Morgan lied alone in the middle of the town square, the maskless samoyed's paws dangling over the edges of the central statue. In a few short days, life as he knew it had changed. Somehow, he was the leader of Tanglewood now - never before had the possibility crossed his mind. At first he withheld the news from many of his fellow Tanglers, not wanting to shock them. He finally felt ready to start doing his job, and so he invited everyone he could to gather for a meeting in the usual spot.

Once some scattered Tanglers were situated around him, he began to mutter a few words with his eyes firmly angled toward the floor. "I... I'm not really sure what to say." Noting how lost he felt, he took breaths in a way that would normally allow him to control his water; however, he focused instead on putting his words together. He had all kinds of plans to talk about, but was not used to having to do so in front of a group.

After a few moments of steady breathing, the cream dog picked his head up and looked out into the crowd. "Hi, Tanglers. If you've not heard already... I, Morgan, am now the leader of Tanglewood." He took a pause to let his words sink in, then continued, "First, I want to thank you all for being here. I promise you that I'll do my best to make Tanglewood the best place it can be, but I'll also need your help to make it happen." He stood up next, his head held higher. "With my leadership, there are going to be some changes. They might be shocking, or they might be unusual-sounding, but trust me - they're for the good of Tanglewood."

"... But before that, I'd like to welcome all of you newcomers. Anima, Artemis & Apollo, Cavalrychoir, Cherrywine, Clark, Dempsey & Rey, Eggnog, Esmeray, Kiira, Leonidas, Leroy, Neytiri, and Ophelia - I'm happy to be here as your leader. Please see me or another higher-ranked Tangler if you need anything." He gulped and went through all the names in his head, making sure he didn't miss any. "There were also two more who joined us - Jerseyboy and Morrigan - but I've not seen them anywhere recently." Even if they were not around, he still needed to give them the respect of a greeting.

"Next, for the first set of changes." The samoyed could only hope that it wouldn't get too confusing for veteran Tanglers. "I'm merging the 'Child', 'Rookie', and 'Rogue' ranks together into a single standard one called 'Tangler'. I'm also getting rid of the 'Nurse' rank, leaving 'Chaser' as the only stepping-stone rank. Also, I've changed 'Sawbone' to 'Sawbones', but that's relatively small compared to the rest of the changes." He repeated himself just in case someone had missed what he said, then nodded. "That's not all. I've now officially named the medical section of our group the 'Tanglewood Medical Team'. You can call them 'The Medics' for short, but it'll mean both the regular 'Medics' and our one 'Sawbones', although we don't have one of those yet." He took a pause; there was still more to come, so he had to make sure that everyone was on the same page thus far.

"Our warrior ranks have been changed as well. Their official name is now the 'Tanglewood Guard' or 'The Guard' for short. What was once called the 'Firebrand' is now called the 'Guardsman', and what was once the 'Proxy' is now called the 'Captain of the Guard', shortened to 'Captain'. On top of this, the 'Regent' rank is no longer being used at all." Morgan took a quick breath and pulled a small sphere of water from one of his bracers, bringing it to his mouth and sipping from it. His throat was already beginning to feel worn from all the speaking, but he knew he had to power through it.

"Finally, the 'Deputy' rank is being renamed to the 'Proxy', and my own rank - the 'Commander' - is now called the 'General'." He looked around the crowd in an attempt to find everyone who was in a high position. He hoped that everything made sense to them at the very least; he closed his eyes to think through the next bit of his speech, then nodded and spoke. "Because of all these changes, there won't be a lot of promotions or demotions today. Fenrisulfr has stepped down, and Iota left for now to explore the world, so they won't have their ranks anymore. Since Regents no longer exist, my Vigenere is our new Captain of the Guard. Zimavich, who I was originally going to warn, is now a Guardsman; without very many Tanglers around, we can only afford to have one Captain and one Sawbones at a time. Note that this may change later." If Zimavich was in the crowd, Morgan gave a slightly saddened nod. "Anyway, newcomers Leroy and Anima are now Chasers, and with the old 'Nurse' rank gone, Abathur is now a Medic. Congratulations to all who were promoted."

With everything else out of the way, Morgan readied himself to explain what he thought would be the most important part of the meeting. "Now, everyone... for the good of Tanglewood, I've arranged for our group to expand." He kicked some pebbles off of the statue, then continued, "As you can see, this town used to be one full of life. This was long before any of us lived here, but... I love Tanglewood and want to see it become even better than this town ever was back then. I think the best way for that to happen is for we Tanglers to take back the land and make it ours." This time, he didn't pause; he had a feeling that not everyone would agree with him, but he couldn't afford to let himself stop. "I've read in books about societies where people use things - things called 'tools' and 'machines' - to make their lives easier. To make their lives better. I think we can do the exact same thing; all we need to do is find the resources to make it so."

The canine took a breath, looked around the whole crowd, and announced, "The first part of this plan will be to improve our food. An easy way to do that will be to go to the shore and clean it up so we can fish more easily. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but there are some old docks there too; if we fixed those up and made ourselves some tools for catching fish, we could start living on more than just gator meat and what little fruit Iota has been growing. And from there, we can start to rebuild Tanglewood and make it the great place it was always meant to be." He could feel his throat get a little bit scratchy, but he pushed himself to finish. "After this meeting I'll go find some containers and bring them to the shore. I expect you, my fellow Tanglers, to go to the shore and help me clean it. Remember - it's not just for your own good, but for the good of Tanglewood." With that, he was done. Smiling wide, he barked, "Thank you for being here, everyone. The best is yet to come." He hopped down from the statue and sat down at its base.

TL;DR

• Lots and lots of newcomers! Welcome to Anima, Artemis + Apollo, Cavalrychoir, Cherrywine, Clark, Dempsey + Rey, Eggnog, Esmeray, Kiira, Leonidas, Leroy, Neytiri, and Ophelia!
  
• Iota and Fenrisulfr have temporarily left and stepped down, respectively.
  
• Ranks "Child", "Rookie", and "Rogue" are now combined to make "Tangler".
  
• Ranks "Nurse" and "Regent" no longer exist.
  
• Warrior ranks are collectively referred to as "The Tanglewood Guard" ("The Guard" for short), and medic ranks are collectively referred to as "The Tanglewood Medical Team" ("The Medics" for short).
  
• Ranks "Commander", "Deputy", "Proxy", "Firebrand", and "Sawbone" have been changed to "General", "Proxy", "Captain of the Guard", "Guardsman", and "Sawbones" respectively.
  
• There is only one "Captain of the Guard" and one "Sawbones" at a time for now. This is subject to change as we get more Tanglers joining Guard/Medic ranks.
  
• Vigenere is the Captain of the Guard.
  
• Zimavich is now a Guardsman.
  
• Anima and Leroy are now Chasers.
  
• Abathur is now a Medic since the "Nurse" rank is gone.
  
• Morgan has proposed that Tanglewood should take back their land by rebuilding the town. This will first require them to have a decent supply of food, so he has arranged for a cleanup of the shore here in order to make a good location for fishing.
  

All of these changes will take effect as soon as possible.

malphas approached, red eyes narrowed in thought. what had happened to beck? still... seeing morgan up there was like a beacon of hope. morgan was tanglewood's future. of course, there were a lot of changes that came with every leader, and he let out a soft breath as he heard the changes. some of them were strange but that made sense- so there was no more nurses, cool. it was a stupid rank. abathur was now a medic, although malphas doubted if he really deserved the position. maybe next time, morgan would make him the sawbone, which gave him a little hope. "cool changes," he said, idly, pounding headache making it hard for him to properly react.