Factions on The Moonshroud Realms — GM Reference

Council of Trades

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Council of Trades#

The Council of Trades is the governing body of Bridgeport — a assembly of merchant representatives whose authority derives from commerce rather than birthright. In Bridgeport, coin is power, and the Council is where that power is formally organized.

The Council manages the city’s laws, its markets, its harbor fees, and its relationships with the Crown and neighboring settlements. It is not a democracy in any simple sense — representation on the Council is tied to trade volume and guild membership — but it is at least predictable, which counts for a great deal in a city like Bridgeport.

Council Members

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Council of Trades — Members#

The Council of Trades is drawn from Bridgeport’s ten most influential guilds and professional orders. Each guild elects a Guildmaster-Delegate to serve a five-year term. Together they govern the Freehold, with one member serving as High Convenor — currently Seraphina Velcross of the Merchants’ Exchange.

What follows is what a reasonably informed Bridgeport resident would know about the people who run the city.

Seraphina Velcross — High Convenor, Merchants' Exchange

Seraphina Velcross is the most visible figure in Bridgeport's civic life. Poised, measured, and reputedly unshakeable, she presides over Council sessions with a calm that rivals have described as either admirable or unnerving depending on which side of a ruling they were on.

Adventurer's Guild

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Adventurer’s Guild#

The Adventurer’s Guild is one of the few organizations that operates openly across most of the known world, maintaining halls in cities and towns large enough to support one. Bridgeport’s chapter is well-established, reasonably well-funded, and busy enough that its staff have developed the particular brand of weary pragmatism common to people who spend their days sending others into danger.

What the Guild Does#

The Guild serves as a clearinghouse for work — connecting those with problems requiring unconventional solutions to those willing to provide them, for appropriate compensation. It posts contracts, verifies completion, handles payment disputes, and maintains records of members in good standing.

The Kangs

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Kangs#

Bridgeport has neighborhoods where the city’s official rules are more suggestion than law. In those places, other arrangements apply.

The Kangs are a presence in certain parts of the city. Anyone who spends time on Bridgeport’s streets will notice them eventually — groups moving with purpose, wearing a single item in a consistent color. Red. Blue. Yellow.

What that means, exactly, is the kind of thing most people in Bridgeport have learned not to ask too loudly.

Royal Adventuring Society

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Royal Adventuring Society#

The Royal Adventuring Society — known commonly as the R.A. Society — is the Crown’s elite counterpart to the Adventurer’s Guild. Where the Guild handles the broad spectrum of sanctioned adventuring work, the Society directs missions that are too specialized, too sensitive, or too politically complicated for a military detachment or a standard Guild contract.

These assignments tend toward the discreet: recoveries that cannot be public, investigations requiring subtlety, negotiations where a regiment would be wasteful or diplomatically disruptive, and threats where the Crown needs capable hands that don’t wear a uniform.