Merchant's Alliance

The Merchant's Alliance started as a group of merchants banding together to exert influence over the nobles who set taxes and laws in the various Duchies and Counties.

For many centuries now, however, it more broadly represents all Guilds, and even individual craftsmen and shopkeepers can petition to join the Merchant's Alliance directly rather than a guild (although this is typically usually done in the case of particularly remote individuals who do not have an active guild of the right kind nearby).