Theocracies?

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>>54843434
You might need a different patron for that.

I've based my theocracy on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the sense that its spiritual leader declared himself the younger brother of Jesus and led a revolt against their failing monarchy

>>54843434
Pelor fucking love Theocracies, he pops them down whenever there's an opportunity to get his hands on one.

I haven't played around with Theocracies outside of the villain role.

They are just so easy to make villainous.

>>54844657
do gods not exist in your setting?

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>>54844657
So why Theocracies, instead of normal Statism? Are you sure there isn't something you want to tell us?
Dear anon?

>>54843434
I have a theocracy with a moderately interesting back-story:
Basically, a couple of hundred years ago the Emperor of the great empire of madeupname was so pious that when he died he named the Arch-Primate of the not!Catholic church as his successor.

The empire was already heavily religious, so although there was some resistance from the nobility the church enjoyed the support of the majority of the population and the noble uprising was quickly and ruthlessly crushed.

One peculiar wrinkle this creates is that the church practices celibacy among its clergy, so every time the Arch-primate dies the council of bishops elects a new one; since the Arch-Primate and the Emperor are one and the same this means that the empire is the only country in the world with an elected monarchy.

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>>54844203
Go on! Any more to share?
>>54845078
That's pretty neat, anon. Conclave politics must be a real shitshow.

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How about militaries, lads? How are they run in your theocracy?
I'm sure you've got your paladins and cleric knights, but anything interesting? My theocracy has a medieval style army (and indeed was once feudal) so it's not uncommon to see clerics leading forces in anything from armor to vestments.

How about elite forces/knightly orders? Here's one from mine:
The Serrata
>an anointed order of excommunicates offered a chance at redemption
>sent to do the most risky and thankless military tasks, from leading hopeless defenses to leading suicidal charges
>Those who die are martyrs
>Those who survive long enough to return to society do so as heroes

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>>54843434
>>54845830
In the setting I'm thinking of at the moment, the church (or atleast, its governing body/not-Rome) is considered to be above and beyond all nations, and it's tied in with the feudal system. As usual, knights are the tenants of nobles and nobles are the tenants of the monarch, but the monarch himself is a tenant of the Goddess, the Queen of the Moon. The Goddess owns the world, so mortal royalty only rules by her divine consent, as interpreted and enacted by her descendents and the church. The worlds oldest and most powerful nations are those that can somehow trace their history back to being founded/having their founding blessed by the Queen of the Moon or one of her descendents. If a royal family manages to land some sort of marriage deal with a descendent of the Goddess, their bloodline is pretty much guaranteed legitimacy in the eyes of most people, for generations to come.

If anyone wants to start a new nation or kingdom, or take over another church approved country, they need the blessing of the church. Usually the majority of politicing and warring will be done by a nation's king/queen/generals/etc, and a major religious figure will hover of their shoulders then formalise everything at the end, but occasionally the church will condemn an unjust war or refuse to bless the founding of a country. Countries not blessed by the church are pretty much fair game to war with and crusade against: after all, the Goddess owns the whole world, so heathen nations and those unblessed by the church are stealing land.

Any blessed nation is required to grant a number of fiefs to church officials, such as bishops and abbots, rather than nobility. Religious landowners still need people to defend their land though, and still hire knights. Church knights are identical in function to gentry knights, but are considered part of the church rather than the aristocracy, and are more likely to be clerics or even devout peasants who have been trained into knights.

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>>54846234
Knightly orders are usually either gentry or church, though a few mixed orders do exist. Church knight orders draw more on stuff like Templars, Teutonic Knights, Hospitallers, Winged Hussars, that sort of shit. They range from shrieking zealots, to romantics whose muses and unrequited loves are various historic saints and goddesses.

Land owning clerics and their knights are loyal first and foremost to the international church, but they are still considered subjects of their kings/queens. I haven't given it much thought until this thread, but I suppose it also makes sense that there's completely theocratic countries, ruled by church members who hold as much sway as kings do elsewhere.

>>54846349
There were absolutely clerics who served as feudal lords/ladies (in the case of the occassional abbess) in Europe.
Take a look at below for examples/inspiration if you're interested.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-bishop

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>>54843434
A tribe of pyromancers and a tribe of blacksmiths were united by a prophetess, created gunpowder and firearms, then conquered the rest of the tribes.

Meanwhile, the Volcano Goddess, whose domain is fire, earth and life, burned down the other gods. Their fragments are understood to be the origin of many ghosts. Some said the orcoids were maggots of their corpses which ate their hate and divine power.

The whole land became twelve principates governed by a holy city inside a volcanic caldera. To become a legitimate ruler, each prince or princess* has to ride a giant fire serpent, divine beasts whose first appeared when the goddess blessed the prophetess into becoming one.

When one prince dies, the fire serpent sheds its corindon scales. The next ruler must cover his body with the powdered scales to become immune to heat and fire and thus ride the serpent. Where the serpent crawls, terracota trails are formed.

Pyromancers are as much mages as they are priests of the goddess. One particularly important function is to arbitrate Amani, the tradition of war which keeps the peace. This consists of ritual duels between tribes having disputes or vendettas.
A couple dozen of musketeers shoot at each other until one side desists or enough bloodshed is done. Undue viciouness is punished through the ignition of the ofenders' gunpowder. Very few deaths actually happen during a duel.

The day-to-day administration of a principate relies on the prince or princess' harem. In at least one principate, the standing army as well.

*As the true and eternal "queen" is the goddess herself.

Two theocracies you could research are Puritan New England.

The Puritans had a lot of good things going on. They really despised idleness, and their community was made up of a lot of skilled laborers. They expected everyone to read the Bible, so schooling and other public works came about because of them. I can go a little farther. On another hand, however, they really felt that everyone needed to prescribe to their industrious worship, so the expanded and annexed some of their neighbors quite aggressively. Depending on how you spin it, they could be good or bad dudes.

>>54848271

I was also going to write about the Quakers but I thought about it and I don't think they quite fit a theocracy.

Or go anti-deity theocracy like Augusta compte did in 1850's

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>>54843434
I usually go the evil route. However, I prefer it went the Church *isn't* corrupt. If a priest of The Fire-Beyond-The-Stars is diddling children, he gets horribly tortured to death. If one of the Iron Templars roughs up people for fun, or steals from the tithing plate, he gets sent to the obsidian mines forever. They're just people who happen to be ferociously devout to a set of beliefs we'd find rather repulsive.
Anyway, for good theocracies, what about a Pax Dei type situation? The country is made up of countless squabbling clans and petty kingdoms, but a class of priests slowly spreads a civilizing influence by establishing "safe zones" where no violence can take place. They adjudicate disputes, and try to educate the war like nobility and turn them into less horrifically violent assholes. The priests don't actually *rule* per se, but they tend to act as diplomats and go -betweens, and other "civilized" cultures prefer to deal with them over the squabbling clans.

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I'm surprised more people don't consider basing a theocracy on Iran, which is strange as they combined a theocracy with a democratic/republican style government unlike the more standard fusion of theocracy with monarchist.