Empire of Oz

The Empire of Oz was the autocratic government which supplanted the United Countries of Ostké at the end of The Invasion. The leader of this government, for all of the many hundreds of years of its existence, was the decrepit but seemingly immortal Oscar Diggs—the so-called Wizard.

Structure

The supreme authority in the Empire was the Wizard of Oz, a figure who acted as both head of state and the nominal head of government. In reality, the Wizard delegated day-to-day governance to the Four Witches—the Witches of the East, North, West, and South respectively.

The Witches were each responsible for one quadrant of the nation—East for Munchkinland, North for Gillikin Country, West for Winkie Country, and South for Quadling Country—and they delegated authority for the governance of the individual townships as they saw fit. This led to a fair amount of disparity at times between the lives of the Munchkins, Gillikins, Winkies, and Quadlings, but they all hated living under the Empire equally, so many of those who were more fortunate just ended up more angry.

History

The seeds of the Empire’s rise to power were sown with the arrival, in 114, of refugees from the recently collapsed six-hundred and sixty-sixth iteration of reality. The halfling caretakers of Eden, hopeful that this was the promised return of their old friends the Bekiskapan, gave considerable power over to the the newly arrived human beings. And while that decision would cause them far more immediate trouble in neighboring Wonderland, it was a choice that would eventually lead to the downfall of halflings throughout this post-apocalyptic paradise.

Humans such as Oscar Diggs and the False Kings raised doubts over the intentions of the halflings from the very start, but it wasn’t until a Munchkin killed the very last qhirat in existence that Diggs and his allies the Accidental Unicorns found the fuel they needed to push their xenophobic agenda upon the masses.

In 142, anti-halfling hysteria reached its peak. In addition to the aforementioned murder of Roway Freewings, Diggs and the Unicorns were given a second PR gift for their cause: the re-emergence of the Leprechaun minority of halflings. It was that event which gave the xenophobes all the ammunition they needed to push the Council of Five for an invasion of Oz and the overthrow of the supposedly abusive government of the United Countries.

Following the invasion, Diggs setup a provisional government—as he’d promised the Council of Five he would do. But soon enough, with the help of his witches, he had that government name him Wizard for life and dissolve itself for good measure.

For the remainder of the age, outside of the odd hiccup here and there, Diggs’ control over Oz remained secure.