The Guild
The Guild is by far the most immediate and far-reaching influence over the Hundred Kingdoms as a whole, and its impact is very mixed. In many ways the influence of the Guild is a positive one, spreading trade and communication throughout the fractious landscape of shattered balkanized states, their caravans the sole lifeline that keeps the region from descending even deeper into chaos and ruin. They are instrumental in seeing that the agricultural windfall of the Hundred Kingdoms is spread throughout the East, allowing both the Guild and those merchants and landowners that it works with most closely to prosper. They single-handedly keep the avenues of trade flowing throughout the area, smacking down river pirates that grow too ambitious or nations whose ambitions of conquest begin to disrupt trade.
Yet the Guild is only interested in stability to a certain extent. The current instability serves the Guilds ultimate purposes, giving them overwhelming influence in the region and allowing them to largely dictate terms to the individually weakened states that make up the complicated tapestry of the region. Far from simply being the cornerstone of trade and commerce in the region, the Guild is the penultimate power in the Hundred Kingdoms with its only real check being the distant and disinterested eye of the Seventh Legion. The end result is that the Guild viciously reigns in anyone that hurts their profits, but does nothing to stop and even subtly encourages the overall fractiousness of the region as a whole.
In addition, the Guild is heavily involved in both the Drug and Slave Trades of the Hundred Kingdoms. While most villages are able to grow enough qat or marijuana to meet their own needs, the Guild is responsible for a good deal of the hard trade in cities and other areas. In particular, Heroin is very popular in many of the larger cities, with the Guild Factors in Nevin almost using it as a weapon to keep the region under their thumbs through the threat of cutting off the supply (or worse; providing lots of cheap hard drugs). However, after Agriculture, its the flesh trade that truly captures the Guild's attention -- the frequent wars, raiding and banditry that plague the Hundred Kingdoms supply a rich windfall of slaves for the Guilds markets. Indeed, the Hundred Kingdoms is the prime source for slaves within the Scavenger Lands themselves (leading to the Guild keeping two functional Slave Citadels in the region).
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