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The Mercantile Guild

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Helios.:
the arashi can sustain a war because they are inherantly scavengers by nature, whatever teh war was about you can bet that he arashi sold all the wrecked ship parts and the dead soldiers gear. they are sustained by two aspects: firstly that there is a lot of old tech lying in the desert for one reason or another, and so they are similar to the angleans in that their technology is based on adapting and reverse engineering the ancient tech, and as such they have pretty fantastic technology. secondly, the arashi can always find NEW wrecks worth salvaging, ships destroyed and cargo spilled on the dunes by natural causes or attack by ambush...
as for essential supplies that cant be found in the desert, namely food most likely, they can trade for it legitimately, selling the srap and pillaged goods from the MG to have enough cash to buy food and supplementary water
i sort of want to steer this back to the MG, as there is a discussion of arashi culture and tactics elsewhere.

as for the fine points of the dispute between teh league and the guild, i always assumed that the arashi were harrying the guildsmen's trade routes. theres nothing to be gained form conquering large swathes of desert (unless the oases that the arashi cities are centered around are rare enough that the guildsmen who also live in a ashen plain might covet, although they travel enough that i cant imagine they couldnt find water somewhere not surrounded by hardened desert dwellers.) so unles teh arashi wanted big swathes of stinking fetid ash wastes, i have to assume there are caravans or convoys passing over the deserts that the desert people were attacking, causing the guild to decide to put an end to their aggression once and for all, and attacked them, out of self defense, of course ;)

Squidslinger Gilder:
Well we don't know if there was something in the desert that is of value. We know Chaladon does business with the Arashi and uses the Arashi lands for testing tech. Since Chaladon hates Anglea for it's abuse of technology, we can assume that the Arashi do not seek the same. They don't have the old world zealotry that Anglea has. Perhaps Chaladon wants to avert a catastrophe that befell the old world and the Arashi are like minded so they let Chaladon handle dangerous tech.

I think somewhere it is noted that the Arashi and Guild were more one at one point. Then the split happened. So lets say that Guild lands were at one time much larger and it encompassed three cultures. If Vyshtorg became very prominent and was making policy that was out of touch with the others then perhaps this is where the break came. We know they don't like the Guild's oppulence or their ways. So possibly it was a big political move as the cultures diverged.

The Arashi would have more to gain from taking Guild lands than the Guild taking Arashi lands. Only reason the Guild would want to is to secure the routes. Which might again change based on who is ruling the Arashi. For that reason, I'd say the Guild must have either a fortress or some well defended base in the south to keep the Arashi from committing.

Helios.:
i feel like ive done a fair bit of back research, and have no idea where you decided that chaledon and the arashi were once one nation, given that chaledon is an island across the whole map, and famous for being isolated during the catastrophe, so much so they didnt even realize there had BEEN a catastrophe.
as for the trading dangerous tech, the chaledonians have lots of natural resources, but not a lot of ancient tech, as such have created a lot of NEW tech, stuff they actually understand, so i dont imagine they woudl want potentially catastrophic ancient tech from the arashi league.

Squidslinger Gilder:
Never said Chaladon and Arashi. Dunno where you got that. Was talking about Guild and Arashi.

Remember Chaladon has some biotech. Very big on medical tech too. Why the Guild doesn't like them because Chaladon won't let that tech out. They aren't country bumpkins. I'd assume they do buy a lot from the Arashi tho. But I do know for certain that Chaladon doesn't get along with Anglea and I remember reading it somewhere that it was because they abuse technology.

Helios.:
my feelings about that conflict is something like a juxtaposotion between making something for yourself, and stealing it from someone else. also in the lusse's travels entry for anglean raiders, it says that the chaladonians have offered (for no clear reason other than 'peace' but who really beleives that...) have offered protection to the villagers of Hanat against raids from the angelans.

in that respect, the guild are "both" they would be happy to create a cutting edge technology EVERYONE would be willing to buy for a LOT, they would love that, but also willing to buy something on the cheap in cathedral and sell it for a lot in Nalm. that said part of their infrastructure is having a navy powerful enough to protect, as much as it is economical, their trade fleets.
im imagineing from waht i know of the various nations what sorts of trade goods the MG would be interested in, please jump in anyone if you think of somethign i didnt, or disagree on any point. here goes

Order of Chaledon:
as you mentioned the chaledonians have some measure of biotech, i am uncelar however if it is genuinely sweet advanced gene manipulation or just sophisticated husbandry and unique and very useful breeds of normal-ish animals or even animals that have survived there in the seemingly undisturbed natural landscape of the former world that have gone extinct and therefore are unknown in the rest of the world. the exotic or bizarre animals would OBVIOUSLY delight the rarefied sensibilities of a merchant lord, and as such we'd imagine the upper echelons would want them. also depending on what kinds of medicinal or biological marvels could be traded for (just because chaledon doesn't want it to get out or doesn't offer it OPENLY doesn't mean there wouldn't be a contraband market the guildsmen would be part of.)

Anglean Republic:
having the most advanced weapons would mean they would be able to use fewer vessels to protect their trade routes, so a certain amount of either original r&d or buying blueprints from other nations. presumably the Angleans who would pay a LOT for raw materials, which they are perpetually short of, but and have a lot of super sweet tech for sale,

Arashi League:
Despite years of intermittent conflict, the arashi who have similarly sweet tech from examining salvaged old world vessels that have crashed in the desert, but have their own serious natural resource issues, but in food and water, rather than ship-making materials, which they have a lot of because of the constant influx of wrecks in the desert. as such, a courageous merchant trader might be tempted to bring water and food to an arashi city to made a tidy profit.

Fjord Baronies:
Fish i guess? the fjordlanders basic governmental makeup suggests to me that there are lords and nobility of various means who woudl also be interested in luxury goods as well. the baronies in the past had been largely agricultural, and given that the area is relatively green, it might easily be that they are big on the food exporting business. other than that we dont really know much about them, they also have large cities and forests and mountains, so they might be fairly well off for natural resources. given that baronies are GENERALLY fairly self sufficient, or else the lord wouldn't hold the political and economic autonomy that they must to maintain his barony. it might be that the merchantile guild there woudl be more like traders of general goods. exporting raw materials: wool, wood, ore, etc, and importing finished items: textiles, metals and other finished products of all varieties that  city folk and craftsmen would want.

Yesha: Like the baronies i imagine the trade going in and out of yesha would be nuanced in terms of playing the markets than the angleans or the arashi who have unavoidable and serious resource needs. the yesha would probably be importing and exporting luxury goods of many kinds, along with a variety of manufactured goods, and given that they control the flayed hills, probably iron and apparently water come out of that region.

SOOOO, who knows if jess will show up and be like... that's not like that at ALL, but till then, lets have some fun!

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