First, I appreciate MJ's excellent analysis of 'Evil Triumphant'. I plan to use most of those suggestions, and probably move on to some sort of Random Tables with perhaps a Countdown to Disaster for Local Area and World as well (with each bad event adding one or two points to the Disaster Clock.)
But I'm not here for that.
This world is Oddtech (at least its based around one technology), Contingency (and how!), and its a Flipper (I've made an attempt to tell stories from the other POV rather than the current PC POV. And this takes a story type and flips it around and mangles it a bit.)
In the Piercront League, named for the great Martin Piercront (wonder of the age), there exists a dozen small states taught to love union and the peace it brought from aggressive neighbours. With their hard work, faith in God, and the natural land barriers of low hills supplemented by internal rail networks to move troops from any of the states to a threatened border, they finally found security intead of being the 'baubles of the Queens of Tilune'.
Tilune is the large continent the long-suffering peoples of the League had lived in, and most of its rulers were hereditary noblewomen. So they were not enthused in the slightest when a male republican set up shop, and denied them their favorite method of counting coup on each other which was to grab one of the Bauble States from another queen.
Those who think that feminine rulers are more peaceful have never been to Tilune where the Queens elevated hair-pulling to the pulling down of city walls, and scathing retorts to the burning of cities and for remarkably trivial reasons, at least from the perspective of those who were peasants.
However time and change come to all, and with the rise of the Piercront League and the end of the Founding Wars (and Martin was not only a brilliant constitutionalist, but a masterful general.), and the Long Peace was brought to Tilune. Prosperity threatened old social arrangements, and so the Queens grew more parliamentary, and even a King or two was named among their number.
And yes, the doctrine arose that if men were in charge the world would be a peaceful place.
But the stresses of the social changes built up, and they either sparked change (and caused stress), or did not spark change (and caused more stress.) Some suspect that the human race needs a good bloodletting now and then to relieve their injured feelings.
The Queens rule grew more fragile with Taric, and Yomsli, and Dobar being the reactionary aristocratic states, and Lawnei and Wuf, and Arond being various forms of progressive (and not in the modern Earth form of progressive which is not.) with Dimo wobbling back and forth, and Sulnak trying to be in the middle of every curve and annoying everyone on all sides, but not that much. These are the states nearest the Piercront League, that either surround it, or have ready access to it by crossing a neighbour's thin part of her country or by jumping in a boat and crossing the Marink Sea which is where the primary seaports of the League sit.
But even as others change to mimic the League, the League changes to mimic them. A secret cabal, a rebirth of aristocracy but without the name, has begun to run things in the League. Men of power and discretion are invited to join, and given a few facts after the extraction of a blood oath which is a very serious thing.
There is a technique available for a woman to dream and for her to enter the future and see the results of a decision made. With this cabal in control, the Master of the Secret can make a decision, and then summon a dreamer. If his decision is wise, the dreamer will return with good news, and he will follow through on it. If the decision is unwise or unlucky, then he will change his decision.
This process lasts for nearly fifty years, and although an aristocracy is being recreated in the League, in truth, they are a smart, and honorable sort with a broadminded interest in the whole, and only favor themselves to some small degree so its not that bad although some of the more sensitive sort realize they are less than citizens in their own land.
But the great decision is upon them. War threatens at every hand, and the children of the last generation have risen to power unusually young. Its whispered in some courts that they rose by climbing over their elders' backs by using daggers as pitons in the back of those elders.
And they would have peace. They believe in kindness and sweet reason, especially the new Master. And so he summons dreamer, and dreamer and keeps getting the same message with variations back.
...the capitol of the League burnt with fire...
..Plague sweeping the last of the able-bodied men the Great War did not kill...
...Murderous oppression with one in ten of his people decimated...
Each decision he checks comes back with a new answer, but always a terrible one.
So one day his clerk lies and tells the dreamer that the Master no longer longs for peace but is preparing for war to the knife against all foes. The dreamer comes back and tells the Master that the future is grim and dark, but his people survive. Trenches line every hill and fortresses rise from every defensible point, but the people are free, healthy, and after the Queens have battered their forces to dust on the League's defenses it seems they may be ready to sue for peace.
Enraged, he kills the clerk on the spot.
"I want peace,a nd you tell me only warmongering lies!" He screams, and she sees madness, so she runs for her life.
And when she runs, she finds safety for a night and dreams to go left or right, and gradually her dreams lead her to the one man who might be able to save her, and her people.
Dreamed out, near shattered by the exertion, she arrives on the spot where the verser will arrive. She greets him and inducts him into her conspiracy to overthrow the Secret Cabal and save the League.
If he refuses, then quickly go to the War and the Aftermath which will be slaughtering armies and burning cities and plague and starvation.
If he accepts then the verser is recruited into a much used tale. The tale is of a secret cabal dominated by a madman not willing to listen to reason. Usually this tale is of a warmongering lunatic, but here its a peacemongering lunatic who's willing to assasinate for peace, and probably will end up trying to create coup of the Smart Set to overthrow the republic.
The tech level is eighteenth century with wooden ships and iron men, cannons and earthen work city walls replacing curtain walls, with plague, cholera, and typhoid being as deadly or more so than grapeshot and city fires.
In this respect, its different than what I had in mind at first which was a modern world like the US with a peacemongering cabal, but Tudor houses, sword duels in the misty morn, bayonet armed musketry, cavalry....
Secret societies fit well in that.
But you could easily use one of the Ten Faces of America worlds and make it about nuclear war and the contingency then becomes post-apocalyptic instead of poorly disciplined armies ravaging the land.