Precious Metals of Chogyos

One of the few universal points of commonality between the Eleven Cities that surround the Sea of Jars is that the Commercial Guilds are influential players in commercial and governmental life. The cities live on trade, some of them literally as the insular cities in particular lack the territorial holdings to feed themselves. These cities import food and water, and the Guilds maintain their influence there by carefully underwriting and participating in that trade. In other cities the Guilds are perhaps less powerful, and not necessarily particularly liked, but they are always influential.
In 163 AWR, a century and a half ago, the Guilds cemented their place in the realpolitik of the cities when they entered into an agreement with the ancient families of the city of Chogyos. This aristocracy, long regarding themselves as the pinnacle of culture and refinement in the cities, collectively saw their primary responsibility as maintaining social, artistic and connubial nobilesse oblige, practising refined handicrafts and subsidising art and creativity. This self-image clashed with the practicalities of running a large mercantile city. Chogyos lives, as it has always done since the collapse of the Chogyan Hegemony, by shipping food crops, spices and fabrics out of the mouth of the Chondolos River, an undertaking that required a great deal of tedious and unglamourous book-keeping and co-ordination. In 161 AWR, the senior leadership of the city's Commercial Guilds, a Gold officer and three Silvers, approached the aristocrats with a simple but audacious solution; that the rulers of the city hand over the day-to-day running of the government to the Guilds, the Guilders would undertake to conduct that business profitably and sensibly, and hand over generous shares of the profits to the aristocracy in both cash and kind. The two parties could then each focus on what they did best.
Two years of negotiations followed, during which (according to persistent rumour) the main point of contention was not whether the aristocrats would accept the deal but how the various families could be assured that they would receive shares of the profits in accordance with their stature and lineage. By 163, however, the deal was concluded, and the ancient rulers of Chogyos formally handed over governance of the city to the Guilds, who now run the city as one grand commercial operation.
The Guilders have been careful to keep the aristocrats in the style to which they are accustomed, and take no part in the cultural life the old families pursue. Nevertheless their control over the utilitarian running of the city is close to absolute. As such the "Precious Metals of Chogyos" - the city's resident Gold and Silver Guild officers - are in practical terms the rulers of the city, and therefore among the most powerful and influential individuals in the Eleven Cities. This has increased the influence and prestige of the Guilds in most parts of the Sea of Jars, although the move has always been viewed with scepticism in some places. In Andymalon and Chogyos's great southern rival Pholyos, the arrangement was seen as a naked power grab by the Guilds, and has had a long-term, detrimental effect on the prestige - though not, in practical terms, the power and influence - of the organisation in those places.

Type

Administration / Management