The Magocracy / Tabletop Games

• Ars Magica:
  • The spice islands of Soqotra are ruled by a caste of sorcerers who use incense magic harvested from the magical trees of the islands, and who use spirit intermediaries to overcome the instinctive hatred that humans (including other Gifted) feel for Gifted humans. The Purple Islands (also called the Canaries) are likewise occupied by a people who are governed by wizard-kings. This is probably not a coincidence; Soqotra and the Canaries are both possible locations for the Gardens of the Hesperides, and the magic of each place is governed by a serpent who protects a magical tree. Exactly what is going on is unclear.
  • Several supplements go into detail about how setting up a working magocracy could be done. On a smaller scale, most covenants include magical servants, and many hold land and assets in their own right. The main problem is that doing this is likely to run afoul of the Code's provisions against interfering with mundanes.
• BattleCON: The Magocracy of Willat, a small but highly advanced nation situated in the northern mountains. The majority of the population consists of elves, and most citizens are capable of using magic to some degree.
• Blue Rose:
  • The Old Kingdom was ruled by Sorcerer-Kings in its later years, and Kern under Jarek was the last of these.
  • Jarzon is a de facto magocracy. While its priesthood is not exclusively composed of adepts, the Keepers Council are almost entirely adepts of great power.
• Castle Falkenstein: The Freemasons are a sorcerous order that runs 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.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Nations ruled by wizards are very common in the various settings:
  • Dark Sun: The cities of Athas (except Tyr, depending on the timeline) are ruled by tyrannical Sorcerer Kings.
  • Forgotten Realms:
    • Netheril was full of Magitek, inhumanly arrogant, but mostly non-evil (if not good) 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 the goddess of magic, 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. are evil magocracies. They got better later when pro-trade attitudes won.
    • Sshamath is a city-state 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... Nightmare Fuel 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.
  • Mystara has the Principalities of Glantri, a smaller Magocracy with a 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 if you don't require that the ruling mages be humanoids.
  • Scarred Lands 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 Secret Police run by a 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 Secret Police 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 Tippyverse is a hypothetical setting that came into being when the implications of the large-scale, long-distance teleportation were 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.
• Exalted: The Realm and the First Age Solar Deliberative are oligarchic (though the Realm is theoretically a monarchy) states ruled by human beings given the powers of the gods.
• GURPS has this on its list of government types, as a subset of meritocracy.
  • Banestorm: 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.
  • GURPS Technomancer has the Magiocracy of Surinam, which is a small South American country conquered by a mercenary-mage in 1982, and now ruled by his necromancer widow with the covert support of the setting's main magical MegaCorp.
• Spears of the Dawn: 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 Human Sacrifice to empower their magic-users.
• Tech Infantry, 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 ordinary humans caught in the middle or used as cannon fodder by both sides.
• Traveller: The Zhodani Consulate is the soft sci-fi version. Nobles and Intendents have Psychic Powers, allowing them to maintain the most effective police state in human history.
• Warhammer:
  • The Chaos Dwarfs are ruled by their evil sorcerers.
  • The Lizardmen are led by the ancient Slann mage-priests, although they spend most of their time pondering magical secrets and leave the day-to-day running to the Skinks.
  • Saphery, one of the High elf Inner Kingdoms, corners the "elves as magical sophisticates" archetype and is governed by the Council of Archmages. High Loremaster Teclis is Prince of this realm.
  • Fimir clans are ruled by witch-queens known as mearghs, the rare females born to the race, who are gifted with immense sorcerous power.
• Warhammer 40,000: Occasionally, some societies are led by powerful psykers. This is normally a bad idea since psykers' powers make them vulnerable to Demonic Possession and Warp corruption, so these societies either find methods to mitigate this issue or implode.
  • Prospero, home planet of the fallen Primarch Magnus the Red, and its replacement, the Planet of the Sorcerers, which is located in a permanent Negative Space Wedgie. Prospero's psykers were immune to Warp problems due to magical crystals from a cavern under the city, but they were still duped by daemons into some very poor choices.
  • While most Eldar Craftworlds are led by an Autarch, a civic leader who has experienced multiple life paths and professions, Ulthwé is largely led by its Seer Council, a gathering of its most powerful and experienced psykers who use their ability to predict the future to steer the Craftworld's course and inform its policy and decisions. In their case, they maintain stability thanks partly to the Eldar having stabler and more developed powers than human psykers and partly to centuries of training and iron discipline.
• The World of Darkness:
  • Mage: The Ascension 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.
  • Mage: The Awakening: The Seers of the Throne, 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 Master Race, adding in Gender Bender and Hermaphrodite for some extra creepiness.
  • Genius: The Transgression has two major Magocracies: Lemuria, a group of mostly Chaotic Evil mad scientists who think they rule the world, and The Peerage, a group of mostly Chaotic Good mad scientists who make sure they don't. Interestingly, Lemuria and the aforementioned Seers of the Throne are physically unable to recognize each other.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: The "Endymion" archetype is based in a magical kingdom called "Endymion" ruled by a powerful Wizard King named "Endymion" (don't worry. It's exactly as confusing as it sounds). In Endymion (the country), access to Magic is tightly controlled, but those who are chosen by the state to wield magic are set for life. At one point Endymion (the country) declared war against the "Prophecy" archetype because Endymion (the man) felt the Prophecies' belief that Magic should be accessible to the masses is dangerous. To be fair he wasn't exactly wrong. In an effort to drive back the invading Endymion Soldiers, "Fool of Prophecy" (the Prophecy archetype is themed after Tarot Cards) selected a spellbook from Prophecy's vast library at random and ended up becoming the embodiment of the Death Arcana "Reaper of Prophecy", which lead to massive casualties on both sides.

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