The Overseeing Council
○leader, deputy, and heir
○mediator, cultivator, and herbalist(s)
○stud
○scouts
○any other key positions that may exist at the time e.g. mentor(s) or permanent messenger(s)
○any other wolves the leader feels have earnt their position through acts of service to Alsace
➼This is the ruling board of wolves that have the task of the initial decision when a query/dispute arises.
➼The leader is of course highest-ranking overall, and if an agreement cannot be reached, theirs is the final say.
➼The deputy of the pack is the leader's mate; if the leader has none, then the leader elects a pack member, for deputy as long as they don't have a mate.
➼Wolves can be elected to the Council based simply on their high-ranking role, experience in guiding the pack (e.g. founders who first joined Fenris, the first leader of Alsace), or any other great acts of service, bravery, and honour that show great intelligence and wisdom.
➼These wolves will first discuss the nonserious matters in a meeting every quarter-moon where the Council gathers around the leader's cliffledge to discuss.
➼Every half-moon, therefore every other council meeting, the Court will additionally attend to pass judgement.
➼For more serious matters, immediate or daily Council meetings can be called. Depending on how widespread the issue is, the whole Court, or even pack, may be summoned.
➼Once a decision is reached by discussion and consideration of what is best to ensure the welfare of the whole pack (or occassionally by voting-stones, where the leader has 2 votes whilst everyone else in the Council has just 1), the matter is passed on to the Council for re-evaluation.
➼A wolf's Council AND Court membership comes with a Covenant, which is a record of the degrees of different decision-making and how it must be conducted. This is short and passed down by elders to the younger ones in their puphood. For instance, the Covenant allows minor disputes e.g. fallouts between pups, squabbles over prey, to be sorted out by just one member of the Council or Court (usually chosen to be the Mediator) without need for a meeting. The Covenant includes seperate rules for Council and Court members. Wolves must pledge to follow their respective covenants before joining the Council or Court.
➼If a wolf breaks a rule of the Covenant, then they are punished accordingly by the leader in accordance with Covenant Conduct. Each of the rules of the Covenant have a different degree of severity. Punishments range from mild verbal condemnation to exile. The latter has never been used so far. Punishments tend to be slightly harsher on Council wolves.
➼If the Council deems the rule to be broken in good judgement, or the rule was unserious, punishments can be milder, or skipped completely. If a serious rule of the Covenant was broken, resulting in the potential of punishment such as temporary of permanent exile, then the matter is passed to the Court, and publicly done with ALL adults present and involved.