With the destabilization of the Septarchy, the loosening grasp of the Universal Church of Gilded Dagon, and the rise of fringe movements such as the Naturalists, just about everyone agreed that the old political order was disintegrating. The question was what, if anything, might replace it. The Al'Shaine Stratocracy was one early experiment, fruitful if short-lived; another attempt, the Council of Advisors, was comparatively deficient in both fruitfulness and brevity. Originally founded by High Beneficent Toth and a number of secular bureaucrats in the aftermath of the Stratocracy, the Council was conceived as a way to further cement the relationship between the Dagon Church and the Septarchy, reinforcing the traditional order not through direct military or legislative force (which had so recently proved unreliable) but by a propaganda effort unprecedented in scale. Massive "advisory bills" were suspended in mid-air, "advising" the populace on matters ranging from politics to hygiene. Typical slogans included "The Council reminds you that traffic accidents can happen anywhere, even in the home" and "Returning to nature is all well and good, but what about your teeth?"

Almost immediately, the Council faced a grave problem: no one was taking it remotely seriously. This was easily remedied by making failure to heed its advice punishable by death. This, though, led to a second dilemma: having deliberately dissociated itself from any sort of established authority, the Council lacked the ability to carry out its sentences. Reasoning pragmatically, the Advisors realized that if their original premise were valid, they needn't actually execute anyone, but simply advise the populace that they might. This they did within a year, and the crisis was averted.

Troubles only got worse, though, when a number of subjects, fed up with advisory bills "blotting out the wholesome Light of the Sun and plungeing our goode Farmlands into endless Night" (in the words of a pamphlet in wide circulation at the time), formed a militia to storm the advisory bills and tear them down. This is not terribly interesting or important in itself, but what is curious is that the anti-advisory militia, in order to reach the aerial signs and demolish them, developed a siege tactic known as Jump-and-Glide which was adapted much later for the third and final attempt to breach the Onyx Fortress. But in the present instance, the Council of Advisors, ever practical, struck a compromise with the militia by agreeing to a maximum height of thirty feet, thus dodging yet another disaster.

Alas, the most serious problem of all came five years later when Toth, reporting that he was "bored with the whole project", resigned his post on the Council and commenced campaigning against it. Toth's defection deprived the Council of Advisors of what little clout it had once had, although it survived another few decades as a sinecure for well-connected bureaucrats.

—Iohannes Edgardus Quobertius