Authority
Legitimate power to act within a Domain, derived from Sovereignty, granted through Mandate, and bound by Logos.
Authority does not begin at the top of a pyramid. It begins at Source and flows directly to each person; individuals then voluntarily associate, and the groups they form hold authority of their own, composed of what their members brought and bounded by what they agreed. Nothing above a person hands them their standing; what a higher body can do is receive a charge and answer for it.
This inversion is the load-bearing part. Where authority is understood to descend, obedience becomes the civic virtue and Consent becomes a formality. Where it is understood to ascend, consent is the only source of binding force, and every office is on loan. The corollary the canon states plainly: all authority is revocable; no role carries immunity from those it serves. An authority that cannot be recalled is not authority but possession.
A player meets it as a question with a boundary: what am I actually authorized to decide, and who is affected? Inside a Domain a person or group may act; outside it they may propose, ask, or offer. Authority is made visible rather than assumed — written into the Field of Agreements, charted across sub-domains, exercised in the open, and returned when the Season or the trust ends. Right Use of Power names the discipline of wielding it; Impeachment and Recourse name what happens when it is abused.
Authority and capability are not the same thing, and the canon is careful about it: a higher level offers direction, and at times decisions, only where its abstraction and capability genuinely serve the whole.
Also called: legitimate power Stands on: Sovereignty · Source · Logos · Consent · Legitimacy Opens onto: Mandate · Jurisdiction · Domain · Delegation · Accountability · Right Use of Power · Impeachment · Separation Of Power In play: table — the moment a Cell asks whether a decision is theirs to make Sources: Authority (root page, unmarked) · The LIØNSBERG Lexicon, Pillar II table (states: Work In Progress) · The LIØNSBERG Pattern Language — Synthesized 2026-05-24, the Constitutional Recognitions (Necessity Of Accountability) · THE DNA OF HEAVEN Part IV (states: Fable synthesis, unreviewed) · lionsberg.wiki: Authority Open: none found.