History Main / TheMagocracy

!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film]]
* The Empire in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' trilogy, and various other Sith states in the ExpandedUniverse. In the ExpandedUniverse, it's implied that the Emperor was shooting for being the immortal god-emperor of a magotheocratic empire. The Galactic Republic, on the other hand, is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a republic]], with the Jedi Council playing an advisory and military role -- though note that in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Darth Sidious uses fear of a Jedi coup to force through his own takeover of the state.

* The ''Film/DungeonsAndDragons2000'' movie features a corrupt Magocracy, Izmer, though the Empress wishes to give {{Muggles}} rights. Despite their corruption and their oppression of the Muggles, they're not the villains: one of their members, [[EvilSorcerer Profion]], intends to dispose of them right alongside the Empress when he seizes control.
* ''Film/TheLastWitchHunter'': Witch society has a ruling council tasked to preserve TheMasquerade and the truce with humanity by punishing practitioners of BlackMagic.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/TheWitcher2019'': Unofficially, the Northern Kingdoms are basically controlled by the {{court mage}}s who "advise" these lands' sovereigns, serving as [[TheManBehindTheMan the power behind their thrones]].

* ''Franchise/{{EXTRAPOWER}}'': Blackberry's goal in reviving the ancient wizard Diamond Mine is to create rulership of mages over the world and humanity, led by the ancient and powerful Diamond Mine himself. Zophy and his companions oppose her believing that he would be a SorcerousOverlord. Given that his followers in ancient times had sealed him inside a diamond, they might be onto something. In ''[[VideoGame/ExtrapowerAttackOfDarkforce Attack of Darkforce]]'', she misses out on the window to fully revive Diamond Mine and instead performs a ritual to become the second generation Diamond Mine - Diamond Black. It remains to be seen whether she becomes the BenevolentMageRuler she imagines or a SorcerousOverlord for Zophy to bring down. The wizards of her old hometown of the HiddenElfVillage Ispares, meanwhile, are supportive of her attempts to either revive Diamond Mine or claim his power: as Manuela puts it, it can be useful for the wizards if their childhood friend enforces magic rulership.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In Webcomic/MeatShield, the elves have a magocracy. It mentions that the equivalent title to "princess" translates literally to "she to whom we must show proper respect or her father will blast us into our component atoms".

* ''Webcomic/{{Blindsprings}}'' The world was ruled by people born with magic and is ruled by people who learnt magic. The latter claim that their rule is more democratic, but they heavily discriminate against the former kind of mage, and overall, things do not look like a happy democracy in which everyone can take part.

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', in the society that the griffins come from, [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2016-03-11 the royal bloodlines of humans have the strongest magic of all the humans]] thus they are ruled by the strongest magic users.

* In ''Roleplay/TheGamersAlliance'', the Magicracy of Alent is a city ruled by the Council of Mages and where most citizens are accomplished wizards of their own right who have rallied under Alent's banner for the common cause of advancing research on magic.
* ''Roleplay/TheGunganCouncil'' has the Sith Council and its many worlds being governed only by Sith, both publicly and in the shadows.

Can be good, bad, or indifferent. Sometimes overlaps with MageSpecies; if everyone can cast spells, the Magocracy is usually depicted as good or indifferent. If the wizards rule over a population of {{Muggles}}, on the other hand, they are more likely to be evil. A Magocracy can also overlap with a MagicalSociety, although it's quite possible to have a Magocracy which is more loosely organised than that. If ReligionIsMagic, it may overlap with TheTheocracy. The most sinister versions will have the society consist of [[OurLichesAreDifferent undead]] [[{{Necromancer}} wizards]] and double as TheNecrocracy.

** Deyja, the Kingdom of the Necromancers on Antagarich at first appears to be a [[TheNecrocracy Necrocracy]], but ultimately turns out to be closer to this trope, as at least two modern-day kings of Deyja that took over with support from the necromantic ranks were quite living, but still mages.

Can be good, bad, or indifferent. Sometimes overlaps with WitchSpecies; if everyone can cast spells, the Magocracy is usually depicted as good or indifferent. If the wizards rule over a population of {{Muggles}}, on the other hand, they are more likely to be evil. A Magocracy can also overlap with a MagicalSociety, although it's quite possible to have a Magocracy which is more loosely organised than that. If ReligionIsMagic, it may overlap with TheTheocracy. The most sinister versions will have the society consist of [[OurLichesAreDifferent undead]] [[{{Necromancer}} wizards]] and double as TheNecrocracy.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Equestria has some elements of this. It's ruled by an [[GodEmperor immortal princess]] of [[PhysicalGod vast power]], and the aristocracy is filled with [[WitchSpecies unicorns]]. However, there are still plenty of earth ponies in prominent positions, the pegasi have sole responsibility for the weather, most unicorns can only do minor telekinesis and one other personal spell, and just what the aristocracy does all day is never addressed.

