Confederation of Merchants

Merchant Nation, Country of Trade

General Information

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The Confederation of Merchants is a nation, where merchants rule themself. They gained their sovereignty after many political and armed conflicts. These conflicts culminated in the highest payoff promised in a contract, that was ever recorded in human history. Through this contract, they gained their freedom.

We want to create a Nation where the profit goes to the people and not to the government. We want a Nation, that rules itself, a Nation without a burdensome government.

— A Merchant during the Founding Years

Government

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Structure

The government is not elected, it is rather made up of three councils and every citizen can participate in their meetings. Each council has a defined area of influence, in which they have the absolute authority.

Voting system

Unlike a normal democracy, they don´t decide everything just because it has the highest approval. A project can get approved if they can fund it and nobody rejects it strongly. Only the written law needs to be approved by the majority, that's why it is mandatory to come and vote for every change in their codes of law.

The council of city affairs

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For every city, there is one city council. During their meetings, every citizen can present a topic the council shall decide on. They would meet once every 14 days unless there is a crisis, then they would meet almost daily until this problem is dissolved. The city council generally decides about one of these topics.

• Business permits
• Industrial zones
• Defence facilities
• Social programs

The council of national affairs

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They decide what they will do with their land outside their cities. It will be decided who will take care of the fields, forests, lakes and rivers. A merchant can apply for the right to work on one of these regions. But unlike the decisions in the city council, they need more than the funding, they need to present how it will benefit the whole nation, either through profits or infrastructural improvements. Besides this topic, they although decide which research idea will be funded. Their meetings will take place once every month.

International council

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This Council takes care of international affairs, such as:

• Declarations of war
• Choose the nations they will sign trade agreements with
• How they will deal with pirates (work with or against them)
• If they should expand
• If they should invest in other nations
• How they need to react to changes in this world

And unlike all the other Councils, this council is always in session, to guarantee their fast response to new problems. For that this council consists of elected members, which will be elected every year.

Law enforcement

The law will be enforced by the Silent Guard. They patrol the cities and the land to guarantee safety for the people. Mostly they take care of crimes which are committed by foreign sailors. The reason for this is, that their citizens don't need to commit crimes to live a good and prosperous life, because the government realized early enough that a happy population is the best way to guarantee a peerless economy.

System of funding and why they do it

The system of funding came up in their early years when they realized that they needed to invest more in their infrastructure, which was neglected by their former government. So they required a way to raise enough money, to fund all these important projects. Their first plan was to fund all projects with equal participation of all the merchants residing on their island. But soon they realized that this would lead to the same insufficient bureaucracy, they had in their past. So they came up with a different system. During their council meetings, they would propose a project (new streets, production facilities, etc.) and then they would look for a funder. It could be one person or a group to fund one project and 90% off the profits that would be generated through this project would go to the investors (proportional to their investment). The remaining 10% would go to the inventor of this idea, to value his contribution. Once a project was funded, the investors are bound by law to take care of its good condition. If it should ever arise that a merchant dies without an heir, all his shares will be soled during a council meeting. It is important to mention that only merchants with a certain wealth can participate if a merchant has already exceeded a certain wealth, he can't participate in this kind of low-risk investments. .

Merchant Guilds

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Merchants of Production

They take care of all the farms, mines, forestry and craft shops which are found in Ptergo.

Merchants of Labour

They supply all the workers who work in Ptergo or on a ship from the Confederation of merchants.

Merchants of Shipping

They will take care of everything that has to do with shipping. If they ship goods or if they trade with other nations. They even take care of safe transport for other people or smaller nations.

Merchants of Wisdom

These Merchants make their money with the education of young merchants, highly skilled workers or through new inventions and research.

Merchants of War

They train soldiers to lend them to other nations to fight in their wars. They are almost all well trained elite soldiers. But they can never lend The Nameless which are the elite of the elite, to another nation.

Bank of Merchants

They make a profit from lending money to other merchants or keeping their money safely stored in their buildings.

The hidden Merchants

They make their profits with the crime, but not with a crime committed in Ptergo. No, they make investments in crime all around the old world, like piracy and smuggling forbidden goods or people into other countries. Their existence is not entirely proven, because if such a case would become public the Confederation of Merchants would have not other choices but to expel this person. Or other Nations would see this as a legit reason to invade them.

National territory

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Land

They rule over the island Ptergo. It is a fertile island covered with large hills and small mountains. Before the humans arrived on here a large forest covered almost the entire island, now it covers only half of the landmass.

Cities

Capital of Ptergo

In the past, the capital was just a simple city in the centre of the island, but through the efforts of a few merchants, this city developed to the Jewell of their nation. It all started with the strange idea, to build a road from the "Port city of the south-east" too the centre of their nation. In later conflicts, this decision should reveal itself as one of the wisest decision they ever made. This fortified position made it almost impossible for the other nation to capture their capital or steal their most valuable goods. Since they not only need to cross the ocean, they although need to cross half the island.

Port city of the north

This city specialised to trade with the Tsuyo.

Port city of the south-east

This city specialised to trade with the Anshaxa.

Port city of the south

This city specialised to trade with the Dan-Wi.

Port city of the west

This city specialised to trade with the Hollusa and Zakar.

Population

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The population is diverse. Next to the major cultures present in the old world, like the Shaxan, the Wi, the Hollusen and Tsu. You can also find many minor cultures like The Nameless, which are normally rare to find. But since they are a trading nation many cultures will come to their cities to participate in trade if their homeland isn't connected with the major trading routes.

United in Trade

Maps

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  Confederation of merchants territory

Flag

The blue and grey lines on this Flag stand for the trade routes which bring wealth to the Confederation represented by the golden cycle

Languages

Official languages

To simplify international trade, it was decided to develop a language for trade, which must be known by all trades. Through the spread of trade, this language spread although all around the old world and now this language is known as The common tongue.

Spoken languages

In their area, it is possible to find at least one person to speak each language spoken in the old world.

Writing systems
Gatuc

Important documents

The "CoM" code of law

History

Chronicle
Merchants Archive
Major historical Events

Visual ideas

The idea for the design of their coin-based currency