THE MAGOCRATIC CITY

Despite the strong presence of magic in most fantasy settings, magocracies remain extremely rare. Even in high-magic campaigns, few areas produce more than a handful of powerful arcane spellcasters, and only a tiny number would willingly forgo their lives of quiet study to embrace dreams of political dominance. Magocracies are substantially more common, however, in regions dominated by nonhumans (particularly those with strong arcane traditions, such as the drow and other elf races). When they do occur, magocratic cities are marvels to behold, demonstrating a public embrace of magic as a means by which the city can be designed and run. The primary drawback of such a system, of course, is that nonspellcasters face severely limited lives.

Technically speaking, magocratic cities are oligarchies—political systems in which all power lies in the hands of a small ruling elite. As a result, magocratic cities resemble tribal cities in that they tend to flourish when the power of the local government doesn’t reach beyond the city’s immediate surroundings. Councils of wizards can administer small areas with little difficulty but tend to falter when trying to preside over massive swaths of territory. The only circumstance in which the system works on a large scale is when it combines with the feudal system, using a complex web of interconnected but independent governing lords, bound by magical might or focus rather than by noble blood. Magocratic cities rarely appear in good-aligned regions, since their oligarchic structure keeps the populace divided, but are relatively common in neutral-aligned cities that stand independent from any higher authority. Evil-aligned magocratic cities are despotic nightmares, in which life for the common folk is both meticulously monitored and rigidly controlled.