Revision as of 20:41, 21 July 2020

Town Mayor
Disposition			Neutral
Can be found in the UA?
This occupation is open to:
		Varies
		Varies
		Varies

The Town Mayor (or simply mayor) is the person in charge of managing an entire town. The intersection equivalent is known as an Intersection Overseer (or simply an overseer).

The role of mayor is one of the most powerful and highly respected occupations in the Mazes. It comes with significant powers and responsibilities.

Equipment

Mayors do not have standard equipment. They may wear and carry any combination of gear as they see fit. See Citizen.

Other information

Skills:

• This occupation does not grant additional skills.
• Mayors may come from all kinds of backgrounds and may have all kinds of skills and knowledge. These can be set at the GM's discretion.

Occupation traits:

• Restricted occupation: The amount of characters that can hold this occupation is restricted to max 1 per town or intersection.

Overview

This article or section contains lore-related information. Though not strictly necessary for playing the game, you are encouraged to read this section if you wish to have a better understanding of the game's universe.

The Town Mayor is the highest-ranking official of a community. In intersections, they are instead referred to as Intersection Overseers. In short, the mayor is the person in charge of a community, possessing many important powers and responsibilities.

The first and most important power of the mayor is the ability to dictate a community's local laws, effectively making them the most powerful person of the town. The local law enforcement body, the Town Security (or Intersection Security), is under the mayor's direct orders; effectively making the Town Security Chief the second most powerful person of a town.

The other duties of a mayor are separated into four broad categories; mediation, population management, treasury, and record-keeping.

As a mediator, the mayor has the power to act as an official third party (who may or may not be impartial), generally for conflict resolution between residents, overseeing deals and contracts, resolution of grievances, and all manners of agreements and disagreements.

As a population manager, the mayor can essentially decide who is allowed to become a permanent resident of their community (migration rules), as well as assign addresses to residents, and emplacements to shop owners and facility managers. They also have the discretionary power to evict anyone for any reason.

As a treasurer, the mayor can manage the town's financial reserves, manage the local bank, as well as set and collect taxes. Common types of taxes imposed include the residential tax (sum of money paid by residents, usually monthly, in exchange for the right to live at a particular address in the residential area), the commercial tax (sum of money paid by owners of businesses and facilities, usually monthly, in exchange for the right to use a particular emplacement as their place of business), the bank's transaction fees, and rarely, the toll of entry (sum of money paid by non-residents to be allowed to enter and visit the town).

As a record-keeper, the mayor has full discretionary powers on keeping records, archives, and other pieces of information about the town, contributing to the recording of its history.

Mayors can also appoint certain citizens as mayoral delegates, delegating the mediation, population management, treasury, and record-keeping duties to other people under the mayor's command and reducing their workload. It is also possible for a mayor to appoint a general-purpose delegate called a Deputy Mayor (or Deputy Overseer). Deputies are under the mayor's direct command but with essentially the same powers and responsibilities as a mayor. This role is intended to allow the (real) mayor to keep someone running their town while they are away or busy elsewhere.

Other special duties of a mayor include the ability to pledge allegiance to another faction, renouncing some or all of their independence in exchange for the protection and influence of a given faction. Such towns are referred to as faction-controlled or under a faction's influence. A lesser form, specific to the Maze Police, is the option for a mayor to sign a contract with them and subject their community to Standard Law. In exchange for the responsibility of upholding the Police's set of laws and rules, towns under Standard Law have the right to call the Police for backup against criminals and raiders, as well as let the Police process and take prisoners into their correctional facilities, freeing space in the town's local jail and thus reducing the strain on the town's resources.