Courts (wall of text) part 1 of 5

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The Courts.
The four changeling courts give protection and power to changelings. The true Fey understand the world in a very specific way. In the primal chaos, things are either always the same and immune to the change of their environment or once they change they are changed. A dog may turn into a lamppost and that lamppost into a lemur but it will likely never turn into a dog again, there are so many other shapes it could be. The idea of Cyclical change is as bizarre and alien to the Fey as time travel paradox is to humans, Some of they Fey may talk about it but they don't get it and definitely wouldn't know how to go about making one. The courts may not like each other and may fight over succession or the order of passage of power but all of them know deeply that whatever power they have they must regularly pass to their rivals in the other courts lest they all fall. The Wheel of the seasons may turn forward or backward or out of order but it must turn.
Each court has a virtue associated with it. Winter is Temperance, Summer exemplifies Valor, Spring drinks deeply of Compassion and Fall draws their strength from their Conviction. In order learn the Fleeting contracts of a court you must be a member of a court of have a court's favor of 4 or higher. Every rank can bestow a number of points of favor equal to their rank. To become a member of a court one must have 5 points of favor from that court. To rise in rank in a court one is either promoted by someone of Rank 4 or higher or earns their place by making pacts with the spirits of the seasons themselves. This is a difficult and dangerous process.
Ephemeral court members have no rank in the court, not even a rank of 0, they can be ephemeral members of several courts and their ephemeral contracts will continue to function for as long as they have a single point of court favor in the appropriate court. Ephemeral powers return when favor returns.
Eternal court members have access to all ephemeral contracts and access to eternal contracts equal to their level of rank. To be ennobled of a rank the character must have that court's governing virtue equal to the rank they are gaining. not all of those with virtues at such levels gain rank, and once a character gains a rank their virtues might fall due to trauma they will not lose rank for this drop in virtue although they are encouraged to maintain a virtue equal to their rank.
In Delaware in specific, the Court of Diamond has decreed that those that Host a Freehold are a rank higher while they host. Meaning whomever leads a Corroborative has their rank increased by one until the next Corroborre. This increase of rank can only take place if the changeling to be increased has an appropriate virtue at the appropriate level.
All courts must obey the right of rescue, No matter what court another belongs to, they are bound by oath to rescue a member of a court from kidnapping from anything be if Fey, mortal Police, or whatever else may kidnap a changeling >cough< Lasombra >cough<. There are seven other laws, unique to each court that all members must swear to. Their oaths are not binding with glamour but they may as they see fit take each court's code as a Code of Honour as per the Vampire Codes of Honor with the virtue protection and willpower that comes with said codes.
Each rank has its own titles for each court as follows:
summer winter spring fall
0 - citizen, apprentice, lantern, Acolyte
1 - knight, journeyman, Midwife, deacon
2 - baron, Master, Nurse, brother
3 - count, Doctor, Doctor, father
4 - Duke, Enlightened, Cadecus, Grandfather
5 - Prince, Sophont, Angel, Patriarch

As a note - if one takes these as codes of honor, their eight rules are the rule of rescue and these other seven codes. With a code of honor, the changeling gets 2 willpower per night to spend in the defense of their code. violating their code provokes a challenge vs the virtue of their court or else lose a point of clarity.