how to create a high fantasy politics reference doc (with a template and guide!)
political fantasy is an extremely fun genre to write in, that is, until you have to actually write the politics. in this semi-requested guide, i'm going to explain to you how i virgo-planned my way to a horribly detailed—though also horribly helpful—political reference doc for my one and only wip, a treatise of tyrants and thieves.
if you too would like to use a similar format to what i did (though consequently you will have to change it to fit your own worldbuilding), i have a template on dropbox paper right here.
as a sidenote, i do recommend already having built up a decent amount of your world before jumping into this; this document is meant to help flesh out pre-existing content in such a way that is really hard to do with a wip that's just starting out.
setting up.
Generally speaking, when I first began writing this doc, I was mostly doing so in relation to the government of the country wherein my WIP takes place and its relationship with other countries (or nations!), with its own people, and within itself. This then lead to my three, aptly-named subcategories; External, Internal, and Personal Relations (I'm very creative as you can see.)
These three subcategories became my main headers, and all of my organization took place within a Dropbox Paper doc—as I am partial to the cleaner interface and very easy creation of a table of contents—but using Word or Google Docs works just as well. With that, and a lot of pain and suffering in the form of preexisting worldbuilding, I started to flesh all the info out.
You should note that the country AToTaT takes place in is called Vsyhna (vuh-sen-uh) and its government is referred to as the Dual Courts. This is also a forewarning, for the fact that I will probably be talking about my own worldbuilding quite a bit, if not only for purposes of giving proper examples!
So without any more notes from me, let's properly jump into this thing.
external relations.
The external relations between the Dual Courts and all the other governments within Ashvayr (the continent that Vsyhna is a part of), of which there are eleven, can be described in one of the following ways:
✅ = Allies
⚠️ = Allied by treaty, with tensions
❎ = Not allied, but no real tensions
✴️ = Not allied, but with tensions
⛔️ = Enemies
All of these relations should be taken with a grain of salt, and also adapted to fit your worldbuilding, of course, but as a general consensus, most governments will have one of those relationships with another. The emojis are used so that it's easily identifiable (I'm also insane, let's not forget), but emojis don't replace discussion.
Within each section, I discussed the relationship between these governments but also gave a quick list of bullet points that explained important moments in recent history that have created those tensions—or lack thereof—the current political state in each country, certain cultural tidbits, and cultural differences between Vsyhnians and others.
Generally, this isn't the stuff you want to get lazy with, and while it is fine to say something like "Oh they live across the world my mc's won't know this." It's better to have the ability to even subtly suggest other people, cultures, or ideologies. It deepens your world, and more than this, can be super interesting to readers. You should also note that this information should affect your characters in some way, otherwise the politics are going to be very boring (as they don't relate to anyone.)
This alternated between something as complex as gender politics, to things as simple as cuisine or trade goods. Indeed, you don't have to cover every base with these descriptions, arguably, this is the part you should spend the least amount of time on (unless you're braver than a U.S. marine and do, in fact, wish to take on international relations), but you should cover every important base.
For a slightly more simple example, let's look at the Empire of Sansryn. I wrote: "The Empire of Sansryn ⚠️ is an archipelago that is composed of two main ethnic groups; the Sansrynians, who occupy the northern half of the islands, and the Tarimese, who occupy the southern half of the islands." Then continued to briefly describe the relationship between Sansryn and Tarim.
The next two paragraphs were designated to a) their relationship with Vsyhna (which as you can see with the ⚠️ emoji is not great) and b) their relationship with other countries around them, not forgetting why it's so poor in the first place, which, spoiler, has to do with a number of social issues.
Also in the case of Sansryn, one of my side characters is half Sansrynian, which is something I noted mostly for the purposes of clarifying this character's relationship with this part of their identity and culture.
Realism is, quite frankly, optional in fantasy (or rather, you define what "real" actually means) but I do tend to strive for realism within AToTaT's politics, if not only because it's fun. When delving into (rightfully!) complex issues—like ethnic conflict for example—it's necessary to do your homework (and hire sensitivity readers afterward) if it's not a topic you are familiar with or related to. However, that exact process is not something I will be discussing in this post and I encourage you to do your own research.
You also want to take into consideration how these countries are related to each other. For me personally, I almost exclusively did this for the two current conflicts (i.e. actively disputed treaties, current armed conflicts) within the world, but I did briefly touch on how those relationships came to be, as you can see above.
internal relations.
Internal relations is where things start to get more complex and also more specific to the world my WIP takes place in. For this section, you need to have already realized a great deal in regards to major political institutions (if you have them!) and most importantly, cultural attitudes.
I split my internal relations section into seven sub-sections, which included: Social Cleavages, Justice System, Garrison, Navy, Cults vs. Church, Crime, and Trade.
