Great Circle Trading Company

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- Excerpt of the Handbook of the Angharite Janissaries

This article contains optional lore or worldbuilding that may or may not be true at the discretion of your Dungeon Master.

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The Great Circle Trading Company is a chartered mercantile guild nominally headquartered in the cities of Oversea, with subsidiary offices in Coldwater, Tripolis, and Amuncaras. In its own time, the Great Circle Trading Company (sometimes known as the Great Circle, or Great Circle Company) was considered remarkable for its founding, having been granted two charters - one through the Crown of Bastonia and another as a certified "circle" of wizardry through the administratium of the schools of Ars Magica. The guild was founded in 1590 of the Age of Summer of Mortals, and specializes in the trade of magical reagents and finished materials through mundane means.

Guild Organization and Ranks

As was typical of Bastonian institutions of its time, the GCTC had a fairly well-defined rank structure and an order of precidence amongst its individual officers, members, and the sub-organizations ("Offices"), to which they belonged. These Offices were more or less affiliated guild-halls within certain geographic regions or certain areas of enterprise. There were essentially four tiers within this system: the Great Circle itself, and then three tiers that were replicated among the individual offices.

Great Circle Office

The Great Circle organization is the core of the guild, and is made up of its founding members and their most immediate staff and disciples. The Great Circle therefore also has a unique internal structure not shared by the other offices of the guild, and can be thought of as being structured a bit like an orange - a circular office containing 9 segments - or wards - each under one of the guild's highest officers - termed Grandmasters. One of the Grandmasters - originally the guild's leading founder and visionary, Callisto Carsine, is recognized as the primate of the office and uses the title Sage in that respect, while also remaining grandmaster of their ward. These wards were also each associated with one of the Ways of Magical Enactment (or the Nine Ways of the Archmages) of Ars Magica, by the longstanding tradition of the mastery demonstrated by their founders.

These nine and their founding masters were, as follows:

• The Ward of Knowledge, which was founded by Sage Carsine and responsible for the central administration of the entire guild, in both magical and mundane matters, and through both ordinary clerical means as well as through the use of divination and other arts of the Via Scientia. While not always the ward whose master holds the title of Sage, the Sage or Grandmaster of this ward always lays claim to the alternate title of "the Farseer".
• The Ward of Vaults, which was founded by Grandmaster Nenya Hapathea and was responsible for maintaining the purse and the physical security of the various guildhalls and other holdings. Hapathea was a noted specialist of the Via Tutela and imposed a brisk training curriculum in that via on those who served in her purview. The leader of the ward is almost always granted the subroquet "the Adamant" by long tradition.
• The Ward of Crossroads, which was founded by the sailor-summoner Grandmaster Cithrel Valfir, who was one of Carsine's oldest colleagues and instrumental in gaining the initial wealth and influence needed to secure guild charters as well as the right to found an individual school of magic. The ward was strongly aligned to the Via Vocatio, which was extremely useful as the ward held chief responsibility for logistics, transportation, and the planning of oversea, overland, and transplanar trade routes. The master of this ward earns the title "the Gildtongue".
• The Ward of Wardrooms and its founder Grandmaster Coral Blank are the most visible influence of the Great Circle on the subordinate guildhalls and offices, with adherants in every guildhall. Blank was a noted specialist in the Via Lepos, and is known to have used the school as part of his broader theories on economics and merchantilism as well as to recommend its use to guild salesmen. The Ward of Wardrooms was therefore also known to have been responsible for setting the boundaries of good conduct for the guild in order to avoid the implication that they were merely bewitching the market into purchasing their products and services. To become grandmaster of the Ward of Wardrooms is also to become known as "the Gatemaster".
• The Ward of the Opened Way, euphemistically called for being the central logistics group of the guild when operating in "new" territories to them, was founded by the evoker Grandmaster Kudal Roy, a native of Pashkara who had come north following the Great Collapse. Roy was noted as a master of the Way of the Elements school before training in Oversea to become recognized as a talented (though less scholarly) master of Via Mandatum, and he was known to encourage a synergistic practice of both disciplines among his disciples. Roy had earned the title of "the Elementalist-Sage" before leaving Pashkara and by tradition successors to his office also claim that same title, which can sometimes cause confusion or conflict in that city. This was one of the two wards that was most often to be found in command of so-called "field offices", the other being the Ward of Depths.
• The Ward of Words was another administrative ward, albiet one with membership numbers underwhelming considering the importance granted to the ward by the utility of its main school, Via Illusio, in facilitating inter-office communication. Grandmaster Nara Kudel was specifically recruited into this role early on in the guild's founding by Sage Carsine specifically for her expertise in this school and her previous scholarship in magical messaging and cryptography. Histories of the guild written after its founding period often ascribe the explosive success of the enterprise to Kudel's developments and disciples to an even greater degree than Carsine's magical and economic insights. Kudel was known as the "Queen of Colors" and her successor masters often take a similar title.
• The Ward of Craft was originally a minor ward of the guild, tasked with furnishing the guild with those specialist items it could not easily source from outside, and maintaining guild holdings. It was as much a pack of artisans and craftspeople as it was a magical organization, but it was nonetheless founded by a grandmaster in the art of Via Artificio, Dyson Zane. The ward was sometimes unpopular with local guilds and independent enchanters due to a perception that handling such matters entirely in-house was an unfair business practice of the Great Circle, but mostly the Ward of Craft was used by "field offices" rather than in central locations, and thus operated in areas where there were no competing artisans or craftspeople to steal from. Zane was also known as the "Metallurge-Sage" and that title continued among his successors.
• The Ward of Metamorphosis began entirely as a central-administrative ward tasked solely with investigating claims of misconduct among guild officers internally, but eventually grew in size to provide for additional roles as brokers and craft-specialists alongside the Ward of Craft. The ward was founded by a Grandmaster of Via Mutatio, Iskan Nobliss, an exile of Baghar. Nobliss's rigid attitude was often-time mocked by his peers and underlings, but the guild's reliance on the ward's work as it grew was central to the ability of the guild to grow to any appreciable size without becoming corrupt. Noblis's title of Sublime Master tended to get conferred by each successive master by their mentor at the ceremony marking the change in office leadership.
• The Ward of Depths was a minor ward, both in numbers and intention, tasked largely with cleaning up guild operations which had failed, and was so called because it was initially founded to support salvage operations on the ship that eventually became known as the Firmament. The ward was founded by Grandmaster Rowan Fell, the Gravespeaker, who was one of the rare Bastonians to both earn the title of Master of Via Lemurae and operate outside of the auspices of the Church of the Almighty or the school at Sylvestri Point. Owing to the guild's occasional need to clean up unfortunate magical accidents, delve ruins or other ancient sites, or otherwise engage in a much higher degree of risk than other main groups of the guild needed to deal with, Fell tended to provide limited and guided instruction in that much-maligned school to those under his authority, and as a result future masters of the ward often took the same title of Gravespeaker.

