Friday, October 7, 2011

High Powered Lobbyists, with magic

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Inspired by the setting suggested in this post by Will Wildman.]
[The basic idea is a setting where political campaigns are also epic quests and campaign staff doubles as adventuring parties.]

A question that naturally arises from the premise is how campaign contributions and lobbyists fit into all of this?

To a certain extent we can see some of the same things happening, it doesn't matter how good you are on foreign policy or how many monsters you've slain if you can't afford some air time, so there would still be some of the same expenditures. At the same time, it might be really helpful if your shady corporate overlords could loan you Excalibur for a while.

And what is a lobbyist? Is it just an ordinary representative of moneyed interests, or is it something more? Lobbyist are oh so willing to assist with the business of legislating, perhaps they'll do the same when that business includes quests. Perhaps the best lobbyists are level 99 whatevers who are ready to give you some help, outside of the public eye of course, when you need it most.

A lobbyist is being talked down to by a freshman lawmaker and has to explain, ever so menacingly, that he's slain more dragons than anyone currently holding elected office so perhaps it would be best not to underestimate him.

If he gets pissed off he'll deliver politician's opponent a Cthulhu head on a silver platter and let opponent take full credit.

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Or, conversely, maybe manipulating elections is a crime punishable by death and there are not-evil beings who none the less find humans very tasty waiting by who would be quite happy to enforce that rule if you just give them the opportunity.

Or possibly somewhere in between. Though assuming a high level of corruption involving high powered lobbyists would probably make for more interesting stories.

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