The Major Guilds combine the central core of the Merchant League, they are the few, the proud the powerful. Whether through blackmail, monopolies or political and bureaucratic expertise they are capable of holding their own as part of the triumvirate that orders the Known Worlds.
Although merchants have facilities all across space they have are based on Leagueheim. Much of Guild planning and trade is carried out on this small industrial planet. Guilders are fiercely territorial creatures and the noble houses are not welcome to Leagueheim for fear that they might learn their secrets and grow independent of them.
There are a wide variety of guilds operating throughout Leagueheim and the known worlds. Here we will deatail some of the most succesful and influential.
Major Guilds
The Supreme Order of Engineers The mysterious and unnerving Guild of Engineers are in control of all things technical and scientific. Not only are their scientific ways viewed with suspicion but their taste for cyber implants also puts them beyond decency and sacrilegious in the opinions of serfs and devout church priests. Yet it started as a religious order itself and some members maintain a faith that combines experimental science with rare theological concepts. What deals they have cut with the church that ensure their continued existance is unknown but they must provide some service or would have been excommunicated and destroyed long ago. The Supreme Order of Engineers controls a sceptre of the regency.
The Muster The Muster are labour for hire with an emphasis on force. Their activities include slavery, supplying highly skilled workers or elite troops. Their slaver activity has given them the nickname the 'chainers.' They can trace their linage back to a mercenary unit active during the Grand Republic.
The Reeves These Guildsmen deal in money and law. They supply financial services across the Known Worlds, lending money, exchanging currencies, offering investments. They also offer legal services across the many arcane legals systems across the Empire. Their money lending and legal interventions can put them in conflict with the Church. The reeves control two sceptres of the regency.
Minor Guilds:
House Kraiah Tradeing guild The House Kraiah Guild are the guild of space pilots and egineers but their real power lies in their connections to various other guilds and noble houses for whom they move freight and passengers. They specialize in interplanetary trade but also have capacity for intraplanetary transport. This trading house commands a sceptre of the regency.
Ancient Society of Sacred Alchemists Specializing in anything to do with chemistry, much of their activities are specialized towards the extraction, refinement and sale of oil and plastics. The Ancient Society has close ties to both the Supreme Order of Engineers and to the Apothecaries.
Apothecaries While the Blossoms of Mercy are renowned for their healing abilities not all wish to be the recipient of their penance or remedies. Many prefer to trust to well high-technology alternative of healing. Although their prices may be exorbitant their services are the best. Accusations have been levelled that this guild sometimes delves into forbidden biotechnology such as cloning.
The Authority The Authority attempts to controls all trade and merchandise in Errovus Secundus, they are officially a water-gate guild and maintain the systems of dykes, damns and locks that preserve the land against the rising levels of water. Unoffocially they have their hand in every trade or industrial development of the planet. The authority commands a sceptre of the regency.
Brewers This guild provides to the public clean food and water, a necessity in modern times with so many pollutants in the land and air. While most brewers are merely publicans and barkeeps who pay commission to the Brewers Guild they do ensure that a standard is kept.
Bureaucrats Where there is business there's paperwork, where there's management there's administration. The Bureaucrats are there to provide professional administration for nobles, church and other businesses. Their discretion is assured.
Carnivaliers One of the two major entertainment guilds in the Known Worlds. The Carnivaliers deal with what is distainfully known as 'low-brow' entertainment by the nobility who prefer the services of The Masque. The Carnivaliers provide street theatre, circus performance, juggling, acrobatics and animal menageries.
Courtesans The Courtesans guild is more than mere prostitution. They are refined and elite companions of high-society. They ensure that their clientele receives elegant companionship who are capable of drawing upon a vast network of gossip and information.
Fishers Most worlds have their own local guild for fishermen.
Gormands This guild tends to serve high-society providing exquisite cuisine from across the Known-Worlds. They are also trained to be able to detect attempts at poisoning and are entrusted to cater for the nobility.
The Masque One of two major entertainment guilds, they produce high-society entertainment the the nobility and peasantry together. They provide theatrical representations of history as it is made (often written at the direction of a noble or other benefactor). They are also in charge of the remaining Magic Lanterns and any other hi-technology entertainment.
Mercurians This secretive faction is part guild and part revolutionary terrorist. Their operations can be as simple as prank that humiliates a dignitary, as subtle as the shade of colour of a substituted flag or as chaotic as the release of alien creatures in an urban setting. The organisation remains profoundly illegal and their members anonymous. Their true purposes remain a mystery to even most of their members. The Merchants League remains duplicitous on the subject of the Mercurians at times welcoming their contribution and at other times denying their existence. Historically it routes are in the drop out culture of the Grand Republic.
Pedagogues The art of teaching is not lost in the New Dark Ages, however it is far from common practice. The Pedagogues tend to cater their services to the education of youth specifically that of governesses, personal tutors and other educators. The teachers of higher levels of academic learning tend to ply their trade as long-term contracts to specific noble hosues while other, more generalized teachers tend to become travelling tutors. They say that the pedagogue have a major academy on leagueheim.
Promoters(Shills) Public Opinion is no longer the concern of the free media. While there is little in the way of mass media or literacy the Promoters insure that whatever news they're paid to advertise is broadcast, even if it's by yelling. Earning them the appellation of 'shills'.
Prospectors A high-tech mining guild with numerous contracts both independent and on behalf of various noble houses on both planets and moons.
Vagabonds Not officially a guild but rather a loose-knit society of vagrants, hobos and vagabonds. By working together they are capable of providing a fraternity that will support each other in their free lifestyles. Owing allegiance to none and accorded privilege to none this is one of the most disparate collectives in the Known Worlds.
Wordwrights The art of writing is a skill precious few have, and a skill that even less excel at. Specialists in composing literature are hired to either scribe other texts, or compose epics and ballads of heroic deeds lest all forget them.
Weaponsmiths The productions of weapons is considered a fine art by many, the weaponsmith guilds among them. Rather than a whole guild this is the collective term for a number of guilds that generally owe direct service to a large faction for the manufacture of weapons. While they will not build hi-tech weapons (violating Engineer monopoly) they will produce some of the finest blades and slug guns in existence.
Wranglers The care of beasts is not a skill all care to take. The Wranglers are Ranchers, veterinarians, huntsmen, herders and manufacturers of harnesses and other beat related equipment.
. Then came the Divesture and as the Grand Republic fell, so too did the technologies associated with genetic tinkering and cosmetic surgery. But the damage had been done, the children of the cultists had no choice, their parents had so greatly changed their genetic material that they were only rarely able to produce regular progeny with regular humans. But the line continued and the alterations of their ancestors continued with it. Not only was their physical appearance changed, but so too was their mentality and intellect. With time the strange almost-humans of the line thrived and formed their own independent government proving themselves very effective negotiators with a propensity for cultural mimicry and when it came time to establish a new government in the wake of the second Symbiot invasion, the noble house of Thana aligned itself closely with Barbatos and the church. In this way they gained political power (and a scepter) and absolution for the sins of their ancestors genetic tinkering. Today the scions of house Thana appear not so much as humans but as very thin and very delicate 9-foot tall giants with pale blue skin and shock white hair and pure black pupilless eyes; some have taken to calling these genetic anomalies ‘angels’ for their association with the church and strange other-worldly appearance. While they possess minor holdings on Incellia where they specialize in political maneuvering, negotiation and trade, they are eager to gain minor holdings as seneschals to other major houses.