* ''Literature/ImpracticalMagic'': Istima, the Six Court Academy, is both a wildly powerful MagicSchool and a city-state unto itself. Though all the leaders are mages, and powerful, the trope is subverted. At some point, wizards become so powerful that having a job, needing to afford food, and the approval of regular mortals means nothing to them. As such they stop teaching and abandon their important influential jobs to take the best parts of the BigLabyrinthineBuilding and slowly fade into history as they do incomprehensible things. No one is sure if they died, become gods, teleported away, are on multi-millennia astral projection trips, or if there are higher levels of the school. They just know that it's dangerous, boobie trapped, and anytime orders comes down from a high tower that it must be obeyed.

Magic is Might

* Very common in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''
** Widespread in the TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms: [[http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Netheril Netheril]] was full of {{Magitek}}, inhumanly arrogant, but mostly non-evil (if not ''good'') [[TheArchmage Archwizards]] with magical longevity ruled over Muggles -- until their abuses of magic provoked turning the entire region into a barren desert and rose to stealing the power from goddess of magic, [[GotterDammerung killing her, them and damaging the world's magic circuit]]. Thay and Luskan[[note]]''technically'' Luskan was never actually officially magocratic, but once they'd fully settled in everyone in and outside Luskan knew the Arcane Brotherhood were the ''real'' masters of Luskan, not the High Captains who officially ruled the city.[[/note]] are evil magocracies (Thay got better later when pro-trade attitudes won). [[http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Sshamath Sshamath]] is a city-state [[AffablyEvil as nice as possible for evil drow]]. The kingdom of Halruaa in the southern Realms ''is'' a good Magocracy, where all citizens benefit from wizardry and {{Magitek}}, happy people celebrate holy days, the law protects, and... NightmareFuel quietly gurgles behind the scene. Rashemen is the good counterpart of Thay, where a caste of women spellcasters called "Witches" hold religious and spiritual authority, and as such, their word is law.
** The ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}'' setting also had the Principalities of Glantri, a smaller Magocracy with capital like Venice, diverse subdomains like Switzerland, and great hostility to clerics. Glantri and Alphatia both have magic-users outranking non-magicians, though Alphatia honors clerics as well as arcane magicians.
*** Both Glantri and Alphatia have their faults. The former is scornful of divine casters and not all that bad on {{Muggles}}; the latter is respectful of divine casters and condescending-to-malicious to {{Muggles}}, depending on where you are. Herath also qualifies as a Magocracy [[spoiler: if you don't require that the ruling mages be humanoids]].
** The Tippyverse is a hypothetical setting that came into being when the implications of the large-scale, long-distance teleportation was considered. The premise is based on the use of the 9th level spell "Teleportation Circle" which allows for quick and efficient trade between cities, safe travel that does not risk being attacked by monsters, and devastating military strikes. This leads to the centralisation of population in major cities, and the all but abandonment of other areas (as it was deemed impossible to effectively defend settlements against mass strikes from enemy nations using Teleportation magic). To solve the problems of providing the necessary food and water, magical "Create Food and Water" traps were created to feed the populations of these cities. Other magical traps (such as "Wish" traps that create 25,000gp every time they are activated) are created to smooth the running of these cities. High-level Wizards have control, as they're the ones with the capability to create these items, and have enough power to ensure they stay at the top.
** In the ''TabletopGame/DarkSun'' setting, the cities of Athas (except Tyr, depending on the timeline) are ruled by tyrannical Sorcerer Kings.
** TabletopGame/ScarredLands has the city of Hollowfaust, which is ruled by necromancers descended from a cabal who ended up accidentally taking in refugees whilst they were exploring the ruins of a city destroyed by a volcanic eruption. It defies the expectations by actually being a pretty nice place to live. Yes, the necromancer guilds are unequivocally in charge and they do make rules to facilitate that fact, such as legally taking possession of any corpse in the city, and there is a SecretPolice run by a [[OurLichesAreDifferent lichified necromancer]] who was one of the original founders, but it's really not that bad. The general level of wealth is higher than anywhere else in the setting, disease is a rarity thanks to the efforts of the necromancers, the general level of health is higher, the city is generally safe, and the SecretPolice only cares whether or not you're plotting against the city and officially couldn't care less what you do in your private life, making there be very few non-obvious crimes. And for the record, this is a setting where one of the gods officially preaches homophobia.
* The Chaos Dwarfs are ruled by their evil sorcerers in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}''.
** As are the Lizardmen, although the Slann spend most of their time pondering magical secrets and leave the day-to-day running to the Skinks.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' gives us Prospero, home planet of the fallen Primarch Magnus the Red, and its replacement, the Planet of the Sorcerers, which is located in a permanent NegativeSpaceWedgie. This is just about the only example in the setting, as leaving psykers in charge is a ''very'' bad idea in 40K, since they spend their every moment preventing daemons from exploding into the material world through their heads. Psykers on Prospero were immune to this due to some kind of magical crystals from a cavern under the city, but they were still duped by daemons into some very poor choices.
** A much smaller example magocracy was the Space Marine Chapter of Blood Ravens, of ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' fame, whose Chapter Master was also the chapter's Chief Librarian. However, after ''Dawn of War III'', this tradition is broken, as the new Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos is not a psyker at all.
* ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' has the Seers of the Throne, who, while not absolute rulers of the world, have a great deal of power amongst world governments and other organisations, as well as being organised in a bureaucracy. The Silver Ladder has the goal of ousting the Seers and replacing their rule with a meritocratic Gnostocracy. The Daksha legacy is a rather disquieting philosophy that melds this with the MasterRace, adding in GenderBender and {{Hermaphrodite}} for some extra creepiness.
** The fanmade gameline ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' has two major Magocracies: Lemuria, a group of mostly ChaoticEvil mad scientists who think they rule the world, and The Peerage, a group of mostly ChaoticGood mad scientists who make sure they don't. Interestingly, Lemuria and the aforementioned Seers of the Throne are ''physically unable'' to recognize each other.
** Similarly, the older game ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' has the Technocratic Union, though they're in denial and see their power as coming from sufficiently advanced technology. The Order of Hermes (playing magic straight) held this role centuries ago and would like to return to it.
* Both the Realm and the [[{{Atlantis}} First Age Solar Deliberative]] from the ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' are these, being oligarchic (though the Realm is SUPPOSED to be a monarchy) states ruled by human beings given the powers of the gods.
* ''TabletopGame/TechInfantry'', has, almost regardless of the style of government among various human factions, either Mages or Vampires as the outright rulers or the shadowy powers behind the throne. Pretty much all of the endless series of Civil Wars that the Earth Federation goes through are really power struggles among different factions of Mages and Vampires over who gets to be the power behind the throne this decade, with [[{{Muggles}} ordinary humans]] caught in the middle or used as cannon fodder by both sides.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Talislanta}}'' has Cymril, one of the Seven Kingdoms, and the city-state of Phantas.