Structure of a Guild Office

Whether in a fixed position or a roving one, all guild offices including the Great Circle Office could largely be split into two groups, but otherwise shared the same basic internal structure - the sole exception being that this structure applied more to the Wards of the Great Circle than to the Great Circle as a whole. Drawing inspiration from professional guilds that were common in the metropolis of Oversea at the time, the officers of the guild saw fit to organize each of these offices in a heirarchical and concretely organized way, with a Master of the Guildhall presiding over a council of officers, themselves responsible for and responsible to the rank and file members of the guildhall.

Such offices could best be understood as being either "fixed offices" or "field offices" based on whether or not they had a physical guildhall to go along with these titles; in the case of field offices, a field camp, sailing vessel, or other un-fixed construction most commonly stood the stead of a proper brick-and-mortar guildhall.

Master of the Guildhall

Regardless of gender the seniormost (in rank) member of the guild belonging to a particular office was said to be that office's Master of the Guildhall, though informally some used Mistress of the Guildhall in place of that title. The Master of the Guildhall was an administrative title separate from personal rank or any outside academic title, and signified only that the bearer of the title had responsibility for the actions of their guildhall's members, for the upkeep and deportment of the guildhall itself, and for the day-to-day operations of the guild in the usual means: collection of dues, settlement of debts and taxation, disbursements, and all other such affairs. In some senses this made the title undesirable - while it certainly showed progression through the ranks of the guild itself, the responsibilities of the office were a full-time job in and of themselves, leaving little room for arcane pursuits.

The position was, however, lucrative, earning a 2-parts share on all hall business, and for the right sort of person this was often incentive enough to accept the position. Wherever possible the replacement for a retiring Master of the Guildhall would be identified as early as three years in advance and trained to the position by the outgoing Master of the Guildhall. This would almost always be the next most senior member of the officers of the same guildhall, though irregularities in this regard occurred often.

Guildhall Officers

Every guildhall has a number of officers, meaning Journeymen or above who had obtained a position within the guild of some significance, thus making them officers, or office-holders. Each would be termed appropriately for their office, with the title used in place of their rank in formal address. Thus, Journeyman Whomever, the Guildhall Treasurer, becomes known more simply as Treasurer Whomever. The sole exception to this were the ranks of master and above, which once conferred would remain, occasionally causing some hilarity for those unfamiliar with the rank structure and custom. If Master Smith of the Coldwater Guildhall became their hall's secretary, they would be styled instead as "Master Secretary Smith", and some casual listeners would think this meant they were a Master Secretary and not a Master and Secretary.

These offices tended to vary from guildhall to guildhall but the usual officer positions were secretary, treasurer, provost (in charge of the guildhall's educational programs), chief scribe (in charge of the guildhall's collection of written materials), cook (or in larger guildhalls, chef), superintendant, and so-on. Of these titles in particular the positions of Secretary and Treasurer were most coveted; Secretary because it often presaged an eventual ascension to Master of the Hall, and Treasurer because of the access to capital and the connections between the Treasurer of any given guildhall and the Great Circle through the Ward of Vaults.

