Aspis Consortium
Structure
The Aspis consortium has very little in the way of true structure. There is a Board of Directors, appointed by consensus of the board, of no regular or set number, although seven currently sit on the board. The board of directors assess new membership personally, and collect the paltry (for anyone in consideration of joining the consortium) annual membership fee of a ledger talent of silver, or an amount of currency or trade goods equivalent, at the discretion of the board. The board decides currency circulation and printing, and delegates minting guild silver to licensed guild mints (a licensure is an annual fee of 10 talents to maintain), and organizes the Merchant's Court. The Merchants Court is convened only when friction between two participating merchants (who may or may not be members) threatens the consortium's mercentile hegemony, or more broadly endangers trade. The Merchant's Court is, by tradition, a match between hired fighters to submission or death. With trade as it is, merchants, members or not, typically keep a fighter on retainer, although bound demons, outsiders or powerful spellcasters are as common as swordsmen or martial artists. Bouts have no rules, save that fighting stop when the adjudicator, called The Court Chairman, calls for it to stop. The Court Chairmen serves on the board of directors until he designates a successor to his roll, but by tradition frequently abstains from board votes.
Beyond such measures, the consortium makes no effort to police its members. No goods are illegal, no methods too underhanded, and only indolence or unambitiousness truly inexcusible. The consortium, after all, is arguably created on the intention of currency manipulation and insider trading.
Public Agenda
Aspis exists to make as much money for its members as possible. In this respect, it is simple, and can usually be counted on to drive its agenda of ruthless, global capitalism as far as it can be. This, historically, has made it an economic hand of the western empire, through Gwen's protectionism and ability to play its various merchant princes both against each other as well as against the other powerful players in the western Pax.
Assets
The Aspis Consortium is wealthy beyond measure, and would be among the single largest controllers of the world's currency if it were in any way centralized, or organized in any real way. It is, however, a society of extremely wealthy individuals with connections, mercentile interests spanning as far as Naitlan, Arkglenn and New Cain, and even offplane, and, by and large, very few concerns for business ethics beyond what their peers won't let them get away with. Suffice to say if someone were to actually threaten the consortium in a broader way, then an almost inconceivable amount of wealth and power could be brought to bear almost anywhere on Na'Endreth, and many places beyond. Many Consortium members, after all, are not above accepting payment in far more exotic currencies than gold and silver.
Military
As they are not Patriari, (at least, not mostly) the Aspis are not allowed to hold a standing military. It happens frequently enough that someone gets the idea of keeping a large number of mercenaries on a regular retainer, though, that the results are pretty predictable. Either the exorbitant costs of maintaining men-at-arms under imperial pricing standards bankrupts them or kneecaps them as a threat, or the implied threat of a standing army invites a trade war with a rival or a match at the Merchant's Court, or, in exceptional circumstances, if the would-be merchant warlord has managed to avoid either of these, then the Empress herself intervenes, sending either a Lyctore or a Knight Mendicant. No one has lived enough to see if there is a second step to her wrath.
At sea is another story, though. Aspis merchant dromons are fast, agile, and typically well armed, as well as usually outnumbering njortan cogs and Issaby caravels by almost 10 to 1 in sailors. If the need should call for it, the transition between merchant vessel and warship is very fast indeed, and Aspis merchants have committed to blockades and even naval battles on occasion. While dromons can't quite match the firepower of an Issaby carronade, the firethrowers they do mount typically make up for it at the engagement ranges they favor.
Abroad, there is no Pax Thematon to limit the numbers of mercenaries, nor widespread legal protection and price-setting for mercenaries, making it far cheaper to start brushfire wars abroad. This, Aspis merchants are famous for doing, leading to their reputation abroad as little more than an exceptionally rich organized crime group. In all fairness, this isn't really inaccurate, especially given that Aspis does business with a lot of more local thieves guilds and mafias.
Founding Date
Debatably 673 4E
Type
Financial, Merchant League
Alternative Names
The Guild, The Grasping Hand, Silvermen (Derogatory), The Snakes (Derogatory), 'Those Damn Greedy Bastards' (Derogatory), The Pigs (Derogatory), The Imperial Cannibals (Derogatory), Southmen (Derogatory), Southern Vampires (Derogatory)
Government System
Oligarchy
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
Guild Silver, a complicated tethered currency, is manufactured by the Aspis Consortium, and is the primary method by which it does business. Aspis merchants are legally required to accept imperial gold, but do not have to accept a provincial government's currency. They do, typically, unless a group of merchants are making an organized push to destabilize a regional economy in order to accept a greater dependence on Consortium-backed suppliers, or to place pressure on a local government to legalize opium, or marijuana, or any number of the Consortium's vice trades. (Typically, in the latter case, the consortium will begin smuggling efforts in order to acclimate or addict the local populace, so that supply can be withdrawn and the local government blamed if more pressure need be added.)
Notable Members
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