Council of Seven

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The Council of Seven, or the Seven, was the ruling body of Ereba and the Ereban Empire. Initially formed of representatives of the seven most powerful families in Ereba, the Council over time became more secretive, its members known only to each other. At the formation of the Ereban Empire, Ciro Elbandi became the first Grand Councilor of the Seven, a position which persisted until the final Council at the breakup of the Empire.

Powers

The Seven were the ultimate executive, legislative, and military authority of Ereba. Generally, the Council deliberated only on matters of general policy, with various members holding portfolios of responsibilities that often overlapped and shifted. Most divisions of power put control of the treasury, army, navy, courts, and foreign relations of Ereba into different hands in order to force the Councilors to cooperate. In the late pre-imperial period, the head of the Night Watchers, or their representative, was a Council member, as part of the symbiotic relationship between the two bodies.

Matters of law and order were generally seen to by bodies under Council authority but not directly headed by Councilors. The courts, in particular, were semi-independent, with high-ranking magistrates appointed by the Council and generally left to rule on cases without the Council intervening. Legislation was usually created by the executive body responsible for that area of Ereban policy - the treasury would create the tax codes, for example - with the Council reviewing the laws but generally approving them.

The areas the Seven focused their control on tightest were the distribution of trading rights and use of military force. Determining which merchant houses were permitted to trade where was a means of controlling the balance of power within Ereba, and a matter of constant bargaining and infighting for the Council, most of whom were members of some of those houses. Wars simply had to be commanded from the top, as the pre-imperial Ereban army and navy were generally composed of levies from the various trading houses, some of which considered themselves second to no authority but that of the Council.

The Imperial Council

Once Ciro Elbandi declared himself Grand Councilor, the Council began to take a much more involved role in running Ereba. Ciro divided the duties of the Council up among his Councilors clearly, cutting off the constant vying for bits of power, and began to push the Council to become a more proactive, rather than reactive, body. The government of Ereba grew rapidly during the first fifty years of the Empire as the demands of Ciro's reforms stripped autonomy from the merchant houses, requiring a larger and larger bureaucratic apparatus to run the empire.

Over the first century of the empire, with the Council operating more openly, the identities of the Councilors began to become known. At first, it was simply a matter of some Councilors not being able to mask their activities well enough, then identities became open secrets, and finally all pretense was dropped. Bold text

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