** As a specific example, the ''TabletopGame/{{Banestorm}}'' world of Yrth has the nation of Abydos, which is ruled by necromancers, liches, and the undead. The populace doesn't mind, as the rather ... ''odd'' sect of Christianity that the locals follow makes raising the dead a holy act.

* In ''TabletopGame/CastleFalkenstein'', the Freemasons are a sorcerous order and they run the United States. Officially. It's actually written into the Constitution that the President has to be a member, which means he has to take orders from the Grand Master on pain of death.
* In ''TabletopGame/SpearsOfTheDawn'', the kingdom of Lokossa is ruled by its greatest sorcerer, and being discovered to have magical potential means instant adoption into the nobility for a commoner. They also practice widespread HumanSacrifice to empower their magic-users.

Related to AuthorityEqualsAsskicking (more likely ass-''fireballing''). If there's not just a handful of magic-users but the whole society is influenced, it's likely to develop lots of {{Magitek}}. If the ruler maintains their power through magic but this is ''not'' part of the official political system, see SorcerousOverlord. For mages who are part of the government but hold only subordinate or advisory positions, see CourtMage.

* The Witches' Council in ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch''.

If [[MagicAIsMagicA laws of magic]] require intense study and not just a talent, a natural limitation may be sharing time between magic improvement and actual ''ruling''. Then immortal wizards break this limit, having centuries to both accumulate knowledge and entrench themselves in power bit by bit.

* The Dungeonverse has Cochonville, a city inhabited by magicians who fled Antipolis in''ComicBook/DungeonTheEarlyYears'' era after their attempt at seizing power. Their laws are enforced by [[AntiMagic manavore]] and wizards of different magic disciplines and specialized themselves in selling magical objects and services to passersby. During ''ComicBook/DungeonTwilight'' they were under siege by the Great Khan for years but thanks to their magic were still able to resist as some magicians can use functional autocannibalism and others turn piss into water.

* The ''Film/DungeonsAndDragons'' movie features a corrupt Magocracy, Izmer, though the Empress wishes to give {{Muggles}} rights. Despite their corruption and their oppression of the Muggles, they're not the villains: one of their members, [[EvilSorcerer Profion]], intends to dispose of them right alongside the Empress when he seizes control.

