Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish Wolf
In such societies historically, the nobility were expected to take on the bulk of leadership roles - and during a demonic invasion, would fall at a rate far above average. It seems to me that this would result in a massive power vacuum; this could lead to a new royal family taking over and business continuing as usual, or it could lead the people to experiment with other methods of governance (since the kings failed them, why not try something that doesn't use kings?). I think the most likely alternative would probably be something based more on traders or businessmen than anything we might think of as "democratic" - after all, if your business can recover from the Demon War, maybe you're just the kind of person to head the new council and help the nation recover as a whole!
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Possibly, but historically people tend to try to recreate what's familiar. When Henry VIII died, for ex, his will actually stipulated that instead of a traditional regency, a committee of (IIRC) 16 people was supposed to act in the name of Henry's minor son. It was too alien a concept, the committee quickly transformed into a more-or-less traditional regency.
If the land was a stable hereditary monarchy before, that would probably remain the ideal, but you might very well see multiple families, not all of them previously recognized as noble, vying for control of the crown, you might also see contending 'kings' refusing to recognize each other's claims. Too much o this sort of thing could quickly convert a nascent recovery into a new collapse. You might also see, in the confusion of the aftermath, various people claiming to be the previous ruler's surviving heir...truthfully or not.
If you wanted a major baddie for the setting, one possibility would be that whoever summoned the demons did so precisely to create the sort of confusion that could let him or her (or their proxy) gain the crown afterward. Maybe the invasion was a little more intense than intended, but that sort of thing is a long-standing warning about deals with dark powers anyway.