For a Wikipedia definition, a social cleavage is "a historically determined social or cultural line which divides citizens within a society into groups with differing political interests, resulting in political conflict among these groups." AKA sexy, sexy plot tension.
The social cleavages of Vsyhna mostly revolve around social class (in-world called "rank"), an urban/rural divide, and nationality, which I note as being "considerably not a social cleavage." It appears I should have listened to my Wikipedia-defined advice. That said, rank was described at length for its importance to the religion, general structure within government, linguistic flavor (dialects!), and laws. It's one of my largest social themes and connects to almost everything within the book, including the magic system.
Speaking of magic, as I didn't mention it within my seven sub-categories above, I should note that however magic works in your society should also be included. In my case, it's heavily intertwined with religion and social class (access to the information to give allow people to use magic, I mean) and so I didn't feel the need to clarify its role with an entirely new section, but how you do this is entirely up to you. It's also up to you to include a magic system, as in reality, you don't need one. I also have a completely separate Dropbox doc for most of these things anyway (re:knowing stuff before you jump into this.)
The justice system is something I find is often not immediately thought about when it comes to fantasy, but from a very general point of view, this also encompasses subjects such as law codes, the punishment for breaking those codes, and what trials look like, if you have them. This can tell us much about your culture, what they value, and more importantly, how much they value it.
For example, continuing with my themes of classism, sumptuary laws are a large part of Vsyhnian society, i.e. laws that forbid the usage of certain goods to lower classes. Given that it's illegal for someone of lowborn status to have, let's say silk, it creates a) a prime criminal market (trading "illegal" goods), b) a need to crack down on this market, and c) further severs the relationship between upper and lower classes, given that the fairness of the justice system is then put under scrutiny. Indeed, the fact that it's the Church that controls the justice system, you have a similar tension in the department of faith, and I haven't even begun to talk about how the treatment during trials differs.
I often find military to be the greatest emphasis within quite a lot of political fantasy, that being, the mobility of large land armies or prowess at sea. For me personally, I find this to be rather boring (both on accounts of reading and writing) so I did come at this with a lens of interest in the personal relationships of these people and actual organization within the military. Mostly, I used what I knew from external relationships and current conflicts to create something that could be used later on if I needed it, as it's not heavily featured (at least not in the first book!) Treaties, blockades, relationships between commanding officers, and relationships with piracy.
On notes of realism, I went with the very classic These Island People Have A Great Navy, as, historically, they tend to.
We should all know by now how important religion, or lack thereof, is in epic fantasy, and while I could go on about this for several hours, this is a political relations doc, so I focussed on the tension between sects of the main religion. How different leaders within the religion interacted with other members of government is a topic for personal relations, however, if not only because they're heavily featured, and there are several (about nine actual descriptions.)
This culminated by way of cults vs. the Church, differing ideologies within fundamental concepts of the religion, and generally how they're seen by Vsyhnian society (and—you guessed it—social class.) As an example, I wrote, "All of these organizations consider the Holy Book Rovnokh to be canon and true within their faiths, though it is the Codex Drkha that is often disputed in validity. This is the result of their own written dogma, which may convey entirely different personalities and oblation tales, or emphasis on a very specific aspect of the mortal godchild then how they are presented in the Codex."
It is important to consider, before even delving into differences, what the fundamentals of each sect or division within your religion are speaking on. Think of the historical context that may have brought about such a concept, or even fuzzy lines within canon texts. Here's another example, "The seventh mortal godchild is not mentioned within the Codex and therefore not considered a valid mortal godchild, though Vrah’s appearance in the Holy Book and the Children of the Bone’s own text—which are older than the Codex—say otherwise. 'Vrah' is more used as a term to describe magic and not at all a person, when it is mentioned in the Codex."
Crime and trade, as you can imagine in a society plagued by rules that dictate trade—and in many cases make the trade of certain items a crime—is quite important. As I hinted earlier in the justice system section, the "illegal" trade of certain goods, which goes against sumptuary laws. That said, crime happens for a number of different reasons, and I took the time here to think about partner organizations, illegal magic producers, and gangs.
Crime can actually be an excellent tool of worldbuilding, if not only for the fact that it is so specific to the country and history it resides in. Why does something need to be stolen? Fabricated? Spied on? And who is gaining the most out of it.
Trade was something I rather lazily did with the above Vsyhnian roadmap—I don't plan on discussing economics at all, nor following merchants as they move goods though the country.
I want to note once more that all of this is extremely relative information; what you need to write about to create political tension is entirely up to you and your story. As a general bit of advice, however, it is helpful to ensure that everything can come back around to your characters—if not now, then at some point within the series or story as a whole. Politics can become boring very easily, especially when not personal.
personal relations.
