Freeport Pilot's Guild
The sand bars and reefs off the coast of Freeport are treacherous and mercurial. Captains who are away from Freeport for any significant length of time can never be sure if the clear channel that they embarked from remains the same when they return. Approaching the port can therefore be a slow and deliberate affair, sometimes taking an entire day from the sighting of the city to final docking. Enter the Pilots’ Guild, which monitors and charts the shifting sea lanes approaching Freeport’s harbor and sells that information from its guildhouse in the Warehouse District.
Architecture
The walled compound of the Pilots’ Guild is one of the few distinctive places in the sea of blocky buildings that make up the Warehouse District. The facility is easily identified by the large observatory tower jutting into Freeport’s skyline. It is the tallest free-standing structure in the city, dwarfed only by the walls of The Old City on the hill above (and of course Drac’s Lighthouse, due south from the harbor).
Inside the compound’s low stone wall, located around the observatory tower, are a number of other buildings. These contain offices, living quarters, workshops, and meeting places. While the Pilots’ Guild is hardly as luxurious as the Merchants’ Guildhouse, many captains find it a very pleasant place to come for a drink or a bite in the evening. Outside the observatory tower is a large board, on which tide and weather information is chalked several times per day.
History
The Pilots’ Guild was established a hundred years ago to counteract the increasing dangers of the unstable sea topography around A’Val. A fleet of ten small ships constantly sails around the city, sounding for shifted reefs and sandbars, and greeting any ship that approaches the city. The Pilots’ Guild maintains a private pier in the Warehouse District for its survey and patrol vessels. For a relatively small fee, a guild navigator will come onboard and pilot a customer’s ship quickly and safely into The Docks of Freeport. The guild also offers current charts of the waters around the Serpent’s Teeth for sale—but only to those on shore. These precious charts rarely remain accurate for more than six months and are quite expensive.
The Pilots’ Guild doesn’t take any offense to those who refuse their services. They don’t need to. The treacherous barrier reef surrounding the Serpent’s Teeth ensures business is always brisk. Sailors who make Freeport a regular port of call know better than to refuse the “reasonably priced” services of the Pilots’ Guild. The best they can expect without it is a slow approach to shore; worse, they may find themselves run aground or, worse yet, sinking, with a gaping hole in their ship’s hull.
Some wonder why the Captains’ Council and the Sea Lord allow the Pilots’ Guild to operate what is essentially an elaborate shakedown operation. The answer lies within the tall tower of the guild’s compound. This remarkable magical structure is in fact one of the Weather Towers built by famed engineer and mystic Jenkin Hammer. In conjunction with the other such towers placed throughout the Serpent’s Teeth, it keeps the chaotic elemental storms that historically plagued this region at bay. The esoteric function of these towers is little understood today even by the Wizards’ Guild, but they do their best to maintain them.
The Pilots’ Guild maintains an observatory in the tower, providing the best data on tides and weather that one can get in Freeport. This information is posted and disseminated throughout the city on a daily basis.
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