Every now and again you'll have a wizard race being the nobility with some manner of Wizarding ruler at the top however.

* In ''Manga/FairyTail'', the Albareth Empire was formed when a single mage [[spoiler:Black Mage Zeref]] now currently as Emperor Spriggan forcefully united the western continent's 730 Light and Dark magic guilds, overthrowing that continent's equivalent to the Magic Council and previous governments in the process. It's heavily implied that non-magic users are second class citizens, if not outright slaves.

* The Dungeonverse has Cochonville, city inhabited by magician who fled Antipolis in''ComicBook/DungeonTheEarlyYears'' era after their attempt at seizing power. Their laws are enforced by [[AntiMagic manavore]] and wizards of different magic discipline and specialized themselves in selling magical objects and services to passerby. During ''ComicBook/DungeonTwilight'' they were under siege by the Great Khan for years but thanks to their magic were still able to resist as some magicians can use functional autocannibalism and others turn piss into water.

* ''Fanfic/EquestriaDivided'': House Moon and Star is a group of unicorn supermacists whose army is composed mostly of mages, [[MagicKnight magic knights]] and [[{{Golem}} constructs]], and they take orders from [[TheArchmage Archmagister]] [[FallenHero Twilight Sparkle]]

** In ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', we get to see the ancient predecessor to Palpatine's Empire. It controlled half the known galaxy, was run by many Sith, including a Dark Council, and a 1000+ year old [[TheManBehindTheMan Man Behind The Man]] {{Chessmaster}} Sith Emperor.

* In Scott Lynch's short story ''[[https://uncannymagazine.com/article/a-year-and-a-day-in-old-theradane/ A Year and a Day in Old Theradane]]'', the eponymous city-state is ruled by wizards in the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Parliament of Strife]]. They spend most of their time getting into magical battles with each other that make life really hard for the citizens. One character with a small amount of magical talent mentions that members of the Parliament have youth-spells that stop them from ageing which allows them to take centuries to perfect their craft which in turn makes them powerful enough to be in Parliament.

** Granny Weatherwax would be absolutely horrified by any suggestion that Lancre is a Magocracy, since she knows better than anyone that magic isn't for ruling. Lancre is definitely ruled by King Verence II. And the witches will let him know if he's doing it wrong.

* ''Literature/ImpracticalMagic'': Istima, the Six Court Academy, is both a wildly powerful MagicSchool and a city-state unto itself. Though all the leaders are mages, and powerful, the trope is subverted. At some point wizards become so powerful that having a job, needing to afford food, and the approval of regular mortals means nothing to them. As such they stop teaching and abandon their important influential jobs to take the best parts of the BigLabyrinthineBuilding and slowly fade into history as they do incomprehensible things. No one is sure if they died, become gods, teleported away, are on multi-millennia astral projection trips, or if there are higher levels of the school. They just know that it's dangerous, boobie trapped, and anytime orders comes down from a high tower that it must be obeyed.
* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', the White Council is composed of the most powerful one percent of magic users and nominally rules the magical human community. In reality, however, it mostly sticks to enforcing the Seven Laws of Magic on its fellow practitioners -- you break one and, unless a Council Member agrees to take you on as an apprentice and the Senior Council agree to it, you'll be tried, found guilty and executed in the space of an hour. [[GoodIsNotNice And these are the good guys.]] -- and, ironically, being a large and threatening presence to deter the other supernatural powers from trying to turn the world into this. Despite this, there's still a lot of politicking, and a complex interplay between factions. A single Warden, a member of the combat arm/police force of the Council, is posted in each major city around the world, their remit being to help out local, weaker practitioners, make sure they behave, and stamp on any monsters that get ideas. Due to their comparative power and InspectorJavert tendencies, the Wardens tend to be seen as something between an avenging angel and the grim reaper by your average practitioner. That and the fact that one of the ''weakest'' members of the Senior Council once dropped a satellite on someone's house, no one other than one of the other pre-eminent powers, like the Red Court of Vampires, wants to piss them off.

** And not just England, either: most of the major powers in history, including Rome and the Holy Roman Empire, have been ruled by magicians. Rarely have they been any better than the modern-day English regime, resulting in the {{Muggle}} common folk tending to rise up in revolution once a sufficient number of them develop innate immunity to magic due its overuse by the ruling caste. A new, rising empire promptly supplants the old one and the cycle [[HistoryRepeats starts all over again.]]
* A pair of novels by Creator/LawrenceWattEvans, ''The Cyborg and the Sorcerers'' and ''The Wizard and the War Machine'', are set on an AfterTheEnd planet which has many mages which rule all their countries. Yet each nation's government is different; some good, some bad, some outright incompetent.

