Magic Council

The Magic Council (魔法評議院 Mahō Hyōgiin) is the ruling body of the world of Magic.

Overview
As the main ruling body of the entire Magic world, the Council possesses almost utmost control over it, acting as a leading government of sort. The Council rules all of the legal guilds scattered throughout Earth Land, overseeing them and keeping them in check, and they are responsible for the events caused by Mages, also possessing the right to punish contravener Mages and to confiscate Magical artifacts which could potentially cause large-scale damage (as shown from the Lullaby being in their hands after the Eisenwald incident). Among the things prohibited by the Magic Council is the use of Magic for assassination, something which, if perpetrated, could lead the Council to oust the contravener's guild (as shown with "Shinigami" Erigor and the Eisenwald guild). Heavy incidents happening in the Magic world might inflict serious damage to the Council's reputation, going as far as to cause the dismissal of one or more of its members. The Council has the right to apprehend Mages charged with crimes anytime, with their messengers being highly respected. Gray Fullbuster went on to say that "Even if something is white, once a Council member says it's black, then it becomes black", hinting the Council's authority to be unrivaled within the Magic world. However, despite this, the Council is known for sometimes displaying its power as a mere formality, finding scapegoat Mages and trying them of recent, calamitous happenings just to subsequently release them without any punishment, something which happened with Erza Scarlet.

Being essentially the overseers of guilds, they do not hold the Fairy Tail guild, and especially its most prominent troublemaker Natsu Dragneel, in high regard, due to their tendency to greatly damage property during Jobs, and generally due to the troubles they're known for causing quite often. Some of the Council members, during the course of the series, even went on to try and have the guild disbanded, to no avail, mostly due to the intervention of the Council's 6th Seat, Shitou Yajima, a long-time friend of Fairy Tail's Guild Master, Makarov Dreyar.

Following the events of the Tower of Heaven, during which two members of the Council were revealed to as traitors and the Council's most powerful weapon, the Satellite Square: Etherion, was fired, the Magic Council disbanded, this until a personal request for it to be reformed was issued by the King of Fiore himself. The new Magic Council has a single member of the former Council left in it (namely Org), and is way stricter than the old one, very single-minded and heavy-handed in its goal to remove all of the Dark Guilds, even if that means sacrificing legal guilds in the process. In addition, they seem to have grown more and more intolerant to Fairy Tail, despite the fact that the powerful Dark Guild Oración Seis, a member of the Balam Alliance, was destroyed by it; such intolerance has led the new Chairman Guran Doma to say that, if Fairy Tail were to cause another incident, it will be disbanded.

Main Members
The Magic Council is composed of nine members at a time, or, to be more accurate, nine "seats", going from 2th to 9th. The 1th place is occupied by the Chairman, effectively the leader of the entire Council, who takes the final decisions on every matter.

Military
Being basically the government of the Magic world, the Council has an array of armed forces at its disposal, which it uses to maintain peace and make sure that none breaks the established laws.

Rune Knights
A subdivision within the Council, acting as a personal constable of sort, Rune Knights are the Council's army. Their job is to enforce the Council's ideals of justice and to investigate crimes related to the Magic world. They are known to possess several garrisons scattered throughout Fiore, with their numbers being consistent, and have battleships at their disposal for sea transportation. They are divided into squads, with some of them performing particular duties, and most of them being led by a raked officer. After the Council's reorganization, following the events of the Tower of Heaven, they have become increasingly strict.

The soldiers are clad in a garish uniform, highly reminiscent of those worn by real priests: they don a long, high-collared, sleeveless dark robe over a light shirt with wide sleeves ending below the elbows, where they are circled by thin bands; the robe is covered on the front by a light cloth, bearing the dark, ankh-like symbol of the Council, held still by a light belt circling the waist. Around the soldiers' neck is a long, light cape bearing the Council's insigna on the back, held closed below the neck by a rhomboidal clasp adorned by a gem, and on their head sits a light headgear, with a decorated lower part, reminiscent of a mitre, but with three tops, a central one and two more at its sides. They also wear simple boots with the front parts covered in vertical stripes. Each Rune Knight comes equipped with a long metal staff, ending in a sphere, seemingly a globe made of crystal, topped by a small cross. The anime gave slightly different portrayals of the Council's soldiers, replacing their robe's lower part with very loose pants, mildly reminiscent of hakama, and their boots with sandals, adding to their religious appearance.

High-ranking Rune Knight officers such as division commanders are shown to wear a more formal, less garish attire, which loses most of the religious look distinguishing soldiers: they don an elegant dark jacket, with light edges and two buttoned bands on each cuff, over a lighter shirt with the Council's dark symbol on it, loose, light suit pants held up by a massive belt, liht gloves and distinctive, light shoes, bearing a snakeskin-like pattern. The only similarity between soldiers' outfit and the one exclusive to division commanders appears to be the cape, which in the latters' case, however, also covers the shoulders, and sports a larger clasp closing it. Rune Knight officers aren't shown wielding any weapon.

Rune Knights' fighting prowess is mostly unknown; it is known, however, that large squadrons of them are capable of using Magic similar to Jutsu Shiki, generating glyph barriers which can prevent those caught inside them to leave until the spell is nullified. Such technique can be performed with enough discrection to remain unnoticed while it is being casted, with the targets finding out about it only after it has become effective. Aside from that, Rune Knights shown so far seemed to mainly employ melee combat, assaulting enemies in large groups and generating Magical auras on the ending part of their staffs; something whose effect or aim is unknown. However, even considerable amounts of them could be knocked out by way smaller groups of proficient melee fighters, implying their skills to be just average.

Etherion
The Magic Council is in possession of the "Satellite Square: Etherion" (衛星魔法陣・エーテリオン Eisei Mahōjin : Ēterion), an extremely powerful Magic taking the form of a satellite structure composed of glyphs, which is held in the Council's headquarters of Era, and can be used to target any point of Earth Land from the sky. Known as "the Magic of destruction that trascends space-time", and referred to by Lahar as "the sealed ray of light", Etherion is the Council's most powerful and ultimate weapon, capable of targeting anything on the surface with a devastating beam on huge scale, which has been described as damaging enough to make an entire country disappear. The destructive blast produced by Etherion is known for possessing an astonishing amount of Magic Power, at least 2.7 Billion Edeas. In order for the Magic to be removed from Era and placed in the atmosphere to strike the targets, a certain amount of time is needed, in which Etherion is charged up and positioned above the target.

As damaging as it is, Etherion can't be employed light-heartedly, due to it being likely to cause casualties while fired against its targets, catching others in its radius: in the Chairman' absence, for the firing of Etherion to be permitted, a majority of votes within the Council itself is required. If the voting were to end in a draw, then Etherion wouldn't be fired. Measures seem to have been taken to prevent civil casualties from damaging the Council's reputation itself, these residing in the Article 27, Clause 4 of the National Security Act; however, the death of innocent people would still weigh the concerned councilors' conscience. If Etherion is to be fired, all of the Council members are known to religiously pronounce the words "Thus we pray" before the firing, collecting their thouhts in prayer and hoping that the ultimate weapon doesn't wreak havoc on innocent lives.

Etherion, despite being extremely damaging and almost impossible to stop, could potentially be absorbed by a large enough Lacrima crystal, which would in the process gain all of the blast's Magic Power.

Trivia

 * The musical theme of the Council in the anime is an instrumental version of the famous Aria "La Habanera" from George Bizet's Opera "Carmen".
 * In the anime the meeting room is a giant Magic circle that the council members stand around, but in the manga it's a circular table with chairs.