Two questions
1. Why do theocracies seem pretty uncommon on Golarion?
There are twenty core gods competing for followers (and dozens more lesser gods/demigods). It's really hard to get a critical mass of your followers in one geographic area to run that government without enough opposition to bring it down.
A 30% minority can run a government sticking it to the majority under certain circumstances, but it's pretty hard for a 5% minority to pull that off.
Yeah I guess something just being the state Religion makes more sense huh?
But why limit oneself to one? It's usually more beneficial to have priests of various gods present, as they have differeny specialities and fill different niches.
So . . . Razmiran?
Rahadoum if you think about it.
If we define theocracy as a political sytsem whose leader is an object of worship, a priest or at least an enforcer of said religion, then Rahadoum would count, if you count atheism as a religion, which is a reasonable classification.
Other theocratic countries would be Razmiran (Razmir), Nidal (Zon-Kuthon), Worldwound (Deskari), Mediogalti Island (Achaekek), Osirion (Osiriani pantheon including the pharaoh), Cheliax (Asmodeus), Lastwall (Iomedae), Druma (prophecies of Kalistrade), Mendev (Iomedae).
In some of them the leader is or at least claims to be a divine being; in others he's only the head priest or that relays the divine will. In some, he's only a member of class that receives power from a deity, and support a given religion, but allows other religions to exist as well.
1. Why do theocracies seem pretty uncommon on Golarion?
In part? Because they want a variety of nations for a variety of stories, really.
Nidal and Razmiran are the go-to evil theocracies (even Cheliax is more secular), each with a slightly different flavor of religiously-mandated lunacy.
A neutral theocracy would be... quite, quite odd, and I don't think it could stay neutral for long. Theocracy tends to engender an activist policy with regards to one's neighbors...
Good theocracies? Hrnh. The closest I think we have is Mendev (nope. Not a theocracy, and a place where bad things happen in the name of good faiths), or maybe Holomog.
2. If you could make your own theocracy with a God of your choice which God would you choose and what would it look it?
Just to screw with my own thing about Neutral Theocracies?
A Pharasmin theocracy.
The church is omnipresent and in charge, but doesn't really meddle much in day to day life- after all, most of it doesn't matter.
But they'd preside over births and funerals, and every graveyard would be well-kept, if only by lay members of the church.
I actually see games of chance being used to determine punishments for transgressions... the laws are set, but the penalties are a matter of fate.
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I actually see games of chance being used to determine punishments for transgressions... the laws are set, but the penalties are a matter of fate.
This reminds me of the Wheel of Punishment from ATLA.
Am I the only person sick enough to want to see what a Lamashtan theocracy would look like?
Am I the only person sick enough to want to see what a Lamashtan theocracy would look like?
I think one rule of the internet is "It's never just you"
I imagine more than one of the Satraps of the Kelishite Empire might qualify.
I once thought about running a Kingmaker with Clerics, Paladins, Inquisitors and war priests in service to Erastil
Two questions
1. Why do theocracies seem pretty uncommon on Golarion?
Actually, as others have posted above, they seem to be not all that uncommon.
2. If you could make your own theocracy with a God of your choice which God would you choose and what would it look it?
AND
Am I the only person sick enough to want to see what a Lamashtan theocracy would look like?I think one rule of the internet is "It's never just you"
In the unlikely event that I ever end up running Hell's Vengeance: Enter the Demonic State in Isger and Cheliax. When the Worldwound was closed, anti-Demon crusaders were not the only thing freed up by the end of the Mendevian Crusades. Demons stuck on the Material Plane side of the former Worldwound were also freed up, and seized the opportunity created by the Glorious Reclamation's disruption of the infernal order in Isger and Cheliax, riding the Glorious Reclamation like an unshakable parasite, and spreading its infection everywhere the Glorious Reclamation goes, and yet unseen by the pride-blinded leaders of the Glorious Reclamation.