Exilarchy

Basic Information

An Exilarchy is a government which is established for or rules over a religious or ethnic diaspora rather than ruling from the origin of this group.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• Both the government and the governed people in question will likely want their home region back - which can drive numerous adventure plots or even entire campaigns.
  • Especially if the player characters are part of this group.
  • When the currently occupying group has had a few generations to establish itself, a return to the homeland could well result in the creation of another exilarchy.
• What about the people who live in the nation where the Exilarchy has established itself? Are they members of the same group as well? If not, they might resent these intruders - especially if they are now in the minority or even subjugated…
  • Alternatively they can end up being rolled into some kind of Bay of Pigs style fiasco…
• In a fantasy or science fiction campaign, this might represent the new government center of an entire species whose homeland or home planet - or even home dimension was either destroyed or conquered.
• It is almost inevitable that the diaspora will be regarded as a (potential) fifth column in at least some of the places they live - allegiance to a foreign state of any kind is prone to annoy the state they live in.
  • And in the event of any conflict between the exilarchy and the states of residence, the diaspora become enemy aliens - consider the many early modern Romanists caught up in the various conflicts between the Papacy and those European nations who did not recognise Papal claims of authority.
  • If the diaspora is ethnic rather than religious or ideological, those who identify more with where they've lived their entire lives than the ancestral homeland they've never seen are likely to get problems from both ends. Even in matters of belief, an apostate is unlikely to be fully trusted by the new side or accepted by the old.
• An exilarchy is not constrained to a single place, and may have internal barriers of distance, local culture, cultural drift, or language. Schisms or even antipope situations may arise.