[SolemnGolem]

I'm running a DFRPG adventure (and hopefully extended campaign) in a setting where a populist rebellion about 150 years ago forcibly united a more traditional fantasy band of principalities.

They overthrew the landed gentry and aristocracy, as well as crushing non-human tribal resistance and assimilating everything into a racial melting-pot and meritocracy simply called The Union.

Now there are two legislative chambers in the capital: the Chamber of Tribunes (local syndics and tribal leaders, nominally geographic) plus the Chamber of Guilds (tradesmen and nominally meritocratic) - both on rotating memberships. At the top is the Sovereign Council, also rotating, with a strong sense of rule by committee without the appearance of any single member as dominant or indispensable.

Behind (or more specifically, underground below) the corridors of politics, a powerful lich sets most policy through a covert police. The lich is primarily concerned with magical advancement of the art, and sees the establishment of a utilitarian mercantile state as important to its goals. Its covert police have a mission primarily to keep the Sovereign Council in line, the tribunes and syndics weak enough so the aristocracy never reforms (meaning "never recovers from its dissolution"), and the guilds loyal and orderly.