The Concilium of San Fransisco
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Nature: Awakened organization; city-state
Full Name: The Concilium of the Arisen Phoenix

The society of pentacle mages that live in and govern San Fransisco and several surrounding areas. As a political entity it can trace its existence back as far as the gold rush, and has survived several calamities that have easily wiped out comparative concilia. Though its constituents are the various mages of the region, both pentacle members and independents, the most important 'unit' the society is composed of is the cabal.

The Ruling Council

The authority in charge of making sure this this small yet incredibly powerful collection of people gets along without too much friction is the Ruling Council, a cross-cabal group of elected1 officials and those appointed by them to be their civic staff. Local custom demands that there be five Councillors, among which the leader is termed the Hierarch, each of which has the right to appoint one Provost, a personal assistant in charge of carrying out whatever decrees or decisions the Ruling Council makes. Below is a list of these officials as they are now, with the top listing being the current Hierarch

Councillor - Provost
Lady Amalthea - Nathuram
Sophia - Baphomet
Ahura Mazda - Inanna
Low-Key - Jane Doe
Wakinyan - Belenus?

?Wakinyan achieved her position upon the death of the previous councillor, Rakshasi, but though she did not immediately dismiss Belenus from his role as provost it is assumed she will do so once affairs have calmed down and she has enough time to make an informed choice on the matter.

Functionaries

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Below these we find the various appointed officials, those the Council has empowered to act with within given circumstances. These are currently:

Sentinels Heralds
G.I. Joe Ouroboros
Redcap Panopticon

The Heralds are the messengers of the Concilium, bringing whatever news, proclamations, petitions or personal missives there might be between the state and the populace. They are also responsible for keeping their superiors informed of relations, events and developments in the awakened society, as well as keeping the census and historical records of Concilium activity. In addition the Heralds are also technically the ones in charge of mediating minor disputes between mages so as to prevent conflict as well as perform initial investigations to determine whether a given situation has been a crime or not.

In practice the Sentinels often tend to do this themselves for the more extreme or serious charges, not bothering to wait until a Herald has arrived and declared whether or not (for instance) there has been a murder. Sentinels are the enforcers of the ruling council, those whose job is to make sure that official decrees are followed and who deal out punishment to those who break the law. Additionally they also end up investigating criminal cases in order to determine if such action is required of them. In most cases they do not need their superiors to approve of their conclusions before acting on them, as long as local precedent is clear enough on the legality involved and no valid petition for a trial is filed.

Relatively recently the Concilium also established the post of Interfector, an extremely unpopular position acting as interrogator, torturer, executioner and assassin with a frightening level of leeway and immunity to legal restrictions. The ruling council are under no legal obligation to disclose their reasons behind any act performed by the Interfector, which requires nothing more to ratify than the approval of the Hierarch and a majority of the Councilors (3 of 5 in this case). All this, combined with the fact that the identity of the person holding this position is of utmost secrecy beyond the requirement that they be of the Guardians of the Veil, makes for a political situation filled with uncertainty and fear. So far there has been no actual use of the Interfector powers, as far as anyone knows, but the threat of it is still an unspoken threat.

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See also:

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