The guild that controls everything moving through Venturia's ports — the fees, the warehouses, the merchants. Organized, formal, and quietly obsessed with protecting the city's prosperity, which its leadership treats less as good business than as something close to a gift worth guarding at any cost.
What They Do
Every ship that docks pays the Compact a fee; every warehouse operates under its watch; every merchant trading through Venturia deals with it sooner or later. Their public work is the ordinary machinery of a great port: maintaining trade relationships, ensuring the quality of goods, and protecting maritime commerce.
Leadership
Led by Lord-Admiral Teodor Vast, master of the city's largest private fleet and a Harbor-Lord on the Autumn Council. He holds, with real conviction, that Venturia's remarkable prosperity is a gift to be protected at any cost.
Membership
Members gain access to regional trade networks, preferential shipping and warehousing rates, legal protection in commercial disputes, and early word on what's coming into the city. In return they tithe a share of profits and, now and then, perform favors for the Compact's wider interests.
Connections
- Lord-Admiral Teodor Vast — Faction leader and Harbor-Lord on the Council.
- The Covenant of Silver Scales — Cooperate on commercial matters, compete for economic influence.
- The Fog Wardens and the Shadowed Wardens — Generously funded by the Compact, since security is good for business — though its trade-restricting rules chafe.
- The Harbor District — Cross-references this faction.
- The Unexplained Prosperity — Names this faction in its connections.
- The Warehouse Consortium — Names this faction in its connections.