Veridian Trading Company

You want it? We've got it! There is nothing the Veridian Trading Company can't supply! You bring the coin and we can find whatever your heart desires! Hey you! Looking for work? The Veridian Trading Company is always on the look out for honest guards, thrifty merchants and enthusiastic salesmen! Here, take a token!

Fablen Bafflestone, Veridian Crier

The Veridian Trading Company is the principal merchant force across Arkeran and it is said that no coin changes hands that the company hasn't touched. While plenty of local trade between towns and their outlying villages falls below the notice of the company, most trade convoys travelling between towns and city-states are operated directly by the company or one of its affiliated merchants.
The company also favours supporting infrastructure projects along important trade routes, but such investment usually comes at the cost of allowing the company to build merchant outposts at key locations to extract tolls from travellers. The income from these tolls helps keep the trade routes secure, but also allows the company to impose additional costs on competitors that run along these routes.
While the Veridian Trading Company brings stability and reliability to important trade, many resent the costs of having to deal with the company's monopoly - thieves guilds are forever running smuggling jobs for smaller merchants keen to avoid the exorbitant costs of the company's interference.

Veridian Trading Company Services

While the Company is ubiquitous across Arkeran the services it offers, the pricing and reliability varies based on your geographical location.

On the Icehorn

The Company's hold as the most powerful mercantile force on Arkeran is amplified on the Icehorn, where the compact nature and geography of the continent work perfectly to enhance the Company's value. All imports and exports to the Icehorn run via the Company, with the exception of black market smugglers who tend to land along the western coast of the Icehorn closer to Whitekeep. The Company's hold is much stronger in southern Icehorn as the less-populous and somewhat less profit-driven northern half of the Icehorn doesn't provide the same opportunity for trade. To combat this the Company has established Bridgepoint, a town which exists entirely to levy tolls on trade between the two halves of the continent and serves as the Company's primary warehousing and shipping centre. The overheads of running Bridgepoint cost the Company over 1,000gp per day, but this central location is essential to the services the Company provides to the Icehorn.

Messengers

52 miles from Crowslook to Wheatfield - three days travel with a bit to spare. Postage for a message is 2gp, and 10gp for a small package (maximum volume about 1 litre) anywhere within southern Icehorn. Delivery to/from northern Icehorn is at double rates.
So a single message comes out at about Morrin's wage on the trip between Crowslook and Wheatfield. The company rotates messengers around the continent to try to reduce corruption on any given route, and a messenger visits a particular town about once a week. The VTC has nearly sixty messengers in their employ, and they pay them 1gp per day (which they pick up from either Bridgepoint or Silvertide on the route). It's considered a good, reliable job, though it comes with some danger from being on the road.

Trade caravans

The primary source of the VTC's income, trade caravans run between the four points (Crowslook, Bridgepoint, Silvertide, Trouthome) of southern Icehorn regularly, with less common runs to Whitekeep. The Company maintains around a dozen caravans at any given time, and the total assets of this fleet coming to about 8,000gp and the daily running costs around 200gp.
These caravans move the majority of goods around the Icehorn, enabling trade between towns and keeping villages on-route supplied with the tools and goods they cannot produce locally. The value of a particular caravan varies, but typically averages around 1,500gp - split between tools, raw materials, spices and food. Sometimes they carry livestock, though this tends to be hired for specifically. Caravans leaving Anvil and Silvertide are the most valuable, often carrying rare trade goods from the Cradlecoast when leaving Silvertide, or large amounts of valuable tools, armaments and metals from Anvil.
Each caravan consists of at least three wagons, pulled by two horses a piece. This gives each wagon a total cargo capacity of around 3000lbs, plus the crew and their provisions. It takes caravans about twice as long to run any particular road than a messenger, and there are far fewer of them, so each town in southern Icehorn might see a Company caravan about once every four weeks. A full caravan will include four guardsmen, two labourers and a merchant.
The vehicles themselves are fairly inexpensive - about 120gp in wagons, 300gp in draft horses and 150gp in riding horses. Equipment for the crew tends to be high quality, and comes to another 200gp. The crew wages come to 2gp each for the guards (8gp), 1gp each for the labourers (2gp), and 5gp for the merchant, totalling 15gp per day. Each trip between towns takes about six days, plus a day at each end to load/unload and strike deals. The company therefore expects to make at least 1000gp per trip between towns, to cover the profit margin they expect from wages, overheads and maintenance.
Particularly valuable caravans may also expect to be escorted by more elite guard contingents from the VTC, and often include a College student or two. The extra expense of these caravans is reflected in the profits the company expects to make from their trips.
Trade with the Cradlecoast is carried out via sailing ships, of which the company owns two along with their warship - the Golden Envy. At 120 miles per day, the trip to the Cradlecoast takes nearly ten days, followed by two weeks of sailing along the coast before returning to the Icehorn. The costs of running this fleet are high, and the risks many, so each trip is optimised for maximum profit. It is estimated that the worth of the Company's fleet runs at about 50,000gp, with maintenance and crewing a huge chunk of their annual costs (costing around 150gp per day).

Assets

Bridgepoint, a town given over almost entirely to the operations of the Veridian Trading Company (worth 700,000gp). The Golden Envy, the warship of the Company (worth 30,000gp). Two sailing ships (worth 20,000gp total). One dozen trade caravans (worth 8,000gp total).

Overheads

Bridgepoint (1,000gp per day). Sailing fleet (150gp per day). Caravan fleet (200gp per day). Messengers (60gp per day).

Revenue

Trade caravan routes (1,800gp per day). Messengers (200gp per day).

Profits

The Company makes around 600gp per day on the Icehorn alone.

There is nothing money can't buy!

Type

Guild, Merchant

Demonym

Greenpurses.