The Standing Council

The Standing Council is the permanent assembly in which the system’s powers answer for acts carrying their names. A moon that signs is bound; a moon that withholds its name is not. Othryn speaks for Tharos, Kharad for Mordane, and Talassar for the Avarran cities because the Council treats a patron’s signature as the external commitment. It issues no general orders and leaves enforcement to the powers that agreed.

Its register gives common acts a form every seated power accepts. The Wardens patrol marked passages under Council authority, Kalemdil permits are disputed before it, the grain reserve answers to its arrangements, and the Threefold uses a Council form for joint Eclipser prosecutions. The Council does not administer those bodies. It records the names, jurisdiction, and obligation under which they act.

Rhovan’s chair has remained empty since the Council was raised. The five Oathlords can bind themselves through a unanimous Circle, but no house may carry the steppe’s name between gatherings. That absence leaves Council instruments without Rhovan: common Eclipser rules stop at the steppe, passage relies on house introductions, the reserve counts no Rhovani herds, and Vandor repeatedly returns to the agenda. Othryn now occupies seats it once left empty; Carthis attends through its Arbiter; Edrane withholds its name from Kalemdil acts; and Talassaran assent is often tested by whether Caelor signs beside it.

The Praetor convenes sessions, keeps the register, decides whether a name was properly given, and orders the business. Velyr has held the office continuously. The Praetor casts no deciding vote, but an item not reached receives no Council act, which has allowed the Vandor question to pass from one agenda to the next despite repeated objections.

The Council ultimately depends on voluntary compliance. It has no force able to compel a great power that repudiates its own signature, and no seated power has yet done so. Velyr treats that absence as proof the form works. Kharad treats it as a test that has not yet arrived.