For our final and most interesting section, I did two, somewhat important things before actually writing anything out; that being creating two charts. The first is a political alignment chart, the second is a chart that defines the different positions of government. While again, this is totally relative, this is what I came up with:
Take the time to think about and research other forms of government, what each "branch" might do, and how they do it. More importantly though, think about how the culture and religion would, can, or do influence the government, and how the government has responded to such action. Look to history especially!
The charts allowed me to very easily place my main characters, their families, and all the previous groups of people (gangs, cults, social classes) into categories that can then, more or less, directly define their relationships with one another. This made the process that I will now describe to you, a little less tedious.
I divided this category into three sections: Nobleborn Houses (that being houses of great import and high rank), the Prelacy (leaders of the Church), and Others of Note.
There are ten nobleborn houses, however, I only did mass amounts of details for five of the most important. I should also note that two of my four main characters are a part of two of these houses, and it's for that reason that I felt I needed to be as in-depth as possible. For Houses, the organization went something like this:
House Name:
A general description of the house, its history, and how it rose to power as well as what they generally control within the government, and how long they've had this position.
Public Opinion:
What the people think of this family, given all social standings and occupations. Naturally, when I say all, I don't mean think about what every carpenter thinks of the royal family, I just made sure it was a general consensus!
Opinion of the Other Five Houses:
This, I tended to keep as short as possible, but like the external relationships above, I wanted to know what and how the relationship was what it was. For several, I already had an idea, but for...so many more I did not.
Opinion of the Remaining Houses:
Shorter than even short as possible, but the same idea as before.
Main Members:
Probably one of the more important sections, I listed out all the members of the main part of the family, that is, the immediate family of the person involved in government (or main character.) This not only defines your side characters—of which there are bound to be many—but also clarifies the conflicting motives of the people in charge. And they should conflict, hopefully with the motives of your main characters. Extended family was discussed when important, such as prominent aunts, uncles, or grandparents, but for sake of simplicity, lengthy descriptions were kept for parents and children.
I also included charts after this about minor houses sworn to these noble houses, but to be completely honest, I didn't fill out most. That said, I did repeat this process for all five houses, and the good news, is that after you talk about the relationship with one of the other five, you're done completely, so, yay one less bullet point each time. Also, don't feel pressured to have a name for everyone or everything! In fact, I mostly skip over names of people unless I really have to know them in text, far more characters are simply [BROTHER] or [PARENT], though this could be a laziness thing. Or a conlang one.
A worldbuilding note: I also included house colors, sigils, and heads in this instance, as well as their connection to certain magical oaths.
For the remaining five nobleborn houses, I only listed house heads, sigils, and colors, if not only because I described their relationship with everyone else, earlier. That said, I also included house heir and extra notes, if I needed them.
The Prelacy was organized slightly differently, as important members of the Church, they don't necessarily have family members interacting with them. Instead, I focussed on backstories, their relationships with the Arkan (the monarch, sort of), and once more, motive (and personalities, given that I don't give side characters a full oc profile.)
As shown in the chart above, there is one High Vokhsv and six Vokhvs that work under them; the former had a more in-depth section of text, however, the six got just about as much detail as the lesser five noble houses, which isn't much at all.
My last and final section was short and sweet (thank God) and covered two topics very briefly, that are so world-specific I won't even bother explaining them. That said! That's what this section is for; anything else that you might have missed.
I won't lie, this was probably the most time-consuming process of everything, but in the end, it did pay off. The entire thing took about from the 22nd of February to the 18th of April, and came out to just 966 words short of 30k. Do I suggest you also write this much? Not unless you feel like you need it. I don't really plan out plot, so for me, this was my plan, hence the length and detail.
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this far too long breakdown of my political reference doc of my WIP, A Treatise of Tyrants and Thieves and good luck with your own process, writing, and research <3
references.
Some links I found helpful:
The template link, once more.
Brandon Sanderson's 2020 creative writing lectures (YouTube)
Designing a fantasy legal system (Worldbuilding Stack Exchange)
Unpacking Folk Tales/Motif Index (Uni. of Alberta)
Real Inequality in Europe since 1500 (Journal, PDF)
Diplomacy (Wikipedia)
Public Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe (Journal)
The Spy Chiefs or Renaissance Venice: Intelligence Leadership in the Early Modern World (Oxford Brookes Uni., PDF)
Branches of the U.S. military (SOU)
those who were interested.
@chovansjtsjina @zielenheil @lord-fallen @ninazeniks @viesceral @introverteddumbass @wisteria-eventide & anyone else, feel free to reply, send an ask, or dm me about questions!
