Greetings!

What kind of city would 25 Wizards rule? Imagine if a group of 25 Wizards, all Lawful Good in alignment, and all are also 10th level and above in experience. Assume such a city has a population of 100,000 people, minimum.

What architecture would they develop? What kind of economy would develop? What kind of government bureaucracy and administration would they embrace? How would relationships with different religions be approached? Would food, medicine, crafting, academics, and technology all be effected? How about animal herds, agriculture, and transportation?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That's not a lot of wizards, and wizards in D&D tend to be optimized for war. So if wizards are otherwise less common that your magocentric city state, they'd be the dominant military power of the region, capable of burning large armies and scry & fry or polymorph/invisibility/passwall and spy tactics for assassinating (only those who identify as evil, for lawful goodness' sake!) and information gathering.

Few spells would make much of a difference in agriculture, for instance. Control weather probably has the largest area of effect of any spell and a long duration, but it would require 2 castings a day to affect 10 sq mi -- enough perhaps to keep the patricians dry if they had a couple of the wizards on retainer, but not enough to affect serious farmland.

25 Wizards? would they ever reach an agreement as to what and or when to eat?

I disagree with Pat, there are spells that would help a great deal with agriculture, take dig for instance: Need a well? Want to build an aqueduct?

Charm monster if used smartly could also help, put an army of charmed orks to build your aqueducts.

Too little water and too much heat for the plants? Wall of Ice. Cast it upon a hill and let the water flow down.

I imagine a shining city full of tall spires and intricately carved archways built around a dominant spire where the seat of Wizard counsel gathers for deliberations and magic rituals to fortify the city. Magical lamps light the city at night and flourishing gardens can be found everywhere, with open parks were people gather for gossip and recreation. A central library is probably one of the most prominent buildings, and alchemy shops are commonplace, along with places to buy scrolls and magic tomes, as well as cheap magic trinkets, like dancing dolls, non-burning fireworks or music emitting pinwheels. People travel by foot, but can rent out magic carpets to reach the tallest spires with speed, or rent out summoned mounts that disappear after a certain time.

I'm not entirely sure how politics would work, but I'm guessing some sort counsel headed by an archmage. Relations with religions depend on how tolerant different religions are of magic in that world. Religions hostile to magic use would be kept out, while those accepting of magic would flourish, offering their healing services along with the many other magical services found throughout the city. A good aligned druid probably tends to the gardens and ensures that everywhere in the city there are green patches of lush vegetation growing around the stone buildings to provide a lively atmosphere to the magnificent architecture.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 28, 2021, 08:36:27 PM
I disagree with Pat, there are spells that would help a great deal with agriculture, take dig for instance: Need a well? Want to build an aqueduct?

Charm monster if used smartly could also help, put an army of charmed orks to build your aqueducts.

Too little water and too much heat for the plants? Wall of Ice. Cast it upon a hill and let the water flow down.

Dig? Let's check the 1e PH: Excavate a 5' cube of dirt/round, for 10 rounds (MU 10), with a significant chance of collapsing if you go more than 5' deep.

And that burns a 4th level spell.

Let's compare that to a single human miner, who can excavate 60% of a 5' cube of rock in 8 hours (DMG p. 106). Give 17 workers a day, and they can excavate more than your wizard's spell, and they're working in rock not dirt. With a city of 100,000, you're wasting your wizard's time having them dig holes in the ground. The dig spell is mostly useful if you need a hole right now, e.g. in combat situations, for instance sapping.

Agree with charm, though. A single charmed umber hulk would be an excavation machine. In fact, if you could get a few of them, you could create an entire undercomplex, with a modernish sewer system, tunnels for transport, and even entire blocks or levels of residences, shops, or what have you. If excavation was cheap, we wouldn't build so many skycrapers.

Quote from: Pat on April 28, 2021, 09:30:06 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 28, 2021, 08:36:27 PM
I disagree with Pat, there are spells that would help a great deal with agriculture, take dig for instance: Need a well? Want to build an aqueduct?

Charm monster if used smartly could also help, put an army of charmed orks to build your aqueducts.

Too little water and too much heat for the plants? Wall of Ice. Cast it upon a hill and let the water flow down.

Dig? Let's check the 1e PH: Excavate a 5' cube of dirt/round, for 10 rounds (MU 10), with a significant chance of collapsing if you go more than 5' deep.

And that burns a 4th level spell.

Let's compare that to a single human miner, who can excavate 60% of a 5' cube of rock in 8 hours (DMG p. 106). Give 17 workers a day, and they can excavate more than your wizard's spell, and they're working in rock not dirt. With a city of 100,000, you're wasting your wizard's time having them dig holes in the ground. The dig spell is mostly useful if you need a hole right now, e.g. in combat situations, for instance sapping.

Agree with charm, though. A single charmed umber hulk would be an excavation machine. In fact, if you could get a few of them, you could create an entire undercomplex, with a modernish sewer system, tunnels for transport, and even entire blocks or levels of residences, shops, or what have you. If excavation was cheap, we wouldn't build so many skycrapers.

