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Lining up the Races with Forms of Government
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8601438" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Naturally. These are unrealistic simplifications. Stereotypes. Hence part of why I said (for example) that humans would be a monarchy. Anyone who knows much of anything about human history knows that, while monarchy is definitely the single most common government style we have used in the past, it is (a) not very common today and (b) we have all these other words for governments for a reason, namely that real humans have used or lived them. By including a race we personally know DOES have a wider range of governments, the nature of the classification as a historical or social pattern rather than an inherent "every dragonborn society is ALWAYS a republic" expectation should be set. (It's worth noting, for instance, that Arkhosia was a feudal empire ruled by explicit social stratification, with dragons being the nobility.)</p><p></p><p>Unlike the expectations typically featured in the pseudo-medieval faux-European Tolkienesque schizotech Standard D&D Setting (in brown paper bag; one each), actual extant worlds with multiple sapient races would have neither racial monocultures nor monocultural races. This, it is extremely unlikely that there even is a "dwarfs only" culture to be a gerontocracy in the first place, and even if there were, dwarves will be present in other societies too.</p><p></p><p>In my Jewel of the Desert game, I have worked to demonstrate that races mix a lot, but have a loose geographic origin. Elves mostly come from the temperate forest to the south. There are some little-known races from beyond the northern jungles, maybe wemics and minotaurs. Dwarves are associated with the Eastern mountains and the steppe further east of them. Dragonborn are native to the faraway land of Yuxia, but have been present as a minority in the Tarrakhuna long enough to have been included in various art and institutional stuff (e.g. the Safiqi priesthood has at least one dragonborn saint).</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, most governments are mixed monarchies or absolute monarchies leaning heavily on a bureaucratic substrate. Variations exist, but these governments are comparatively stable in the face of the kinds of challenges they deal with. Cracks in the system totally exist but usually tend to induce succession crises rather than total regime change; proper democracy is slow to establish and slow to make decisions, which makes it harder to get things done. There also are no (local*) monolithic hegemonies; most locations are city-states and have been for a very long time (in part because of the difficulty of keeping and holding so much territory without tanking its economic value, in part due to intentional manipulation by various factions, and in part due to sociocultural differences unique to this region and its history.)</p><p></p><p>*Yuxia, on the far side of the Sapphire Sea, IS a monolithic hegemony, with a single Jade Emperor ruling a vast territory. But Yuxia is very far away from the Tarrakhuna. Think "across the Pacific" distances. Sailing trade between them totally happens because the Sapphire Sea is full of islands in a Sinbad the Sailor sort of way (rich, mysterious, sometimes dangerous), but their cultures are really heavily distinct because they're so far apart.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8601438, member: 6790260"] Naturally. These are unrealistic simplifications. Stereotypes. Hence part of why I said (for example) that humans would be a monarchy. Anyone who knows much of anything about human history knows that, while monarchy is definitely the single most common government style we have used in the past, it is (a) not very common today and (b) we have all these other words for governments for a reason, namely that real humans have used or lived them. By including a race we personally know DOES have a wider range of governments, the nature of the classification as a historical or social pattern rather than an inherent "every dragonborn society is ALWAYS a republic" expectation should be set. (It's worth noting, for instance, that Arkhosia was a feudal empire ruled by explicit social stratification, with dragons being the nobility.) Unlike the expectations typically featured in the pseudo-medieval faux-European Tolkienesque schizotech Standard D&D Setting (in brown paper bag; one each), actual extant worlds with multiple sapient races would have neither racial monocultures nor monocultural races. This, it is extremely unlikely that there even is a "dwarfs only" culture to be a gerontocracy in the first place, and even if there were, dwarves will be present in other societies too. In my Jewel of the Desert game, I have worked to demonstrate that races mix a lot, but have a loose geographic origin. Elves mostly come from the temperate forest to the south. There are some little-known races from beyond the northern jungles, maybe wemics and minotaurs. Dwarves are associated with the Eastern mountains and the steppe further east of them. Dragonborn are native to the faraway land of Yuxia, but have been present as a minority in the Tarrakhuna long enough to have been included in various art and institutional stuff (e.g. the Safiqi priesthood has at least one dragonborn saint). Meanwhile, most governments are mixed monarchies or absolute monarchies leaning heavily on a bureaucratic substrate. Variations exist, but these governments are comparatively stable in the face of the kinds of challenges they deal with. Cracks in the system totally exist but usually tend to induce succession crises rather than total regime change; proper democracy is slow to establish and slow to make decisions, which makes it harder to get things done. There also are no (local*) monolithic hegemonies; most locations are city-states and have been for a very long time (in part because of the difficulty of keeping and holding so much territory without tanking its economic value, in part due to intentional manipulation by various factions, and in part due to sociocultural differences unique to this region and its history.) *Yuxia, on the far side of the Sapphire Sea, IS a monolithic hegemony, with a single Jade Emperor ruling a vast territory. But Yuxia is very far away from the Tarrakhuna. Think "across the Pacific" distances. Sailing trade between them totally happens because the Sapphire Sea is full of islands in a Sinbad the Sailor sort of way (rich, mysterious, sometimes dangerous), but their cultures are really heavily distinct because they're so far apart. [/QUOTE]
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