Factory System
Every business owner is a Factor, they report all their accounts to their local Factory of whatever company they work for on a quarterly basis. A Factory is the complex where all a company’s trade in a region must go through. The Merchant Houses have Factories in most major cities. Some cities are dominated by a single Factory, while some have many factories competing for dominance. Every factor has to make certain payments to their factory in order to remain in business, if a factors business remains unprofitable for a certain period of time, or if the factor is caught trading outside the company they may be expelled from the company, and their assets seized.
The Factory System is used by all of the major trading companies, and they all compete for profitable factors. Factors range from small inner city shops, to large mining operations, plantations, ships, and fleets.
Factors are usually businesses, but they are occasionally a single person in the case of ship captains, and some of the hereditary estates in the Makara Lowlands, and in the Efyl Plains.
In order to to prevent outside company trading merchant houses all have unique merchant mark that is in some way impressed onto their goods.
The Factory system ensures that the company has complete control over where goods are transported to and who is able to purchase them. While factors have the freedom to choose which other factors they buy goods from, it is always profitable for the company because they are the ones facilitating it. Small time factors like single ship concerns or small shops often change from company to company very easily, though larger factors such as major industrial businesses, and large producers of raw goods such as the huge plantations in the Makar Lowlands, and the mines of the Tarn Highlands will often only official change hands after blood has been spilled.
An example of the Factory system in work is as follows for the Penzance Mercantile Co-Operation. All Factors are bolded. The Branix Mine, which is a mining factor in the Tarn Highlands, gather raw iron ore in the vicinity of Carlis. They bring their ore to the Carlis Factory. There they are only allowed to sell that ore to the Carlis Overlands which is the PMC’s Factor in charge of transportation of goods along the Iron Path. Carlis Overlands transports the raw ore to the Lylyn Port Factory, where it will be sold to one of the Sea Trading Factors, in this case Captain Lalk of the PMCS Morning Dew. Captain Lalk then transports the ore to the Bresk Point Factory. Here the ore is sold to one of the PMC’s Smelters. In this case Illum Smelting, which process the ore into usable steel. The Steel is then brought to the Bresk Point Factory where it can be sold to any transportation factor of the PMC for export, or given to one of Bresk Points foundry factors in this case Tristram Steel Works also located in Bresk Point. Here the steel will be forged into usable tools in this case swords. These swords would then be transported back to the Bresk Point Factory where they will then either be given to a transportation factor, or distributed to local arms merchant factors.
