Merchant's Alliance
The Merchant's Alliance is a coalition of the town's guilds, merchants and business interests. Formed initially as a lobbying group campaigning for lower taxes, they have since expanded to represent most of the town's trade and industry. As their membership & influence have increased, they have become increasingly bullish in public and private, determined to monopolise all trade in Phlan through their organisation. The Alliance regulates a large portion of the town's economy through its decrees that its members must abide by, ranging from fixing prices and trading licences, to specifics on quality control and production quotas. Their headquarters and most of the Alliance's members are based around Phlan's commercial district in Podol Plaza's, though members can be found throughout the town and local settlements and even as far as other cities in the Moonsea.
Though they may seem little more than a loose group of merchants (and they may have started off as such), the Alliance has grown into a much larger, formal organisation with full time staff & offices, legal team and mercenaries on retainer. Their membership consists of the some of the town's wealthiest citizens, the major local blacksmiths & leather workers guilds and the unaffiliated banks and finance institutes. They directly control several of the town's District Councillors, sponsor frequent social events for the town's wealthy elite and boast of their regular dinners with the Lord Speaker.
In exchange for a monthly stipend and agreeing to Alliance decrees, members are given access to exclusive trades, preferential prices and better treatment in Phlan's growing markets. Non-members in contrast face punitive market sanctions, harassment and blacklisting. Most of Phlan's businesses have long since been convinced or strong armed into the Alliance and those still independent fear crossing them, choosing to abide by their decrees in order to protect their livelihoods. This bullying of local merchants alongside fixing prices artificially high has made them unpopular with the working people of Phlan whom see the Alliance as greedy and representing the rich.
The Alliance is at constant odds with The Welcomers of whom they publicly decry as a plight and a public menace. The criminal's control of the Docks and their illicit activities are a constant extra tax on the Alliance's members and Welcomers affiliated merchants and fences refuse to abide by the Alliance's pricing & quality decrees. If the Alliance is truly control Phlan's future, then the criminal element must be controlled or forcibly removed.
The Alliance have little better relations with the Order of the Black Fist as their member's must pay numerous bribes for "protection" and often face arbitrary persecution. However, they see them as key allies in their campaign against the Welcomers and try where possible to work with them to achieve their ultimate aims.
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