(Originally posted on December 15, 2014.  Found an old 6-part blog series that I’ll do for the next 6 Mondays.  It only covers Legends of Windemere for a bit, but it was still interesting.)

City of Gondor from Lord of the Rings

A (really long) while back I wrote about how the kingdom of Serab works.  Well, John W. Howell asked another question about how the smaller governments work in Windemere, so I’m going to briefly explain the unique ones this week.

Gaia is the biggest city of Windemere when it comes to population, barely edging out Gods’ Voice.  It is on the western coast and is near the mouth of the L’dandrin River, making it a major port city for trade and transportation.  Gaia is also called the Western Sister City and that’s pretty much all you need to know before I delve into the leaders.

While Gaia falls under Serab, which is the major kingdom ruled by Duke Solomon, it has it’s only local system.  These are the Grand Counselors who meet in secret to discuss laws and issues.  Many of the members are publicly known and each one has his or her own specialty area.  For example, Lord Daniel Skyblade is a Grand Counselor who oversees public challenges and handles all mercenary issues.  Each member is an experienced specialist in their field, including master thieves and spies who are the only unknown members.

There is no central figure of the Grand Counselors since they are seen as equals.  At times, one will be chosen as a public face of a situation and may even hold the title of mayor.  It is always temporary, but there have been a few instances where the person wishes to hold the title for longer.  They ended up being removed from their position.

In regards to the retirement and promotion of a Grand Counselor, both are done with very little outside celebration.  There is no item of office to carry because of the risk of such a thing being stolen or copied by thieves.  Instead, a public declaration is made as long as the Grand Counselor was in charge of a field that could be discussed in public.  This makes the organization one of the more low key and open groups in Windemere.