United Benevolent Nations
The Unified Benevolent Nations are the rough equivalent of the Council of Evil, in that all the members are leaders of nations, approximately. The “approximately” is where things get dicey to explain, because while the official members are the leaders of the nations, they often delegate the task of actually deciding things at meetings to their subordinates. Or sometimes more than one subordinate.
Rather than a single member who is the leader of the country, the UBN has delegations from the countries, and some of these delegations are quite large. Because of such a large group, it is necessary to have a presiding member who at least has the power to keep everyone on track. Their traditional leader is the president of Atazicolia, although there are occasionally others who fulfill this role either because of the incompetence of Atazicolia, issues from home making that person unable to devote any significant attention to the UBN, or if Atazicolia is a member of the Council of Evil.
Weight is given to a country’s vote based on the number of active heroes and heroines registered to them. For example, using some of the current membership, it means that Varios has an inordinately high amount of political weight, but it also means that Uncambel has virtually no authority. This is likely the reasoning behind the weighting, since no one wants the elves to have that much say in global matters. Gorathia, by means of its seniority in the world, is afforded a certain level of respect when it is counted as Good, even without a great number of heroes. It’s also likely a means of counteracting the whiplash that can occur on votes when a country changes sides frequently. This way, the ones who have been on the side of “good” for a significant amount of time are the ones with greater power, and those who change side are not so easily put into a position of authority and influence.
A major function of the UBN is to present a more righteous picture to the world at large, since unity is considered a good trait. But it does have some function beyond the ceremonial. They attempt to keep order between their members, and to allow a forum for the creation of smaller alliances. The most important function is the policing of the Heroic forces. They can compare records and information, and thus bring false heroes and those beyond the line of reason to justice, when otherwise a Hero under censure could simply transfer his credentials and base of operations to another country and continue on.
Current Membership
There are ten members at present, which is a good thing since it makes them equal to the Council of Evil in number. Their diplomatic relationships with each other are shown in the following diagram.
Type
Political, Federation
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