slightly different flavour - which give me good grounds for political intrigue and thus player involvement - and which stops them seeming too "samey".

 

cheers, Mark

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

You know one way of making an old-timey window? Smear parchment with tallow and hang it across. I guess in a bad, windy winter (where you had a lot of parchment and tallow) you might patch over a few times. Ten? Twenty?

That's how many layers we're seeing Athenian democracy through.

These people live in a universe that is vastly far from our idealistic conception of things, although much closer to our world as it is. Think of Robert Heinlein, Jerry Falwell, Socrates and Aristotle as shamans, and you'll be on the right track according to some extraordinary (if typically academically unreadable) books published in the last few years beginning with _Cosmic Republic_.

[Vestnik]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Point by point:

communication a a fast enough speed that quick social reactions are possible: how quick is quick? Months? Weeks? Neither of these is a problem, especially when sea travel is an option.

 

If you postulate magical means of communication, this becomes even less of a problem.

[Kristopher]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

Magical communication -- that's what's holding the Rome-analog sorta-republic together in my fantasy novel setting together long after the real Roman empire had started coming apart at the seams.

[Kristopher]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

You know one way of making an old-timey window? Smear parchment with tallow and hang it across. I guess in a bad, windy winter (where you had a lot of parchment and tallow) you might patch over a few times. Ten? Twenty?

That's how many layers we're seeing Athenian democracy through.

These people live in a universe that is vastly far from our idealistic conception of things, although much closer to our world as it is. Think of Robert Heinlein, Jerry Falwell, Socrates and Aristotle as shamans, and you'll be on the right track according to some extraordinary (if typically academically unreadable) books published in the last few years beginning with _Cosmic Republic_.

 

Shamans?

 

If I'm reading that correctly, it sounds like yet another one of those grandiose, impressive, and ultimately pointless attempts to reduce all human societies/cultures to the same basic setup, in this case "people following leaders with special access to mysteries, spiritual or otherwise".

[Clonus]

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

 

True. After all' date=' heroes never fight on the side of the poor and oppressed... [/quote']

 

Sure they do. So what? Fighting doesn't create a democracy. If anything, the opposite is true.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clonus

No, they really aren't. You have to know how to drill to make polearms effective. Otherwise a few men on horseback can tear right through you.

 

So?

 

So, you're no longer amateurs. You've become a martial class devoting considerable time and effort to your training. That separates you from noncombatants in a way that easier-to-learn weapons don't. And while you may end up creating a kind of democracy consisting of your class, that'll end up being more of an oligarchy.