Imperial Government¶
"Disagreeing with or disrespecting the decision of the emperor is Blasphemy." — Sancturi political notes (S323)
Contested
Named in the open question Emperor or Empress Okora: the Sancturi documents speak of the throne both as an Emperor and as Empress Okora.
The Imperial Government is the state of the Sancturi Empire in the Fifth Age: a god-ruler on the throne, an elected Great Council and four elected Warlords in the capital, the High Prefects of the Nine Great Houses administering the land, and the eleven Qeokrati of the clergy judging it province by province. Power is bought with taxes: a house's tax revenue decides whether it is great, and grants it the election tokens that choose every elected office. Sancturi itself is the name the founders gave both themselves and their gods in 522 SM, when "rebels organized around a new faith" retook the ruins of Sanctorum and "declare themselves and their gods the Sancturi" (S326). This page describes the organs of the state; the land is described under the Sancturi Empire, the parties under Sancturi Political Parties, the legions under Sancturi Military.
Imperial structure¶
The throne¶
The ruler is "the spiritual leader of the empire and head of the judiciary". In the political notes the throne is held by Empress Okora Sancturi, "The Glory of Elysium" (see Minor Figures of the Sancturi Imperium). She "technically has veto power over all legislative and executive actions, though it is very rarely ever used (once in the last quarter century)", guides the Great Council without a vote, and breaks its ties (S323).
Succession is a religious matter. "The Empress is considered a God in a mortal form. When that mortal form dies, the God finds residence in one of the other chosen and they will become the new emperor/empress (The Qeokrati determine this in a conclave unanimously)" (S323). All land belongs to the throne, which grants it "in order to keep balance across all the great houses"; the ruler "generally seeks to maintain a balance within the empire and regards an overly powerful house as a threat to the empire itself". To disagree with or disrespect a decision of the throne is Blasphemy, "a capitol offense that also brings great dishonor on your house" (S323).
The clergy's account of the same throne speaks only of "the Emperor": the heads of the Penitus Monks report "to the Qeokrati and Emperor", the three Archprincipates of the Covenant "report directly to the Emperor", and the holy text was "dictated by the first emperor to scribes" and is kept "in the Emperor's city" (S321; see Elysium's Gate).
High Warlord and Warlords¶
The "chief military executive(s) of the empire" administer the frontier lands and the campaigns. The High Warlord resides in the capital, is responsible for home defence, assigns the other three Warlords to the frontier, and "is also required by law to keep the Empress and Great Council informed of all wartime events" (S323).
"By law, each warlord is allotted one-fifth of the empire's military forces (with the warlords rotating their command with each election to avoid the forces becoming overly loyal to a single warlord), with two-fifths going to the High Warlord." Warlords are elected every two years at the Great Election; only one of the three sitting Warlords may be elected High Warlord, and none may serve more than three terms. Unlike a councillor, "a Warlord must be and remain a landholder" (S323). The five legions so divided are described under Sancturi Military.
The Great Council¶
The Great Council of twenty-five High Councillors "makes all legislative decisions for the empire". Councillors are elected to two-year terms and can be removed only by death or a capital crime, after which the seat stays empty until the next election. No councillor may serve longer than twenty-four years (twelve terms), and on retiring a councillor "is required to release all leases that they hold (this is an honorable succession scenario)" (S323).
Each High Councillor sits on two of the ten legislative councils, five councillors to a council, which draft the laws the Great Council votes on: Honor, War, Religious, Infrastructure, Trade, Labor, Defense, Judicial, Budget, and Hollow, which "recently replaced Frontier whose responsibilities were merged with War" (S323). How the seats fall between the parties is tabled under Sancturi Political Parties.
The Sanctuary Age Timeline names a High Council acting on the frontier: in 661 SM, with the Vael'Doreis campaign stalled, "The High Council declared the campaign on hold, and commanded that defenses should be shored up and that offensive operations would cease until more forces could be made available" (S326; see Sancturi Campaigns).
