Guild of Favorites¶
"The kingdom is ours for a ducat — but our discretion is priceless."
— Inscription over the back door of The Glistenning
Cadwallon's guild of professional companions — courtesans, paramours, and confidants of the upper city. Less a brothel-syndicate than an exclusive arrangement service: the Favorites are educated, refined, and chosen as much for conversation as for beauty. The lower-city pleasure trade is handled by the Guild of Thieves under various aliases; the Favorites operate one tier up.
What They Do¶
- Companionship contracts — short engagements (an evening, an event) and long ones (a season, a marriage's worth of discreet support)
- Event presence — Favorites are hired in pairs or trios for diplomatic receptions, embassy parties, and noble dinners. A Favorite at one's elbow is itself a status signal.
- Confidential listening — every Favorite is trained in attentiveness. Many of them remember everything. The guild charges extra to forget.
- Discreet pleasure — yes, in private rooms at the Glistenning and in private homes by arrangement
- Refusal services — for clients who want a Favorite present not to be approached, only to be seen. The Glistenning calls this "the chaperone tier" and it is the highest-priced.
Headquarters¶
- The Glistenning — the public face. A delight house in the Dressmakers District of Var-Nokkt, spread across two upper floors of a tower. Salon downstairs, private rooms upstairs, garden terrace at the back.
- The guild's actual offices are in unmarked apartments scattered through Var-Nokkt and the Heaven Heights district.
Who Joins¶
Favorites are recruited carefully. The guild takes:
- Half-elves with social grace and rough childhoods
- Orphans of fallen noble houses who need a profession
- Refugee elves and humans with multiple languages
- A small number of orcs and goblins for clients with specific tastes — these are paid more, treated worse by polite society, and feared by their own guildmates
- Occasionally retired free leaguers who never settled
The training is years. Reading and writing, three languages minimum, dance, fashion, etiquette across multiple cultures, and the iron discipline of confidentiality.
The Real Power¶
What the senior Favorites know
The senior Favorites have spent thousands of nights in the beds of the powerful. They know every illness, every secret child, every dangerous obsession of every noble house and several embassies. The guild's senior council uses this knowledge sparingly — but they have veto power over duchy-level policy that no formal body acknowledges. When the Council moves against a guild or a noble house, it is often because a Favorite passed up the right rumor at the right time.
The Akkyshan Favorite
A Favorite of recent vintage is an Akkyshan elf placed in the Glistenning by the Xär-Lilith family. The senior council suspects this but cannot prove it. They are watching to see what she does first.
Relations¶
- Guild of Dressmakers — close. Favorites wear Belvedere gowns. The two guilds coordinate appointments.
- Var-Nokkt — landlord and frequent client. Senior Var-Nokkts have private Favorites on yearly retainer.
- Guild of Thieves — territorial peace. Thieves handle the lower-city sex trade; the Favorites stay upmarket. Disputes are settled by inter-guild meeting, not bloodshed (usually).
- Guild of Usurers — uneasy. Many Favorites end up extricating clients from Usurer debts. The Usurers don't appreciate the competition for leverage.
The compromised noble
A Favorite contacts the party directly. Her current client — a senior member of one of the upper-city houses — is being blackmailed for something far worse than the affair itself. She has fragments of what's actually going on. She can't go to the guild. She'll pay in coin and in introductions.
The pearl earring
A pearl earring belonging to one of the senior Favorites has surfaced in the Morgue Street beggars' market. She lost it three years ago. The guild's senior council needs to know how it got there. Quietly. It may be evidence of a murder no one knew was committed.