The Mercantile Guild

[Sgt. Spoon]

The way the Merchantile guild has been being portrayed in the fan game "Diesel Punk Tale" is as the universal standard for many of the worlds inhabitants.
I've liked the idea of using the Merchants money as the standard currency, and thus their language also being the go to trade and diplomatic language.  I've been portraying them as not evil, nor naïve, but heavily invested in their legal blood lines, marriages, corporate alliances and interest in foreign trade along with the ownership of land and markets in cities that make trade or monopoly networks for products.

That's pretty much the way I first imagined them as well. The only problem was when I saw the map and realised that they seemed relegated to the south-eastern parts of the map. IMO it would have fitted greatly if they had control of various cities and routes all over the world, reaching into other nations territories instead of controlling their single lump of land.

[Lord Dick Tim]

The theory I've been working on is the Merchants guild rose up as a series of corporate alliances, the factional "borders" of the nation seem to be the direct Monopoly control they have over ports or city production.  For the sake of the games balance, they have to be regulated to some spot initially, and the game doesn't have to have direct correlation to the lore.

[Sgt. Spoon]

Yes! Faction page is up: http://gunsoficarus.com/community/blog/faction-feature-the-mercantile-guild/#more-5390

A sprawling confederation of smaller guilds and market towns, the Guild defies borders and its enclaves can be found in in all the great cities of the region, with Guildhalls in once-mighty Iscadon to the east, Dragontown and Qinjuru in the west, great Cathedral in the Midland Plains, and Nalm and Anvala in the Burren, and even as far north as Qinqaachi in the frozen reaches of distant Firnfeld.

I like the idea of the guild setting up their trading hubs all over the world. Kinda like what I imagined, with networks spanning across several factions, not just their own.