The High Prefects¶
Each of the nine great houses has a High Prefect "responsible for the administration of their lands within the empire". Together they form the Prefect Council, "which must ratify any domestic legislation passed by the Great Council". Each is "given an equalized amount of the domestic budget to work with based on their share of land and population" (S323). A High Prefect may be replaced by the house at the Great Election.
Ratification¶
A law passed by the Great Council is not finished there. Domestic legislation goes to the Prefect Council; "moral (honor), social or judicial legislation" goes to the Qeokrati Council, the eleven provincial Qeokrati sitting together (S323). The political notes give two worked cases. A transport law from the Infrastructure Council, setting roads "4 carriages abreast" with "regular patrols of at least 1 Justicar per mile of road", passes 13 to 12 and binds the High Prefects to build with the grant and their own budgets; "it is illegal for the High Prefects to pay fines out of their budget, so the fines hit the house landholders directly and is split evenly among them". A Defense Council law ordering two forts with no money attached passes anyway, and the two prefects left to build them "bring a case before the Qeokrati who determine the law violates the ?? principle of Elysium's Gate" (S323).
The Great Election¶
"A one month period every 2 years when all High Councillors (25), Warlords (3) and High Warlord (1 - can only be chosen from the 3 current Warlords) are chosen using the vote tokens granted from taxes" (S323). Each great house holds election tokens in proportion to the tax it pays. After the vote, councillors choose their two councils in order of seniority and votes, "followed to the last councillor which is new with the least number of votes". The houses may change their High Prefects, and the standing of the Nine Great Houses is confirmed, which "does not require votes" (S323). The Sages of the Codex assemble the whole Sancturi Codex, the rune-warded record of taxes and land holdings, "once every two years for the great election" (S321; see Sancturi Clergy).
The great houses in the state¶
"The great houses are determined based on the tax revenue collected by the empire from the house. A rising house may dethrone an existing house by generating more tax revenue. Inflated tax overpayment is not allowed (and is a capital crime)." The judiciary collects and accounts the tax. "Only a great house may own (lease) land from the empire. All other houses lease the land in turn from the great houses." When a great house falls, its leases pass to the others "as determined by the emperor" (S323). The houses themselves are described under Great Houses of the Sancturi.
Provincial structure¶
The Imperium is divided into eleven provinces, each presided over by one of the eleven Qeokrati, "the chief religious and judicial authorities of the empire"; "new Qeokrati are added when a new province is recognized" (S323). The Qeokrati, the Provincial Conclave that elects them, and the Covenant, the clergy's "provincial police force tasked with dealing with crimes against the empire", are described under Sancturi Clergy.
Prefects and prefectures¶
"A Prefect is a government executive that manages local infrastructure, implements laws, and manages police forces and militias." A prefect oversees a prefecture within a province "under the direct command of the High Prefect of their house". A prefecture may cover "a few villages" or "a large city and its surrounding towns", depending on "that prefect's skill, honor and other available options". "Prefectures are often long term appointments and are named after the appointees. For example, Falko Horst of House Arvumas is the Prefect over the Horst Prefecture. If another Prefect with the same last name exists, there will be a First Horst Prefecture and Second Horst Prefecture, etc." (S323). Named prefectures are listed on the Sancturi Empire page.
Imperial Service Corps¶
"An organization composed of aspiring citizens", serving under a prefect who assigns them to a Magistrate or Minister. They give three years of free labour and "rely on their good report to be elevated to citizen". The Corps is chosen by aspiring citizens with few connections, since service "can lead to full time positions", and "also often chosen by well-connected troubled individuals since Magistrates and Ministers can be more easily bribed to overlook their transgressions than members of the clergy or military" (S323). Service in "the military, service corps or clergy" for four years is the freeman's path to citizenship under Elysium's Gate (S321; see Social Order).
Frontier administration¶
Newly conquered provinces are governed under the Warlord. In Dalmar Province, "the Imperial Provincial Authority manages the civil affairs of the province" from Kurano "and reports to the Warlord", and the market town of Faarik holds "the busiest Imperial Colonization Office in the province as there is still quite a bit of claimable land available in the Vale" (S315).
Gap
The Imperial Provincial Authority and the Imperial Colonization Office are named only in the Dalmar gazetteer. How either is staffed, or how claimed land passes into the lease system of the great houses, is not said.
