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Andoran is rapidly becoming a republic in name only,as the old families are recreating an ogliarchal society. That's the problem with republics, as it happened and Greece and Rome, they're fragile constucts at best.Well there is, as stated, Andoran. It's a true republic.
I could come up with more recent examples than Greece and Rome . . . .
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What of democratic republics?
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Andoran is rapidly becoming a republic in name only,as the old families are recreating an ogliarchal society. That's the problem with republics, as it happened and Greece and Rome, they're fragile constucts at best.Well there is, as stated, Andoran. It's a true republic.
I could come up with more recent examples than Greece and Rome . . . .
Venice, perhaps?
In any case, every form of government has its faults, and those faults are usually great adventure fodder. It would be boring if a nation keeps running smoothly even when the player characters become powerful enough to do something about the situation.
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For historical examples of later republics after the Romans and Greeks, you have the French Republic, America, Prussia, pre-Nazi Germany, and so on. There are tons of examples of republics, democracies and every variation of government throughout all fantasy and science fiction, ESPECIALLY the Roman Republic. They range from the General by SM Stirling to many others besides. Or the People's Republic in David Weber's Honor Harrington series that is a combination of France and America, and so on. As for RPG settings, go look up Eberron with the gnomish cities that are modeled around the republics and city states of Italy, the Republic of Monsters, or the as pre-mentioned Andoran, which is America without guns, or Razmiran, the River Kingdoms which are a large patchwork of various governmental types with a group of common freedoms (ala the Confederate States of America in many ways, the city-state of Magnimar in Varisia and parts of Ustalav in Golarion, or the nation of halflings in FR (pre-Spellplague) called Lurien. All of these are republics or democracies. Heck, even the hold of the orcs of Belkzen in Golarion is an ersatz version of a democracy through strength of arms.
Rome's influence of plebs vs patricians is still well and alive today. Except now it's a basis of wealth rather then noble lineage that determines that status, and people have the ability to become patricians via some form of upward mobility (very limited as it is now). It's merely the example of the haves and have-nots trying to equalize their power. For a benevolent kingdom that sends the PCs out to save the day in Golarion try the Crusader Kingdoms or Lastwall. The point is there are plenty in fantasy settings, but people equate fantasy with medieval trappings much of the time.
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Point of Order: The First Republic and the restored Republic of Haven is French and American revolutionary ideals combined. The People's Republic of Haven is France after the first Revolution with the welfare state taken to its ultimate point and nobles running it in the background. Then it becomes the French Republic pre Napoleon via the insistence of Rob S Pierre after he kills the Legislaturalists and implements the Terror. Eventually the Committee goes poof under Theisman since Napoleon as Esther Mcqueen fails in her coup attempt, and we get our restored Republic back. Manticore is Britain and the US combined with a queen as the head of state (essentially the head of the executive branch), with a prime minister and cabinet handling the bureaucracy and a two house legislature. It's Hornblower in space.
But both serve as great examples of democratic republics/constitutional monarchies/totalitarian regimes that can be models for other settings. So can the Federation of Star Trek (utopian socialist democracy), the Ferengi Exchange (business based meritocracy), and others. Erde from the Soprano Sorceress series has several countries that use councils or even a bureaucratic setup run by a singer.
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New Crobuzon.
The Powder Mage trilogy.
The Half-Made World.
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Random thoughts on governance in fantasy societies:
I wonder what a monarchy of immortals would really be like. It's touched on in various books that feature fey/fairies. But since the fey are typically portrayed as living in a realm where time passes differently than the Material Plane, and are often also portrayed as rather chaotic, I don't think that truly models what a monarchy/dictatorship ruled by a deathless being would be like.
That bleeds into thoughts about what immortal (or at least ageless) elves would be like as rulers. Would they be rigid and unwilling to accept change? Would they eventually get bored of ruling and just wander off? Would they think they know better than everyone else and try to conquer all the shorter-lived races? What would it be like if the same individual had been ruler for the entirety of recorded history?
Ancient Britain and Ireland (and Scandinavia, too, I think) had monarchies in which kings of territories owed fealty and paid tribute to a High King. You don't see that type of arrangement much in fantasy settings either, in my experience. Fantasy monarchies tend to be modeled much more after either the monarchies of medieval Europe, with dukes and barons and their contingents of knights; or after parliamentary monarchies like the modern United Kingdom.
The other day I was having a conversation with some friends about Klingons and the Star Trek 'Mirror Universe', which are both societies where it's implied that individuals gain increased social status and power by killing those who have higher status than themselves - one becomes captain of a starship, for example, by killing the current captain. We all agreed a system of advancement like that wouldn't work in the real world. But what if it did? What would that be like, if anyone in a position of power had to constantly be on the alert in case their subordinates decided it was time to kill them?
Now wondering what a mageocracy would be like - only mages get to rule, there's either a ruling council, or an Archmage who functions much like a monarch, maybe there's voting involved but only mages or members of recognized magical organizations are allowed to vote; perhaps there are mage battles to choose a new Archmage or council members...
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Keep in mind that both the Roman and Greek Republics weren't democracies as we understand them today. To be a Senator for example in Rome, you were the head of a powerful family. You weren't "elected" to the position by the plebian population.
But the Plebes did elect the Plebian assembly and most of the Officials. The Plebian Assembly and the Tribunes had a lot of power in the late Republic.
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Greyhawk had two republics, complete with elections, representatives, etc.:
1) Perrenland (loosely based on switzerland, including export of mercenaries) ;
2) and the Yeomanry, with a government of the warrior people by the warrior people.Not en expert on FR or Eberron, but it seems that "never any republic" in classic D&D settings isn't factually correct.
And the City of Greyhawk itself was run by the Directing Oligarchy, aka the guilds.