Not all such officer titles were purely administrative and mundane. Many guildhalls were also minor schools of Ars Magica in their own right and would have offices for positions like chief conjurer, diviner, and so on.

Rank and File

The vast majority of rank and file members of the guild hold the title of Journeyman, and in most fixed offices this is as much detail as is required when describing this title. The title of Journeyman is conferred upon apprentices who have completed their studies and become full members of the guild, and other than being handed guild office or eventually being recognized as master, most of their career is then spent with that rank.

Especially large fixed offices, the offices of the Wards of the Great Circle, the crew of The Firmament, and the guildhalls considered "field offices" all place some more rigidity into this structure, giving a paramilitary flare to the group at times. Ratings are used to differentiate amongst journeymen in an order of precedence, which is useful for crisis-management reasons.

In order from top to bottom, these ranks for journeymen ran more or less as follows: Chief, First, Second, Leading, and Adept. In ordinary day to day life it was considered gauche to lord this distinction over one another - a practice known as "pulling rank" - but when a field camp was under attack or during important field work where there was serious risk of harm - and especially in seaboard operations - it was considered a best practice to follow the chain of command within this rank structure. Rarely, you might see the same used to differentiate amongst masters, but masters were in such short supply all throughout the guild history that there was rarely a conflict between two of them as to who was in charge of a situation.

Such masters could earn their titles by the fiat and examination of a Grandmaster, of which there are only ever 9 in the guild. In the event any grandmaster should part with the guild, retire from practice, or pass into the next life, the surviving Grandmasters convene to select a new grandmaster in the appropriate discipline for the ward that is vacant from among the masters.

The grandmasters meet several times a year (in person, or through magical means) but always gather once a year in Oversea to elect one of their own number to the position of Sage). This is both a great honour in terms of their magical understanding (akin in some ways to the formal title of Archmage in Ars Magica) and a position of great responsibility. By long tradition (and for practical reasons), this title almost always falls to whomever is currently Grandmaster of the Way of Knowledge. The practice of electing such masters only began when Sage Calisto Carsine first instituted in 1615 Age of the Summer of Mortals, and prior to that date, the title had simply been his.

New Blood and Outside Help

Prospects for the guild were known as apprentices, or in some rare cases early in the guild history, as novices. Such individuals who were in good standing with their community, had not run afoul of the guild itself, and who could demonstrate the appropriate aptitude for a moderate amount of social grace, would be invited to sit an exam, usually held annually, during which they could compete to qualify for a position among that year's apprentices. The structure and form of this exam were up to the Master of the Guildhall in Question, but usually involved at least some measurement of either business acumen or magical aptitude, though among some field offices more specialized testing would look at skill-at-arms or aptitude for certain specific professions.

Successful applicants - usually no more than two thirds of those who applied in a given year, would be accepted into apprenticeships. Their hall became responsible for their room and board for as long as they remained within the apprenticeship program, and they were usually given three years in total to succesfully complete a course of studies and training needed to make them qualified for the position of Journeyman.

The title of Journeyman could only be conferred by an actual master, usually implying at least a bare minimum of magical aptitude in any of the three categories of Modo and Potens and any one of the Ways of Magical Enactment of the Ars Magica, along with the fundamental knowledge required for their career path within the guild itself - usually, literacy and spoken competence in both the Bastonian and Atarlie languages as well as financial arithmetic and other appropriate skills for their clerical or trade profession. The exams for these fitnesses would be held once a year and were usually proctored by a three person panel including the Master of the Guildhall, the Provost or Master Provost of the guildhall, and a Subaltern Master, Master, or Grandmaster of a relevant Ward of the Great Circle.

If an apprentice showed sufficient cause they could be ejected from the organization before the end of their three years, sometimes even charged for any damage or wasted materials they caused (though this was rarer than you might expect). In general, most who passed the initial exam to become an apprentice would ultimately pass the final exams needed to become a Journeyman. The majority of those who did not complete an apprenticeship were members of field offices who found the life too arduous and dropped out, though regrettably even with the protection of their seniors, some were occasionally harmed. For this reason, field offices that specialized in extremely dangerous work rarely actually accepted apprentices at all, having extremely strict entrance requirements, and instead relying on the loan or transfer of journeymen from other offices to keep their numbers up.

Outside help was often used, with each office having a list of trusted suppliers, vendors, and service providers.

Guild Operations

During its founding years - the years from roughly 1590 through 1620 of the Age of the Summer of Mortals - the guild was going through rapid growth. Starting with just three offices - the Great Circle and the Firmament, by 1600 it would have half a dozen in most major port towns along the eastern coast of Wisteria, along with another dozen or more field offices. This period is considered to end in 1620 when the guild is later issued a charter by the Atarlie Empire, making it an official enterprise within that city. By that period, the Wards had each opened their own permanent seperate offices, and the Great Circle's physical halls were mostly only used for the annual convocation of the Grandmasters and the election of the guild's sage for that year.