Local structure¶
Magistrates¶
"A Magistrate is responsible for the execution of the law within one portion of a prefecture." The prefect appoints and pays as many as are needed. The magistrate "hires, pays, trains and manages the Watch", commands and arms the local militia, and "will coordinate with the Bannerguard for capital crimes involving citizens or magic-users" (S323; see Arbitori Bannerguard).
The Watch¶
The "local police force hired and under the command of the Magistrate. Also usually serves as the core of the local militia" (S323). A frontier village's Master of the Watch might be a retired legion veteran: the innkeeper Normand Haket, "an elite sword in the imperial army", was the Master of the Watch in his village; "Imperials call them Watch, Watchmen" (S144; see Normand Haket).
Ministers¶
"A Minister is responsible for the financial and infrastructure management of a portion of a prefecture." Appointed and paid by the prefect, the minister "hires, pays, trains and manages laborers, craftsmen, merchants, traders, etc." In larger prefectures and cities "there may be a trade minister, water minister, dock minister, road minister, etc." (S323).
Gap
The Justicars who patrol the roads in the worked example (S323), and whom an offended house member threatens to "summon" in the campaign notes (S202), are not placed in any hierarchy.
Imperial law¶
Land¶
"All land is held by the emperor and leased to individuals of great houses which may sublease it to lower houses. It is granted to an individual (not the house)." On a holder's dishonourable death, or the natural death of a dishonoured holder, the land returns to the lessor; otherwise it follows the house's succession. "In order to reduce risk, houses tend to prefer many land holders to vast holdings by single individuals" (S323). The earliest notes add that landholdings "are often the subject of bets, competitions and sales" and that "primogeniture is the law of the land (first born son inherits, daughters inherit in order after all the sons)" (S132).
Crime, castes and honour¶
Criminal penalties scale with caste, citizens may pay fines in suns in place of most penalties, and the law knows Mord'ivarus, trial by combat, and Sup'advena, the surrender that obliges aid (S323). These are described under Law. The four castes, religious, citizen, freeman and slave, and the tattooed marks that show them, are described under Social Order. "Honor is the real currency in the empire. It is doctrine that Honor stems from the Sancturi and their representatives" (S132).
Taxes¶
Goods from the colonies are "heavily taxed (20-50%), while internal goods are taxed much more lightly (5-20%)", and "stable and successful colonies are eventually merged into the empire and come under empire control", a "huge financial and honor win for the controlling houses". "Smaller houses are much more likely to attempt tax evasion", and a caught evader faces "substantial fines and ... the ritual sacrifice of a those found most responsible. In the most extreme case it has led to entire houses being auctioned off at slave markets" (S132). Freemen pay a flat tax for their status, citizens "a higher base tax", and failing to pay costs citizenship (S323, S321).
End of the Imperium¶
The government did not survive the Araxian Wars. "Historians mark the end of the Sancturi Age in 904 SM when the capitol Sanctorum fell to an Araxian onslaught," throwing "the already besieged Sancturi Empire into complete chaos that led shortly to its fragmentation" (S112). In those last days "the empress had been slain and the great city of Sanctorum overrun"; two High Precepts of the Houses of Sidcarnon and Barahd and the Principate of the Sages led the Unholy Flight north, fighting "the other Sancturi who saw them as deserters who should ascend to Elysium with the Empress", and founded the kingdoms of the Divine Alliance (S078).
Earlier accounts¶
The first campaign notes (S132), whose chronology their author marked "Timeline is WRONG!", have the Imperium founded by "a new human faction, led by God-Emperor Tolac" in 516 SM, and in 550 SM "God-Emperor Aes'Solk ascends into heaven, leaving the God-Empress Aes'Ekhi to rule over the theocracratic Sanctum Imperium". The same notes have "complex rules which govern conflict between the kingdoms and houses", with houses that "do NOT span kingdoms, but have on rare occasions swapped loyalty to different kingdoms", as if the Imperium were a union of kingdoms; the later documents know only provinces and prefectures. The dating of the founding is followed from S326 on the Sancturi Empire page.