* In Brandon Sanderson's ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}'' series, the so-called Final Empire was founded as a magocracy, with the Lord Ruler bestowing allomantic powers on his most trusted servants, and these becoming the highest nobility of the new society. After a thousand years the titular Mistborn sorcerers are spread fairly thin, with most nobles having weaker Misting powers or none at all. However, illegal interbreeding between classes has resulted in the power cropping up among the slave race here and there.

** Also there is a largely unseen land called Shara, which is only mentioned in passing. However, in ''The World of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time'', he mentions that it is secretly a Magocracy with puppet Muggle rulers. In seven year cycles, each is killed then replaced by another monarch (for unknown reasons).
** Meanwhile, Seanchan on the other side of the world is a complete inversion, where all the magic-users are enslaved by the Muggle rulers. Though part of the reason they developed such a hatred of magic users and got to where they are is because when they first got there that half of the world was ruled by magic-users who fought among themselves for power. And perhaps a DoubleSubversion, since the Empire is explicitly founded on the power of chained magic-users that are always at the rulers' disposal. They just choose to ignore this, or don't understand the fact.
* The Empire of Ottovar in Creator/DavidWeber's ''[[Literature/TheWarGods War God]]'' series. 10,000 years of peace and prosperity founded by the greatest Wizards of all time. The Elves are actually a by-product of their work,taking hereditary warlocks and changing how they use the magical field to give up magic. The Empire was ruled by the emperor as well as the Council of Ottovar who prevented the misuse of magic and researched. Of course part of the backstory of the series is those 10,000 years ended rather badly and there's exactly one wizard left who isn't evil. Suddenly having a Magocracy is a bit of a problem when there aren't any left...

* Katherine Kurtz's ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'' series features a number of Deryni royal families -- in fact most royal families seem to have some Deryni blood. The Kingdom of Torenth is apparently a magocracy and the Muggle population doesn't seem to have a problem with it. On the other hand the Kingdom of Gwynedd is a ''former'' magocracy and the Muggles had a ''huge'' problem with it.

* In ''Literature/TheSeventhTower'', the Chosen are a society of mages dominated by the most powerful magic users and those who have the best [[BondCreatures Spiritshadows]] [[spoiler: though it turns out they're actually being ruled behind the scenes by Sharrakor, the most powerful Spiritshadow, who is ''quite'' free-willed]]. Those who don't have magic are called Underfolk, and are a servant caste little better than slaves. From the same books, the [[ProudWarriorRace Icecarls]] don't have a central government ''per se'', but the closest thing to it would be the Crones, who are somewhere between priestesses, shamans, and mages.

* The Empire of Mel'in in ''Literature/DiamondSwordWoodenSword'' is formally an imperial monarchy, but in fact the Emperor is a puppet of the magical Orders of the Rainbow who actually call the shots.

** D'Hara has been ruled by the House of Rahl for centuries, with all of them being powerful wizards. It's said the Rahls will ''only'' accept an heir with the gift, something insured by their magic (though it has the side effect of also creating the Pristinely Ungifted, people who not only can't do it, but are ''immune'' to most magic).

* The Hominum Empire in ''Literature/TheSummonerTrilogy'' is this in all but name; in its foundation, battlemages were the leaders of the armies, and were rewarded for their service by being granted nobility and various court positions. Nowadays all royalty and nobility in the empire have a magical bloodline, which [[RoyalInbreeding they make strict efforts to keep among their families so as to not lose their positions over the commoners]], and the only way to advance up the social ladder is by having magical talent.

* ''Literature/TheReluctantKing'': [[spoiler:Vorko]] and his compatriots had planned to establish one across the states of Novaria, after he purges the wizards opposing him. Karadur, who had been his friend, is appalled and stops this. Supposedly, it would have been to spread magic for everyone's benefit. He would have been in charge of course, and indicates he'll only ''really'' have people who he'd chosen to use magic.

** Widespread in the TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms: [[http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Netheril Netheril]] was full of {{Magitek}}, inhumanly arrogant, but mostly non-evil (if not ''good'') [[TheArchmage Archwizards]] with magical longevity ruled over Muggles -- until their abuses of magic provoked turning the entire region into a barren desert and rose to stealing the power from goddess of magic, [[GotterDammerung killing her, them and damaging the world's magic circuit]]. Thay and Luskan[[note]]''technically'' Luskan was never actually officially magocratic, but once they'd fully settled in everyone in and outside Luskan knew the Arcane Brotherhood were the ''real'' masters of Luskan, not the High Captains who officially ruled the city.[[/note]] are evil magocracies (Thay got better later when pro-trade attitudes won). [[http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Sshamath Sshamath]] is a city-state [[AffablyEvil as nice as possible for evil drow]]. The kingdom of Halruaa in the southern Realms ''is'' a good Magocracy, where all citizens benefit from wizardry and {{Magitek}}, happy people celebrate holy days, the law protects, and... NightmareFuel quietly gurgles behind the scene. Rashemen is the good counterpart of Thay, where a caste of women spellcasters called "Witches" hold religious and spiritual authority and as such their word is law.