Did you know that a 5' cube can be narrower and longer and still be 5'? But still, you use magic till you hit the rock, or like you said you get some unber hulks.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 28, 2021, 10:18:38 PM
Did you know that a 5' cube can be narrower and longer and still be 5'? But still, you use magic till you hit the rock, or like you said you get some unber hulks.

Sure, the dig spell says 125 cubic feet, and only uses the 5' cube as an example. But the depth limit without a collapse check is still 5', so digging deep will be tough.

Hmm.  Well, impressive construction; you can get a lot of people casting a lot of Wall of Stone and Stone Shape spells.  You've got enough wizards for some of them to be on permanent magic item duty, so a water tower with a Decanter of Endless Water to provide a persistent water source for the city is a strong possibility.

You'd probably get divination spells integrated directly into the justice system.  Knowing the minutia of what spells can produce unreliable results under what conditions will probably be necessary at trials.  And in the justice front, you can possibly get things like dangerous criminals being petrified with Flesh to Stone before their trial rather than holding them in jail.

Trade will be huge.  Wizards need their exotic spell components, and a few specific crafts will take off in the city (vellum production, bookbinding, etc.)  With some wizards able to Teleport across the world and bring in either extradimensional spaces, or just Shrunk items, the city itself could be a kind of off-line trade point for silks, spices, and other high-demand low-bulk goods.

I also imagine that there is an extremely large, robust, and magically-sterilized sewage system, and probably strict fines for negligence, dumping, or other things that lead to dire rats, otyoughs, and similar, since it's likely that many of the wizards have dark memories of sewer adventures in their own younger years, and now are focused on ensuring that no one needs anything sharper than a mop when going through the city's sewers.

Since wizards respect intelligence, there is probably a lot of competitive examination for public posts, reminiscent of ancient China, but with less poetry and more "Of course the members of the urban planning committee need to know exactly how large a Magnificent Mansion is! Why wouldn't they need to know that?"

Obviously, there would be a school of magic present.

Well, there's the Alphatian Empire in Mystara. Could use that for a baseline.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 28, 2021, 10:40:30 PM
Well, there's the Alphatian Empire in Mystara. Could use that for a baseline.

Dont forget Gilantri

Quote from: Slambo on April 29, 2021, 09:47:05 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on April 28, 2021, 10:40:30 PM
Well, there's the Alphatian Empire in Mystara. Could use that for a baseline.

Dont forget Gilantri

I think everyone forgets Glantri

Jokes aside, I'm not sure having wizards running a country would be a good thing. Remember that arcane spellcasters have a strong tendency towards, how shall we say, interesting psychological issues? Even the sane ones don't want to have to be bothered with that sort of thing -- it takes away from time spent in research and study.

That being said, a strong inclination towards magic acceptance could alter a country in interesting ways. While you probably wouldn't see spellcasters subbing out for common labor, major infrastructure projects could be sped up with bound and summoned outsiders. Expect arcanists to also act as emergency responders and troubleshooters when something serious crops up; nothing cramps a bandit's style like getting slapped with a sleep spell. Weather manipulation could be used to avoid serious droughts, snowstorms, or other unpleasantness.

At the commoner level, children might be tested for aptitude, with possible candidates sent away for education (the families of such students would receive a hefty 'dowry' to make up for the loss of labor). Minor magical items (cantrip wands, one-shot tokens, potions, etc) could become fairly commonplace, trickling down from the nobility through the mercantile classes even into the hands of common folk.

I think that such a political structure is inherently unstable and won't last any length of time, even if the wizards are lawful and good and long-lived.  Not many get to be a high level wizard by concerning  themselves with such things.

That said, if it is going to last as long as possible, the wizards delegate almost everything.  Occasionally, one or two will get interested in some particular aspect of governance and be more hands on, but even then they'll delegate the day-to-day details.  They would discourage going all the way to the top with any complaint.  The practical aspect is that the more stable it is, the less the wizards govern, and vice versa. 

If we want to find a way to make it work anyway--or perhaps hand wave my objection--then there needs to be some semi-plausible, in setting reason why it works.  Perhaps the wizards get a lot of their power from having the city be governed a certain way, and thus they have a vested reason to spend time on it.  Maybe being the titular governor itself has a source of power.  That is, the city is governed by wizards not because wizards want to govern but because being in the seat of power makes one a wizard (or more of a wizard).  That would also explain why there are so many high level wizards in one spot.

It would make their standoffs a lot more confusing.
As demonstrated in the skit below:

I don't know that having wizards in charge would be any better than having physicists in charge IRL. High intelligence and specialized knowledge doesn't necessarily equate to good governance. In the case of wizards, there's also the question of how the common people view/understand magic. If magic is commonplace and understood by an educated populace, then rule by wizards might be OK. If magic is mysterious and often misunderstood/suspect, then being a wizard would be a serious detriment.