Skip to content

Guild of Goldsmiths

"We deal in gold. Gold has no allegiance. Neither, therefore, do we."
— Inscribed in the entrance hall of the Gilded Tower

The legitimate banking and luxury-metalsmithing guild. The richest single body in Cadwallon by paper assets. Where the Usurers handle leverage, debt, and shadow finance, the Goldsmiths handle diplomatic banking, treaty financing, foreign exchange, and the precious-metals trade. They are the guild that visiting ambassadors meet first.

What They Do

  • Banking for nobles, embassies, and major guilds — deposit accounts, letters of credit, currency exchange
  • Goldsmithing and jewelry — luxury work for the upper city and the embassies. Akkylannian ceremonial chains, Alahan signet rings, dwarven inlay work for Tir-Nâ-Bor visitors.
  • Diplomatic financing — when an embassy needs money to keep agents in the field, the Goldsmiths provide it. When a guild needs to deliver tribute to an ally nation, the Goldsmiths route it.
  • Currency standardization — they enforce the klû (the goblin coin) as the international standard inside Cadwallon. They mint the local ducat. They quietly skim every conversion.

Headquarters

  • The Gilded Tower in Drakaër — sumptuous Var-Nokkt-funded tower with luxury mall, hotel, and the main banking floors. Prestigious foreign guests stay here when not at an embassy.
  • Branch offices at every embassy, the Free University, and major guild halls
  • A heavily fortified vault under Ka-Ân-Vor in Var-Nokkt

The Var-Nokkt Alliance

The Goldsmiths and Var-Nokkt are closely interwoven. Var-Nokkt money keeps the Gilded Tower lit; Goldsmith deposits keep Var-Nokkt liquid; both families intermarry where allowed. The Var-Nokkts "permanently support the guilds' councils financially" through a Goldsmith conduit, and the Goldsmiths in turn vote with Var-Nokkt interests on most council questions.

This alliance has been the central spine of upper-city economic power for two generations. It is also now visibly cracking.

The Master Ôdril Question

What Ôdril Haarken started

Master Ôdril Haarken is a Goldsmith chapter master and a respected senior figure in the guild. He has begun publicly asking: "What do the Usurers hold over Var-Nokkt that keeps the family compliant?" This is the first time in living memory that a senior Goldsmith has publicly challenged the Var-Nokkt-Usurer leverage. The implications are massive:

  • If Ôdril is right, the Goldsmiths' alliance with Var-Nokkt is built on Usurer compromise
  • If Ôdril is silenced, the Goldsmith senior council will know it was the Usurers and the alliance ends in private war
  • If Ôdril continues unchecked, the entire upper-city power structure restructures itself in a year
    Free leaguers who can deliver evidence will reshape Cadwallon politics. Free leaguers who deliver evidence to the wrong side will not see the next year.

The Tamarez Canal Scandal (966)

The Goldsmiths' historical low point. A faction of crooked Goldsmiths lured the Ghiérons into funding a canal project that was never going to work. The Ghiérons retaliated by making the scandal public — exposing not only the crooked Goldsmiths but tainting "even the most skillful speculators." The guild has not forgiven the Ghiéron family. Adalban Ghiéron is privately blacklisted from major Goldsmith services.

Allies in the Rag'narok

The PHB lists: Living-dead of Acheron, Alchemists of Dirz, goblins of No-Dan-Kar, Griffins of Akkylannie, Lions of Alahan, dwarves of Tir-Nâ-Bor. The widest legitimate alliance roster — every nation that pays in coin rather than only blood. Notably not the Akkyshan elves, who use the Thieves for finance.

Relations

  • Var-Nokkt — primary noble alliance. Strained by Ôdril's question.
  • Guild of Usurers — competitor and parallel. Public competitors, private collaborators in some markets. Ôdril's challenge has converted this from rivalry into open suspicion.
  • Guild of Architects — operational alliance. Architects design the towers; Goldsmiths fund them.
  • Guild of Ferrymen — close. Goldsmith bullion shipments are the Ferrymen's highest-paid cargo.
  • Ghiéron family — cold. The 966 scandal is alive.

Ôdril vanishes

Master Ôdril Haarken hasn't been seen for three days. His chapter house is locked. His apprentice is in tears. The Usurers are visibly relaxed. The senior Goldsmiths want him found — quietly, by people not on the guild payroll.

The bullion shipment

A Goldsmith bullion shipment is scheduled to leave the Marina for Akkylannie. Three independent groups want it intercepted: the Soma family (to fund the vendetta), a free league hired by Drahas, and an internal Goldsmith faction that wants Ôdril vindicated by exposing the route's beneficiaries.