** The Tippyverse is a hypothetical setting that came into being when the implications of the large scale, long distance teleportation was considered. The premise is based on the use of the 9th level spell "Teleportation Circle" which allows for quick and efficient trade between cities, safe travel that does not risk being attacked by monsters and devastating military strikes. This leads to the centralisation of population in major cities, and the all but abandonment of other areas (as it was deemed impossible to effectively defend settlements against mass strikes from enemy nations using Teleportation magic). To solve the problems of providing the necessary food and water, magical "Create Food and Water" traps were created to feed the populations of these cities. Other magical traps (such as "Wish" traps that create 25,000gp every time they are activated) are created to smooth the running of these cities. High-level Wizards have control, as they're the ones with the capability to create these items, and have enough power to ensure they stay at the top.

** As are the Lizardmen, although the Slann spend most of their time pondering magical secrets and leave the day to day running to the Skinks.

** Similarly, the older game ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' has the Technocratic Union, though they're in denial and see their power as coming from sufficiently advanced technology. The Order of Hermes (playing magic straight) held this role centuries ago, and would like to return to it.

* ''TabletopGame/TechInfantry'', has, almost regardless of the style of government among various human factions, either Mages or Vampires as the outright rulers, or the shadowy powers behind the throne. Pretty much all of the endless series of Civil Wars that the Earth Federation goes through are really power struggles among different factions of Mages and Vampires over who gets to be the power behind the throne this decade, with [[{{Muggles}} ordinary humans]] caught in the middle or used as cannon fodder by both sides.

* In ''TabletopGame/SpearsOfTheDawn'', the kingdom of Lokossa is ruled by its greatest sorcerer, and being discovered to have magical potential means instant adoption into the nobility for a commoner. They also practice wide-spread HumanSacrifice to empower their magic-users.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' has the Epopts of Troia, a group of white magicians and diviners. Mysidia is also this, although it more theocracy than a typical government.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has a variation of this; in a world where [[TheMagicGoesAway magic is dying]], only the highest ranking officers in the Gestahlian Empire are trained in Magitek technology, using leftover magic harvested from the world's Espers. And then there's just [[BigBad Kefka]].

** Now after years of renovations it's back, and has moved (quite literally) to Northrend as the new central city in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. It is the first city in VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft to float in midair. Players of the mage class get an automatic head start with the city's faction, the Kirin Tor, being at Friendly level right out of the gate[[note]]This lets them have access to the faction's tabard, which allows them to champion the faction in dungeons and get reputation very quickly[[/note]].
** Warcraft is pretty much full of Magocracies. Another example would be the Blood Elven kingdom, Quel'Thalas, where the 'Magisters' are seen in almost every position of authority. Though that may be because every Thalassian is capable of, at least, very basic magic -- to which they are literally addicted. If you want to stretch it, the Night Elves of Darnassus are ruled by nature-wielding druids and divine magic wielding priestesses.

** The Sorceresses and Warlocks were implicitly this in the first ''Heroes'', since they were mage-ruled (as indicated by the name of the factions) and fought over the throne of Enroth. The second game downplayed it by having them all be subsidiary to the Kingdom of Enroth (note the point in the trope description on how having king who just happens to be a mage doesn't count -- one or both of the contenders for the throne might have been mages, but it wasn't part of their claim to the throne).
** The stand-alone mission pack ''Heroes Chronicles'' partly takes place before the founding of the Kingdom of Erathia and has the Bracadan mages ruling over the the barbarian clans. The player, in the form of the barbarian Tarnum, must unify the clans and overthrow the mages. The collapse of Bracaduun (Bracada is the name of the smaller successor state. Mostly magocratic, as well, though the same immortal mage ruled it throughout its entire existence) led directly to Erathia's establishment, as the first King Gryphonheart was a Knight of Bracaduun before Tarnum broke Bracaduun.

