Fantasy Government, part 2: Weak Executive, Powerful Bureaucracy

Previously: Village Democracy 

What happens when a village is too big to manage through direct democracy? City-states and small nations need some kind of leadership, whether democratic, dynastic, or oligarchic. Regardless of the form, it's likely it will be characterized by the weakness of the executive and legislative (if any) bodies, and the power of the bureaucracy. The purpose of the bureaucracy is to buffer outside influence and reduce the leverage of anyone who wants to manipulate or overthrow the state.

Monsters (and other antagonistic NPCs) seek to either rule or ruin a civilization before adventurers show up. Bureaucracy is slow, but that's a feature, not a bug, in this system. It’s purpose is to buy time for someone to stop the conquest, subversion, or destruction of the state.

In a magical fantasy world, adventurers, ratcatchers, mercenaries, and wandering heroes shouldn't be treated as a narrative abstraction, but rather a known feature of the world. Intelligent monsters should assume that the clock is ticking, even when they have the upper hand. Adventurers are also generally regarded as a pro-civilization force. Like white blood cells, adventurers may cause short-term harm or attack the wrong targets, but they are vital to society's long-term survival. Our posts on Stability and Security covers/will cover the murderhobo exceptions to this rule.

Adventurers are important to civilization because they can move quickly and decisively. A common hook for adventure is that someone in a position of authority strongly suspects or knows something is afoot, but can't secure a fast response because the system they are part of is designed to never do anything quickly.

These bureaucratic societies respond with gradual, incremental action to external threats, even when a comparable nation in the real world might choose to act quickly. For example, if a government receives reports that a neighboring civilization has invaded their territory, do they immediately mobilize for war? Well, maybe, but they have to answer a lot of questions first. 

Is it even real? Were survivors on one or both sides of any battles charmed or tricked by illusions? How many internal and external entities might be involved and might benefit from the conflict? These civilizations are cautious and willing to stomach a lot of small-scale conflict and even the loss of territory or resources to avoid compromising their integrity as a state to a threat. This could be happening at a low level almost all the time, with a neighboring state (possibly one already ruled by a threat) that a civilization is diplomatically "at peace" with. Normalizing low-risk conflict makes it easier to avoid escalating to high-risk conflict.

Absent powerful magic, diplomacy and spycraft play an incredibly important role in such societies. Social events are also paramount, even between (particularly between) nations with low-level hostilities. The more face-to-face interaction neighbors have, the better. Elaborate festivals, tournaments, embassy visits, pilgrimages, and other cross-border travel will happen regularly to provide as many opportunities as possible for members of nearby states to meet personally, in hopes of detecting magical domination, replacement, or other infiltration by a monster or other bad actor. These events provide an ideal opportunity to frame adventures.

Next: Elven Gene Queens and Gnomish Merchant Princes