Merchant's Guild

Merchant's Guild

The Merchant’s Guild is the primary economic force in Faia, managing and facilitating all inter-island trade. From basic supplies to exotic goods, the Guild ensures smooth operations across quality checks, pricing, transport, and sales. On the covert side, the Merchant’s Guild also functions as the Adventurer’s Guild’s accomplice in resource exploitation, helping to sell laundered resources while obscuring their origin.

ORGANIZATION TYPE: Guild
PURPOSE: To manage and facilitate inter-island trade.
SYMBOL: A set of balanced scales.

PRIMARY LOCATION: The Merchant’s Guild maintains trading hubs in every significant port and settlement across Faia, with their headquarters located in Sowara.
LEADERSHIP AND HIERARCHY: The Guild is led by a single Guild Master and supported by a council of magnates, each overseeing different product categories.
MEMBERSHIP: Membership is open to anyone engaged in trade. Members benefit from guild protection, trade routes, and dispute resolution.

STANDING: The Merchant’s Guild is extremely influential and economically powerful. They control the flow of money, pricing, and more. However, the Guild does face criticism for restricting competition with their price-fixing, and negatively impacting non-members.
FUNDING: Funding primarily comes from membership fees and a portion of members’ trade profits. Covertly, the Merchant’s Guild also helps the Adventurer’s Guild in its resource laundering, in turn receiving a cut of the profits.

KEY ACTIVITIES:

• Organizing and managing inter-island trade routes.
• Establishing and maintaining trade regulations. Setting pricing and quality standards.
• Working with the Wayfinder’s Pact to provide secure transport for goods and currency.
• Acting as brokers for goods and services between settlements and other guilds.
• Covertly: helping the Adventurer’s Guild sell their resources laundered from newly explored islands.

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS:

• Established the present-day currency and credit system.
• Built Sowara’s trading plaza, helping it flourish into the commercial center it is today. 

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Through facilitating the easy trade of goods and services between islands, the Merchant’s Guild also played a large role in facilitating cultural exchange across distant Faian settlements. Due to the drastic differences in the environment, flora, and fauna of each island in Faia, settlements on each island naturally developed distinct identities and cultural practices, and it was the Guild’s constant transporting of Faians and products that helped these unique cultures interconnect.