Saw a discussion on reddit today and thought it might be interesting. Name the system, media influences, and basic plot ideas. Mine is: Over The Edge, Film Noir: Four friends in 1935 are involved in a plane crash in the desert and end up in Al Amarja. Stuck without papers or passports, the group is forced to take piece work from the criminal element to survive. A cross between The Maltese Falcon, Naked Lunch, The Lost Weekend, and Sullivan’s Travels.
So there are a few things with it. It was one of the more tolerant cultures in Europe at the time, with Poles being 50% of the population, and Lithuanians being 10%. There were also legally enforced protections for people or religious minority groups for the majority of its existence. The other is that it had a weirdly democratic (for the time) system of governance. Its parliament and King were elected from within the nobility. Which while not everyone had full voting rights, a higher proportion of the population had them compared to early democracies like the French Republic. 15% for the commonwealth vs ~1.5% for the French Republic. Note that the common wealth was about 200 years old when the First French Republic was founded. Thirdly, most fantasy apes the political structure of Feudalism or Absolutism. And while those were a thing, there are other political structures that existed in the world, not just outside of Europe, but inside as well. Other systems that existed in Europe around the same time includes Medieval Communes and the Hanseatic League.
Interesting. Would be fun to have it added to a traditional DnD campaign.