** The third game, with potential Tevinter companion Dorian and a few other secondary Tevinter characters [[spoiler: and the game's BigBad]] gives some more exposition on it from the point of view of people who lived there. Dorian truly loves (most of) his people and his country, but despises the corruption, the abuses of power, the sense of entitlement the ruling mages have about themselves, and that there's justified hatred of the nation by others. Various missions and messages that come up during the game reveal he's not alone in believing that. He also explains that Tevinter's government isn't too different from other nations. Power still mostly remains in old noble bloodlines. The main difference is that they all just happen to be mages. The idea that mages rule Tevinter, when the reality is that ''noble families of mages'' rule it, is meant to give false hope to commoners that their families' lot in life could improve if they sire a mage. But 99 times out of 100, they'll just end up glorified desk clerks, which may be a step up from being a mud-farming peasant, but they'd still be far from calling the shots.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' has the city state of Vinheim, which is run by the WizardingSchool call the Dragon College. You don't get to personally go though, but you do meet several characters from the area.

* ''[[Webcomic/{{morphe}} morphE]]'' takes place in the TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening universe and follows their political structure. Some extra content on their tumblr page has revealed that Amical is a member of the Silver Ladder organization and the Guardians of the Veil tolerate his activities for reasons that are in everyone's best interests.
* ''Webcomic/{{Blindsprings}}'' The world was ruled by people born with magic, and is ruled by people who learnt magic. The latter claim that their rule is more democratic, but they heavily discriminate against the former kind of mage, and overall, things do not look like a happy democracy in which everyone can take part.
* Read the description at the top of the page. That's basically the world of ''Webcomic/TrueMagic,'' with a caste of JerkAss mages in charge who have made "harrassing peasants" the National passtime. Although, there is the occasional good noble...

* ''Literature/ImpracticalMagic'': Istima, the Six Court Academy, is both a wildly powerful MagicSchool and a city-state unto itself. Though all the leaders are mages, and powerful, the trope is subverted. At some point wizards become so powerful that having a job, needing to afford food, and the approval of regular mortals means nothing to them. As such they stop teaching and abandon their important influential jobs to take the best parts of the BigLabyrinthineBuilding and slowly fade into history as they do incomprehensible things. No one is sure if they died, become gods, teleported away, are on multi-millennia astral projection trips, or if there are higher levels of the school. They just know that it's dangerous, boobie trapped, and anytime orders comes down from a high tower that it must be obeyed.

*** Also, for a fascist dictatorship, controlling the populace with force would be important, so firebenders would naturally have authority over nonbenders.

** In the Northern Water Tribe, the benders don't necessarily run the city, but they are highly-respected and appear to control infrastructure in ways similar to benders in the Earth Kingdom. As for the Southern Water Tribe, it's unclear how they viewed benders back in the day, as by the time the show starts there is only one left, who is a teenager and doesn't seem to be shown any special deference.

** Perhaps the reason the Air Nomads were such an egalitarian society was because they were ''all'' benders, so there was no ruling class.

** Pre-Equestrian pony society is a more clear example of this trope, with the three tribes having rigid, [[FantasticCasteSystem racially-enforced castes]]. The unicorns were rulers, the pegasi were military and controlled the weather, and the earth ponies provided food for all them.

* ''Fanfic/EquestriaDivided'': House Moon and Star is a group of unicorn supermacists whose army is composed mostly of mages, [[MagicKnight magic knights]] and [[{{Golem}} constructs]], and they take orders from [[TheArchmage Archmagister]] [[FallenHero Twilight Sparkle]]

* [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Equestria]] has some elements of this. It's ruled by an [[GodEmperor immortal princess]] of [[PhysicalGod vast power]], and the aristocracy is filled with [[WitchSpecies unicorns]]. However, there are still plenty of earth ponies in prominent positions, the pegasi have sole responsibility for the weather, most unicorns can only do minor telekinesis and one other personal spell, and just what the aristocracy does all day is never addressed.

A society ruled by wizards. Wizard'''s''', plural, that is -- a king or queen who just happens to be a spellcaster (such as the BenevolentMageRuler) doesn't count, nor does the traditional tower-dwelling SorcerousOverlord. This is a relatively normal society (for a given value of "normal") that is governed by a magic-using oligarchy. Sometimes there is a [[{{Muggles}} Muggle]] figurehead [[PuppetKing on the throne]], but clearly power lies with the spellcasters.

* The Kushan Empire from ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'' is governed by an Emperor who has turned himself into an [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Apostle]] as Emperor and his [[TheDragon right-hand man Daiba]] is an EvilSorceror. Both make use of foul magic to control their armies.
* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'''s magical world is like this, and being a pocket universe that was ''created'' by a mage, it's rather to be expected. The real world, though, is more Franchise/HarryPotter-style "mages in charge of governing themselves and keeping themselves secret, nothing more". They get a little influence by posing as unreasonably talented mercenaries and [=NGO=]s, but nothing beyond lobbying and combat work.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' gives us Prospero, home planet of the fallen Primarch Magnus the Red, and its replacement, the Planet of the Sorcerers, which is located in a permanent NegativeSpaceWedgie. This is just about the only example in the setting, as leaving psykers in charge is a ''very'' bad idea in 40K, since they spend their every moment preventing daemons from exploding into the material world through their heads. Psykers on Prospero were immune to this due to some kind of magical crystals from a cavern under the city, but they were still duped by daemons into some very poor choices.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''

