Unconquered Realm: The Karrosian Trade Scrolls

[Nomadic]

Indeed and I have been looking up some information on the stock market. I may add a section about it (involving hand signals, processes, and an in depth look at the scale yards).

[LordVreeg]

http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php/Celtricia:Grounds_of_Dismissal

[Nomadic]

Wow that could be quite helpful in its own right. Actually Celtricia has several things in it that I may look to borrow and mold within my setting (hope you don't mind if I do).

[Snargash Moonclaw]

LV - sweet. Reminds me a little of the Biz-bars common to Shadowrun - there are aspects of the legwork, contact network, social underground necessities that I like as inherent in more D&Desque fantasy settings - people have been shadowrunning since the dawn of time. Next time you're in Denver go to the Art Museum and check out the little cunieform tablet in the mesopotamian section - a little clay tablet w/a little clay envelope from like 4-5k BC. It was translated: someone writing to his lawyer bitching about how his 3 brothers were ruining the family business the 4 of them had inherited and wanting to buy them out! I nearly fell on the floor I was laughing so hard when I read the plaque. . .

[Nomadic]

Just goes to show that humanity never really changes... it just finds new and inventive ways to do the same stuff it has been doing from the beginning.

[LordVreeg]

yo!
You need more mention of competition!  what the hell is a merchant guild without their sworn enemies, those guys who'll do anything for a buck, those cheap-ass mother f*%^0rs who are bad for the whole industry...

I carefully have many large and small groups, but at every level, there are folks horing in for a bigger piece of the action... Let me tell you, the Winfre traders, the Sceding Tree Guild, and the Vissepee trading family all fight like cats and bigger cats.  Those are the three biggest groups, but all the other guilds line up behind o e of these...and the thioeves and governments etc are all on certain sides, or pretending to be...

[Nomadic]

The guild is far too powerful for an outside competitor to take down. The competition comes from within, different merchants looking to make each other look bad so that they can climb that next rung in the guild hierarchy. There are some of all types within it. There are the honest hardworking merchants who got where they did from lots of work and having a positive attitude that got them in the favor of prominent higher-ups. Then there are the sleezeballs who cheat, steal, and assassinate their way to the top, stepping on anyone who gets in their way.

Of course that isn't to say there isn't guild vs guild competition, just not with the merchant guilds (as there is only one real merchant guild). Just wait till you see the competition between the mercantile high guard and the marine mercenaries guild. That is a fierce one that has been raging for many years. And that is only one rivalry, there are all kinds of spats between different groups (including different city states).

[Snargash Moonclaw]

All this tends to breed a very healthy underworld/organized crime/black market. . . and sometimes it can be very hard to tell the two apart - even if you're in one or the other (or especially if. . .)

[Nomadic]

Of course. After all I couldn't let the rogues in the audience down (not to mention I love a good thieves adventure from time to time).

[Nomadic]

The Mordru Market:

When the mercantile guild first opened its doors in the Palaoyr shop district they had little more than a small one-story building to call their own. Now their massive halls dominate the city landscape in every city of the realm. Along with the growing merchants guild came the scale yards. One by one the cities were convinced by the guild to build scaleyards into their primary market areas. This had the obvious advantage of allowing another form of revenue to spawn (through the scaleyard fees). It also brought in large crowds of merchants. Which resulted in an unforeseen circumstance.

Merchants began doing business at the scale yards themselves, especially when they had a massive haul of goods. A private language of hand symbols and slang terms evolved to communicate interest in buying or selling merchandise. Thus was the Mordru Market born. Originally people termed it the poor man's sale floor (as normally a well to do merchant would have their own shop space to sell from). As it grew in popularity one man, Yosan Mordru, set about organizing it and incorporating it into a guild managed market (then known as the Scaleman Guild, eventually taken over by the Karrosian Mercantile Guild). His success turned the scaleyards open market into a successful and organized (though hectic) venture. It is from his name that the modern scaleyard markets get theirs, though few people actually recall that fact. Like everything else the markets have changed over the years. Though they have changed far less than most. There are many things that are still the same. The markets are crowded and noisy places. Indeed the frantic pace ensures that only a quick thinking and cool-headed person can work in them. Merchants bring their wares to the scales to be weighed, signaling they are selling something with hand gestures and shouts. Interested parties will reply and approach the scale they are weighing in at. From that point it devolves into a bidding war, with different merchants all shouting and gesturing, attempting to get the best deal possible. Generally it is overseen by the scale reader who will weigh in amounts and call them out, while his apprentices frantically write down orders and bids.

Over time the Mordru Market has become a noisy and busy place. Even now most cities require it to shut down at sunset. However, the largest cities allow bids to continue on as long as there is someone there selling. Palaoyr is renown for this, as only a handful of times in its history has it had nobody selling in the market.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Groovey. This would also create a little more revenue - or more direct access to the same revenue if a sales tax is already in place - since the city can easily demand a small % of the proceeds of each sale made directly on the floor. Again, organized crime can come into play with price fixing, etc. Hell, some cities the thieves guild might even have direct control of the market - part of the protection racket - do business here and you don't have to worry about your warehouse burning down in the night. . .

[Nomadic]

Looking at that I love it. You have to say to yourself, what guild could possibly stand up to a guild that even city-states fear to anger? The answer, one that can't be tracked down of course.

A local thieves guild could cause plenty of trouble with the Karrosian Mercantile Guild. You can't shut a guild down that you can't find.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Especially if they're running parts of your own guild. . . Industrial espionage in such a setting could well be a larger activity than its political counterpart - and often tied in with it - if the city-states fear the Merchants Guild you can bet they will try and infiltrate it with their own agents

[Nomadic]

Most certainly yes. Good ideas all. I think I will begin looking into how best to set up local thief and spy guilds.

[LordVreeg]

My idea as well.
Laways nice to have locval flavor, but also some underworld syndicates that add mercantile expertise to an absolute lack of morality, plus the tools of graft and terror...Sounds like a dire enemy set for the more honorable Karrosian merchants.