The Broken Hourglass Weekly Update

Planewalker Games’ official website has received its usual weekly update for The Broken Hourglass, this time spotlighting Tolmira’s Imperial government.

Tolmira is governed by a law- and policy-making body known as the Senate, a 200-seat assembly of some of the most powerful and influential individuals within the Empire’s reach. The Senate convenes in the Imperial capital of Azmadisha and traces its roots to the earliest governing bodies of its days as a city-state. In the official histories, the rule of the Senate has been continuous and unbroken for 600 years, since the year 148 when Primarch Urgardt re-took Azmadisha from northern barbarians who had captured the city a year earlier. At the time, Azmadisha was but the head of the much smaller Kingdom of Azmadir, consisting of the city-state’s home strait and captured territory from the then-independent nations of Narimir and Aemir.

The Senate itself votes to fill its vacancies. Senate positions are ostensibly perpetual, but resignation and forced removal often “become necessary” through pressure from a majority (or extremely powerful minority) of other senators. As a result, only a minority of senators will actually serve out a lifetime appointment.