The Muster

The Muster is Vandor’s temporary gathering of autonomous charter holds. It meets at Ferren Basin because the lake, landing field, and meeting space can support representatives from across the highlands. A gathering addresses one matter requiring a collective answer, usually defense, water, transport, or relations with an offworld power, and dissolves when that matter is settled.

A Caller possesses only the authority to summon the holds. Attendance cannot be compelled, but every hold customarily comes because an absent charter will be discussed without its own representative present. The Caller does not direct debate after the summons, acquire an office between gatherings, or gain authority over a hold that returns home.

The Muster negotiated Vandor’s protection by Rhovan. Rhovani military aid comes when requested and does not administer the valleys. Edrane’s older claim remains formally unresolved but supplies no daily government. Old Edrani markers still stand along the Malketh road as evidence of that claim, while the holds leave them in place as evidence that the claim is not obeyed.

The gathering may do only what the participating holds agree to do together. It levies no standing tax, hears no ordinary dispute, and maintains no force beyond the people the holds bring. Ferren hosts it without gaining authority over another settlement. No sovereign office speaks for Vandor after it disperses.

That narrow design protects the holds from the taxation, conscription, and removal they have suffered under larger powers. The Muster keeps no attendance roll and no inventory of what any hold possesses. Its weakness in ordinary administration is deliberate: Vandor creates enough common authority to answer an urgent danger, then removes the office that someone else might seize.