Westcrown City Council is an advisory council originally set up to ensure that the Mayor of the City (who has full control of the day to day running of the city) was exercising his authority in a way compatible with the vision of the City's founding families. It consisted of
representatives of all the leading noble families and the heads of
the Order of the Golden Chalice and the
Church of Pelor. Originally the number of families represented on the Council was 24
but as various of these noble lines have died out or moved their base of operations to the other cities of the
Gherant Coast the number has dwindled to 12. No new families have been admitted to the Council for over 600 years.
The current Mayor (self-styled as 'Lord Mayor') of Westcrown is Arberian Arvanxi, scion of one of the noble houses, who has held the
post for 17 years now. His predecessor, Arthan Challas, resigned after an unsuccessful struggle against the
Shadows of Westcrown and was assassinated within a year, some say on the orders of the new Mayor. The Lord Mayor enjoys broad support across the Council, less so amongst the general population who are becoming restless. Although the Mayor controls the
Dottari he does not control the Golden Chalice to whom the Council tends to turn to crush dissent.
The constitutional position is that only a 75% vote in favour of doing so can remove the Mayor from office. Actually of more relevance in terms of his ongoing support is
the dirt on the leading families that a Mayor can pick up whilst in office. The most explosive of the secrets the Mayor might be privy
to are which of the noble families actually have members on the shadowy
Council of Thieves.