Hey everyone! Let’s try to get some more activity in here. I was wondering what kind of rulers you have all created. I realize most medieval settings will probably have a monarch rule the lands, but this does not have to be the case. So, what kind of governing systems have you created in your worlds?
I’ll start off as I am making the post. My players are in an archipelago divided into five inhabited sections. One of them excersizes a system I have dubbed “Elected Sacrificial Monarchy.” Bit of a mouthful, but the principle is simple. The people elect a mostly absolute ruler who will rule for five years. They can be granted two additional years in a re-election if they are popular enough. When their term, extended or not, ends, they are beheaded in public after a new leader has been chosen. There are clauses that can give exceptions in dire cases (defensive war or some other disaster), but they are rarely invoked.
The principle of this is that only those who wish to better their nation and are prepared to pay the ultimate price to do it will put themselves forward as a candidate to rule. It is by no means a perfect system, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. So, what about all of you? Did you have any unique governments in your settings? Tell us about it :)
I’m quite proud of the system I have for the Orcs of my world. Essentially they live in tribes with a clear leader who sets all the rules and expected behaviours for their tribe known as traditions. Tribe members follow the traditions without question most of the time. But there is a cultural expectation that if any tribe member feels a tradition is wrong or no longer necessary, they must call this out and be ready to stand by their ideas. The leader must provide the tribe member time and opportunity to gain followers to their traditions and then gift them resources to start their own tribe. In this way the tribes with the best traditions tend to grow and the tribes with poor traditions either die out or are absorbed by larger tribes.
I like the idea that a new player coming to my games will be able to make assumptions about orc culture based on preconceptions made from other depictions of orcs over the years, and it would be fairly accurate for my world on a surface level, but there’s so much more to it.
That is quite a cool system, and definitely something that I feel fits Orcs quite well, given their general emphasis on survival of the fittest. With this system, it is simply extended to a population rather than an individual; the tribes with unpopular (or popular but bad) ideas will eventually die out. It’s very cool!