House of Cartwright Merchant Guild

The House of Cartwright Merchant Guild is a family-run merchant guild that over 100 years earlier was on the brink of bankruptcy and in a last-ditch effort to save the Guild and the family name bid on a contract to trade in spices that were being given out to the one who could promise the biggest return on the investment from the Dercian crown.
The guild won the contract and where for 5 years given the monopoly on the trade of spices in the Emerald archipelago, this made the guilds profit soar upwards, and when the 5-year contract was coming to an end, the company had managed to secure its position on the spice marked so that even with the trade now being opened up, the guild technically still maintained a monopoly. Over the following decades, they were able to buy out the competition and expand their own powers while maintaining a look outward of the trade being fair and open for all.

The Spice Shop by Paolo Antonio Barbieri (1603–1649)

During The war of Western expansion the guild was granted a privateering commission from the Dercian crown whereas the guild could keep the cargo of the ships they captured but had to turn the ship over to the crown so during the war the guild acted as a pirate fleet and made a larger fortune of the captured cargo.
When the war ended the guild operated one of the largest private fleets and had a military force that could rival that of some of the smaller nations and not surprisingly they began to use this power to bully trading towns into giving them favorable deals and such, it was only when the Dercian government had had enough and demanded that the guild demobilized down to the state it was before the war. At first, the guild refused believing that the government would never enforce their demands but when rumors of the newly crowned emperor sending his 9th Legion down to enforce the demands, the guild gave in and demobilized.

Structure

The House of Cartwright Merchant Guild operates with the head of the family as the head of the guild with other members of the family filling out other posts. 
The merchant guild has offices in most major trade towns where a member of the family is the leader of the office.

Assets

the guild has several office buildings and storage buildings around the continent and is one of the wealthiest trade guilds.

Money speaks

Founding Date

1106

Type

Guild, Merchant

Family Leader

Elizabeth de Mowbray

Notable Members

• Eliose Redstream