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Guild of Ferrymen

"If you didn't pay us, it didn't move."
— Old guild boast

The shipping guild. Controls every commercial vessel that enters or leaves Kraken Harbor, every dock-crew that loads cargo, every airship that flies between the Cynwäll pillars, and every cart-train that comes overland from the Lanever interior. The least flashy of the upper-hand guilds. Possibly the most essential. When the Ferrymen strike, the city stops eating within a week.

What They Do

  • Sea shipping — the merchant fleet's vessels are Ferrymen-crewed and Ferrymen-flagged. The fleets sail at the start of the Time of Banners (spring) and return in the Time of Return (autumn).
  • Lake and river transport — the canals and waterways of Cadwallon are theirs. Ferrymen barges link the upper city's mansions to the harbor.
  • Airship operations — the sky station in the Pillars is Ferrymen-built and Ferrymen-run. Var-Nokkt's family airship, the Senex III, is Var-Nokkt-owned but Ferrymen-crewed.
  • Overland caravans — the great cart-trains that resupply the city from Lanever and the Aegis foothills run under Ferrymen contract.
  • Harbor management — pilotage, dock allocation, customs coordination with the militia

Headquarters

  • The Lakeside Manor in the [[Marina]] — large compound with a private dock. Hosts visiting port-masters from across Aarklash in the diplomatic suite.
  • Dockmasters' Hall in Buoyancy Bay — operational center for the working harbor
  • Branch offices at every major dock, the sky station, and the overland caravan gates

The 991 Strike

The defining recent event in guild history. The Ferrymen struck for six weeks in 991 — the harbor stopped, food shortages began, the Usurers made fortunes lending against starving merchants. The Duke at the time negotiated personally. The strike ended with:
- Higher Ferrymen wages
- A new guild seat on the diplomatic council
- A quiet concession the public never saw — the Ferrymen now have first refusal on any new airship technology developed in Cadwallon

The dwarven engineers of Var-Nokkt still resent this. Several Tir-Nâ-Bor designs have stayed in the drawer because the Ferrymen would have controlled them.

Allies in the Rag'narok

The PHB lists: all peoples. The Ferrymen ship for everyone. Cadwallon's commercial neutrality is in large part Ferrymen neutrality. They have crewed vessels flying Akkylannian cargo on the same week as Acheronian cargo. They charge by the hold, not by the flag.

The Slave Question

The transport of slaves is prohibited inside the city walls. It is permitted on board vessels entering the port. The Duke taxes this traffic as "cargo." The Ferrymen execute the trade and take their cut. This is one of the moral compromises of Cadwallon's commercial freedom — Cadwës do not buy or sell slaves, but their port profits from those who do.

The Senex III's other cargo

The Var-Nokkt family airship runs official routes to Tir-Nâ-Bor for the Senex's diplomatic mission. It also runs unofficial routes — including a regular drop in the Quithayran mountains that the Ferrymen pilot has been paid to forget. What goes up to those mountains is unknown. What comes down, the pilot has seen, is occasionally a young dwarf who is not on the manifest.

Relations

  • Var-Nokkt — closest noble alliance. Joint operation of the Senex III and the sky station. Hildra Var-Nokkt is invited to Ferrymen council meetings.
  • Guild of Architects — engineering partner. Architects design ships and airships; Ferrymen crew them. Sometimes amicable, sometimes feudal.
  • Guild of Thieves — quiet arrangement. The Ferrymen don't search every barrel. The Thieves don't smuggle anything that could embarrass the guild publicly.
  • Guild of Birders — operational partnership over Immobilis cargo
  • Duke Den Azhir — direct relationship. The Duke needs the Ferrymen functional. The Ferrymen need the Duke's customs policy.

The lost cargo

A Ferrymen vessel arrived from Immobilis missing one specific crate. The crate's contents are not on the manifest. The captain has fled. The guild quietly wants the crate found.

The dwarf on the manifest

A young dwarf was returned to Cadwallon on the Senex III last week. He is the wrong dwarf. The right one — the one who left for Tir-Nâ-Bor — is missing. The Ferrymen captain remembers the swap. He is willing to talk for a price the guild cannot match.