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Kate Elliot's Spiritwalker series has some radicals that want to give everyone the vote.
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Forgotten Realms lorehound here, the setting had plenty of monarchies but lots of other types of governance as well:
*Elves have their "Coronals", non-hereditary political & military leaders. Sometimes divinely chosen, sometimes elected by the realm's most powerful Houses.
*Dwarven empire of Deep Shanatar had a divinely chosen High King; other dwarf realms had petty kings of city-states or monarchs beholden to councils of clan-lords.
*Turmish was a human & dwarven republic, but no one ever wrote any books or adventures there so it doesn't have a lot of lore.
*Thay was a sinister magocracy dominated by the Red Wizards, and their noble-equivalent Tharchions.
*Luruar, the League of the Silver Marches was a loose confederacy of frontier city-states
*Waterdeep (basically Absalom but more interventionist) had an oligarchical council of Masked Lords to prevent them from being bribed/assassinated, with one unmasked Open Lord acting as the executive.
*In the past Mulhorand was directly ruled by avatars of their pantheon--literal immortal god-kings; now that the gods are gone they have a divinely-ordained Pharaoh.
*Dalesfolk are pretty clearly the inspiration for Nirmathas, but the Dalesfolk are *slightly* less goofy. Still have the same small-town hunter/small farm vibe despite semi-regular invasions
There are probably plenty of others I'm forgetting.
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I actually added a republic to my campaign setting, partially inspired by the one Ancient Rome had before it went all Imperial.
In a general sense, I tried to look up various forms of governance instead of every nation / state being a monarchy and such for the setting.
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This thread seems really weird to me, not because I disagree in general, but because Golarion is one of the biggest exceptions to this tendency that I can think of.
I mean, we've got Andoran, in terms of a republic, but also a host of other nations with a host of other completely divergent governmental structures. Really, hereditary monarchy is the exception in Golarion, not the rule.
Which makes seeing a thread like this regarding Pathfinder specifically a bit surreal, at least to me.
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^Yes, we also have a subset of Ustalav, plus some country in Tian-Xia that I can't remember the name of.
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Was Lankhmar a republic? I seem to remember it was, although I might be wrong; I'm also pretty sure that most of the city-states in Scott Lynch's books are republics too...
Andoran is rapidly becoming a republic in name only,as the old families are recreating an ogliarchal society. That's the problem with republics, as it happened and Greece and Rome, they're fragile constucts at best.Well there is, as stated, Andoran. It's a true republic.
Citation?
Because that doesn't match with anything I've read. Certainly the old families want that and the Lumber Consortium is getting away with murder due to pragmatic naval concerns, but those are more conflicts for PCs to overcome than the Republic disintegrating.
Storyline that came out in several PFS Scenarios I think it was Year 4, I believe it was HellKnight's Wedding or somesuch, but it's one of the story reasons that the faction formally known as Andoran has separated itself from the country, and gone global instead as Liberty's Edge. And I didn't say that the Republic was disintegrating, but the noble families of Andoran didn't go anywhere when the Republic was declared, and they've been insinuating themselves back into the process, and are making democracy irrelevant again.
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Storyline that came out in several PFS Scenarios I think it was Year 4, I believe it was HellKnight's Wedding or somesuch, but it's one of the story reasons that the faction formally known as Andoran has separated itself from the country, and gone global instead as Liberty's Edge. And I didn't say that the Republic was disintegrating, but the noble families of Andoran didn't go anywhere when the Republic was declared, and they've been insinuating themselves back into the process, and are making democracy irrelevant again.
PFS storylines are explicitly non-canonical. For a host of reasons, this kind of thing (a world change to ease in a game-rule change) being a sterling example of one.
Canonically, there certainly are formerly noble families in Andoran trying to do this. They're not really succeeding very well, though. At least not at the moment.
Storyline that came out in several PFS Scenarios I think it was Year 4, I believe it was HellKnight's Wedding or somesuch, but it's one of the story reasons that the faction formally known as Andoran has separated itself from the country, and gone global instead as Liberty's Edge. And I didn't say that the Republic was disintegrating, but the noble families of Andoran didn't go anywhere when the Republic was declared, and they've been insinuating themselves back into the process, and are making democracy irrelevant again.PFS storylines are explicitly non-canonical. For a host of reasons, this kind of thing (a world change to ease in a game-rule change) being a sterling example of one.
Canonically, there certainly are formerly noble families in Andoran trying to do this. They're not really succeeding very well, though. At least not at the moment.
PFS storylines deserve mention.. unlike an AP which storyline starts iwth Book1 and closes with Book 6, the PFS storyline has been ongoing since Season Zero, and continues with Season 7 as of current writing. It's the closest thing we have to a canon evolving history of the game world.
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Sure. But that doesn't make it canon.
Noting that 'In the PFS storyline, the republic of Andoran is having issues staying true to its ideology.' is true, saying that the republic is canonically failing is not.
The people who write the storylines for PFS aren't even the same group of people as write the actual canonical game content for the most part, making equating the two pretty inaccurate.
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Was Lankhmar a republic? I seem to remember it was, although I might be wrong; I'm also pretty sure that most of the city-states in Scott Lynch's books are republics too...
More of a corrupted aristocratic oligarchy with an "overlord" on the top, though I don't remember if range of his actual powers were stated anywhere.
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Was Lankhmar a republic? I seem to remember it was, although I might be wrong; I'm also pretty sure that most of the city-states in Scott Lynch's books are republics too...More of a corrupted aristocratic oligarchy with an "overlord" on the top, though I don't remember if range of his actual powers were stated anywhere.
There were also the Gods OF Lankhmar as opposed to the Gods IN Lankhmar. And the temples in the Street of the Gods which kept getting rearranged depending on where each faith stood in the ever changing pecking order.