The Hosts

The Hosts is Oravel’s chartered assembly of treaty houses, seated in the Charter Precinct at Pheron. The houses began as private institutions that supplied neutral rooms, records, and procedure to rival powers. Competition drove them to underbid one another for the same sessions until they accepted that a moon offering several prices for neutrality could not offer credible neutrality at all.

The presiding Host opens each sitting, sets speaking order, and determines which of two procedures governs the session. The Dawn door enters testimony and judgment into the public record. The Gloam door protects confidential negotiation, private deliberation, and sealed testimony. Parties accept the ruling because a treaty house that mishandled either form would lose the confidence on which future sessions depend.

The assembly governs Oraveli procedure, internal law, treaty courts, and the neutral custody of records and cargo. It can protect a negotiation, preserve agreed terms, and issue judgments under Oraveli law. It cannot compel foreign parties to settle or give an outside warrant force inside Pheron. Ilyra guarantees Oravel against external coercion but may not alter a record, direct a proceeding, or govern the Charter Precinct.

The Hosts also keeps an unwritten rule that Oravel does not petition foreign powers. A request can create a debt, and a debt can cast doubt on later neutrality. Oravel therefore goes without what has not been offered. Ilyran ships patrol the approaches to Nadris without authority over cargo, customs, or the city. No separate instrument records that patrol, and the Hosts has never converted the protection into an obligation by formally requesting or acknowledging it.