Anvilmen
The Anvilmen are the Guild supporting and representing the metalworking trades of Morton. Although no metals are directly produced from ores in Morton it is a major centre for metalwork on the small scale - from the simplicity of nails and horseshoes through the coinage of the realm and onto finely wrought jewellry all are made and traded by the Anvilmen.
Regardless of which is being crafted the Anvilmen maintain control and traceability over the workmanship, with each aprentice, journeyman or master having his own unique identifying mark that is registered with the guild. These range from the simple to the highly ornate and may be engraved or stamped.
Structure
The guild is made up of three branches, reflecting the old guilds that merged to form it. They remain separate in their judging of levels of the crafts but have long since put away any direct rivalry - few who work iron desire to work silver or brass and so on, yet the problems that they faced were common - objections to noise and furnaces, difficulty in sourcing fuel, many of the occupational injuries and diseases. With the establishment of Guilds Care most of the welfare aspects of the guild's work have moved on and the guild now operates three companies, each dealing with one of the main groups of metals. Thus today we have
The Blacksmiths
Those smiths who work iron and steel. This is perhaps the most diverse of the companies for the range of techniques and products - everything ranging from nails and horseshoes to the precision manufacture of the valves and tubes used in Atmospheric Projectors. Many expect this diversity to result in the blacksmiths splitting into two companies, for the qualification routes for artificers and traditional blacksmiths have been separately judged within this company for several decades.The Yellowsmiths
Working brass and bronze the yellowsmiths are the one branch of the anvilmen who do much casting - the whitesmiths do a little but only to produce ingots from scrap or cuttings and not to produce semifinished goods. Historically they have been the most innovative of the companies generating new techniques for metalworking, but are now bing challenged in this role by the artificers who combine the detail and precision of the whitesmiths, the tempering and treating processed of the blacksmiths and have adopted and adapted many of the yellowsmiths' techniques for use with harder materials.The Whitesmiths
Working in gold and silver the whitesmiths handle the highest value metals. The production intricately detailed works of art is their primary area of business - a luxury trade, but one for which the capital of the Duchy has no small demand. The moneymakers are technically part of the Whitesmiths company but off to one side for their skills are different and the artistic side is normally only revealed in the manufacture of the dies they use to strike the coins.Assets
Many of the Whitesmiths are extremely wealthy, especially those who have branched into the banking trade. The Anvilmen's guildhall, located in the centre of Hammersward holds many fine examples of their work and its cellars contain strong rooms reputed to hold more silver than the Duchy's Treasury. Most of these are not the property of the guild, but its members - however each master smith's masterpiece and each journeyman's admission piece become part of the assets of the guild. Lest it be thought that this imposes a significant cost on the qulification as a whitesmith, many of that company will leave bequests of bullion for qualification pieces.
History
The Anvilmen were formed in 758MD by the merger of the blacksmiths', the yellowsmiths' and the whitesmith's guild - three trade guilds that had existed for some centuries but which as time went by realised they had more uniting their needs than separating them. In 886 they divested their social care responsibilities to the newly formed Guilds Care to focus on the trade promotion and development of technical skills.
Type
Guild, Craftsmen
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