** Now averted, with summoners having been [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] out of existence. However, the game still has an example: it's said that Noxus, the SocialDarwinist state that constitutes one of Valoran's two superpowers, was a Magocracy in all but name when the royalty still ruled, with the Black Rose, a cabal of power-hungry magicians, wielding the real power. Boram Darkwill's coup put an end to this, apparently at least, transforming the city into an AsskickingEqualsAuthority military dictatorship (though Darkwill himself is implied to have been something of a SorcerousOverlord). Now that [=LeBlanc=], the Black Rose's leader, has reappeared and seems to be quite chummy with Swain, a former Black Rose member who's usurped Darkwill's position, however, Noxus may be heading back towards Magocracy.

* VideoGame/{{Timespinner}}'s Vilete was a rather fascist example of this, treating non-magical citizens as disposable and almost sub-human.

* ''[[{{Webcomic/morphe}} morphE]]'' takes place in the TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening universe and follows their political structure. Some extra content on their tumblr page has revealed that Amical is a member of the Silver Ladder organization and the Guardians of the Veil tolerate his activities for reasons that are in everyone's best interests.

* Read the description at the top of the page. That's basically the world of ''WebComic/TrueMagic,'' with a caste of JerkAss mages in charge who have made "harrassing peasants" the National passtime. Although, there is the occasional good noble...

** Also there is a largely unseen land called Shara, which is only mentioned in passing. However, in ''The World of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time'', he mentions that it is secretly a Magocracy with puppet Muggle rulers. If the Muggle rulers ask too many questions, they tend to have an "[[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident accident]]".

* The Literature/LandOfOz is this. It's a benevolent dictatorship ruled over by Glinda the Good and Princess Ozma, a fairy. They and the Wizard of Oz are the only ones allowed to do magic in the sequels (to prevent wicked witches from ever rising again), but despite this the plot of pretty much every book starts with someone breaking this law.

** Also in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', a largely unseen land is Shara, which is only mentioned in passing. However, in The World of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time, he mentions that it is secretly a Magocracy with a puppet Muggle leader. If the Muggle leader asks too many questions, they tend to have an 'accident'.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has the canonical examples of [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles the White Council]] and the [[Franchise/HarryPotter various Ministries of Magic]], though they only rule magical people -- indeed, the White Council is structured to limit the possibility of this as much as possible, and their main focus is preventing various other supernatural powers from doing this as much as possible. They don't always have that much luck, as both the Red and White Courts of Vampires extend their influence globally. The former are heavily intertwined with the politics of more corrupt Central and South American nations, as well as moving in to exploit less stable corrupt nations elsewhere, the latter having serious PsychicPowers and positively living for scheming and intrigue, focusing on so-called Developed nations that sensibly don't -- or until recently, didn't -- believe in magic. However, they've been opposed by organisations such as SHIELD and [=MI13=], and since TheMasquerade is steadily falling apart, MugglePower is starting to come to the fore, with magical governments in the US having been brought to heel by SHIELD, and [=MI13=] doing the same to the British Minister of Magic during the series.

* Tar Valon in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', governed by the Aes Sedai.
** Also, the Aes Sedai (especially the Blue Ajah) tend to meddle in the political affairs of the rest of the world, and many rulers willingly keep the counsel of an Aes Sedai advisor.

** The Psijic Order is one on their home island of Artaeum. They are governed by a magical council led by the Ritemaster (or Loremaster in some sources). The oldest monastic group in Tamriel, the Psijic Order is a secretive MagicalSociety founded during the ancient times by an Aldmeri ({{Precursors}} to the modern [[OurElvesAreBetter races of Mer]]) sect who rejected the transition to Aedra worship from ancestor worship, known to them as the "Old Way" or "Elder Way." Their order is highly [[RenownedSelectiveMentor selective]] and they practice SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic which allows them to perform feats (make their island disappear, freeze time, astral project, etc.) that no other group in Tamriel can match (save for the extinct [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemer]]).

* In ''Manga/BlackClover'' the Clover Kingdom is ruled by the king from the royal Kira family. The kingdom's legal authority is the Magic Parliament, who are a group of royals and nobles. The kingdom's military are the Magic Knights, comprised of chosen mages divided into squads with captains who all follow the Wizard King, the strongest Magic Knight who has more influence than the unpopular king. The society of the kingdom itself is dominated by nobility, who are all born with great magical power and look down on peasants as a result.

Contrast MugglePower.