The Mayor (governance system)
Part of The design hub. Drafted 2026-08-30. Expands the original one-liner ("a mayor reports to the player, grants bonuses") into the city-side mirror of Class Roster & Skill Schools: the mayor is the city's class.
Core symmetry
- The player chooses a class at the Chapel → personal lens.
- The city gets its identity from its mayor at the Town Hall → civic lens. Swapping mayors is the city's respec.
- Mayors are found like every other NPC — rescued, recruited via the Inn's visitor pipeline, or lured from rival cities — and have quality tiers like all NPCs: Clerk → Magistrate → Statesman (the Apprentice/Journeyman/Master ladder, renamed).
Governance styles (the mayor's "class")
Each mayor candidate has ONE style — a city-wide passive package whose magnitude scales with their quality tier. One style per pillar, mirroring how each player class touches a different loop:
| Style | Civic passive |
|---|---|
| Steward | Production throughput up; NPC food/money upkeep down |
| Marshal | Walls & emplacements stronger; longer raid warning |
| Merchant | Better buy/sell prices; more trader visits; brewery & shop income up |
| Builder | Construction & repairs cheaper and faster (tiers, modules, projects) |
| Loremaster | Rumor board richer; recipe/tome find chance up; cheaper respec fees |
| Shepherd | NPC morale up; recruits arrive at higher quality; kidnapped NPCs resist longer |
A Statesman Steward and a Clerk Marshal are both real choices — style vs quality is the same tension as "right recipe, wrong forge tier."
Edicts (the mayor's "skill loadout")
The mayor also enables edicts — togglable city policies, every one a trade-off, never a free bonus. Edict slots = Town Hall tier − 1 (t2 = 1 slot … t5 = 4 slots — the city's own 4-skill loadout).
Starter set:
- Rationing — food upkeep down / morale slightly down
- Curfew — raid defense up / production down
- Open Gates — visitor rate up / spy & theft risk up
- Levy — money income up / morale down
- Public Works — project speed up / money upkeep up
- Drills — NPCs resist kidnap better / production slightly down
Some edicts are learned like recipes — charters found in rival-city vaults, taught by high-quality mayors on arrival.
Reports (the "reports to the player" line, made diegetic)
The mayor IS the city UI. On return to town (or at the Town Hall desk): a plain-language ledger — production since you left, upkeep paid, raid warnings, visitor arrivals/departures, project completions, morale mood-line. No mayor = no ledger (pre-Town-Hall you eyeball stockpiles).
Era certification
The mayor formally charters each era transition: once the chokepoint project is complete and the Town Hall meets tier, the mayor issues the charter (a small ceremony + fee) that unlocks era-tier upgrades citywide. Gives era transitions a diegetic moment and a character to deliver it.
Rules
- One mayor at a time. Swapping = appointment ceremony (money cost + brief "transition" debuff day). The outgoing mayor remains in the city as a regular high-quality NPC — never wasted.
- The mayor occupies the Town Hall (no other building); Town Hall tier gates edict slots and caps how much of a high-quality mayor's passive applies (Statesman in a t1 hall performs as a Magistrate — same building-tier × NPC-quality law as every profession).
Open questions
- Can two styles combine late-game (deputy/council at Town Hall t5)?
- Do rival cities have mayors whose style telegraphs their behavior (Marshal city = hard walls; Merchant city = rich vault)? Cheap flavor + strategy — probably yes.
Morale as a formal stat— designed: Morale (city mood system) (anchor + shocks, five bands, modifier-never-gate, no death spirals).- Elections/mayor loyalty — parked; scope risk.