Port Karn Agricultural Council
The Port Karn Agricultural Council is a vast, sprawling bureaucracy. It does a lot more than just "agriculture", although that is how it began.
A city's primary concern is food and water. Being at the mouth of one of the largest rivers on the continent, Port Karn didn't really have much of a problem with water. It was a large, growing city, and providing enough food for its burgeoning population had been a struggle. In 464 AFE, in order to make the process of getting food for the masses, Baron Roderick Walters, who was in charge of the barony made up primarily of Port Karn, founded the organization. He needed a one-stop shop for all things food-related, because the collection of groups and interests who had been haphazardly running the food production was a chaotic mess. Some those people running those various institutions were given new jobs in PKAC when those other groups were disbanded. Most, however, had to fend for themselves.
Baron Walters was not kind to them. Part of the issue was the frustratingly bad management that most of them called "good business practices", which favored getting rich over producing enough food. Part was politics--the baron wanted fewer people to control the production of food. In any case, those people who were the most corrupt had a hard time getting new jobs in Port Karn.
The new Agricultural Council was tasked with organizing the vast collection of plantations, farms, orchards, woodlots, and pastures, figuring out a crop rotation schedule, and figuring out how to get all of those harvests into the city and surrounding settlements. It wasn't easy. It was a huge undertaking. It took years of diplomatic efforts to get a majority of the landowners on board, and another century before ninety percent of them had joined the program. It took another century to get to the current amount of membership, which now stands at 95%. There are always hold-outs.
Over time, PKAC became even more entwined in the politics of the city, sometimes to its detriment. But it also added a few more departments, including education via the Port Karn University of Agriculture, and magic, via its own mage guild. Because of the work that was required, the mage guild focused primarily on Plant and Animal Magics, with a major dose of Enchantment. Without enchanted tools, its mages wouldn't have been able to do what needed to be done to the land.
Today, the PKAC mage guild is the only mage guild in the city that has an Enchantments Division. Most of the time, it is kept busy by the needs of the Ag Council itself, making tools for the relatively large number of farming mages it employs to improve soil, improve harvests, and improve the plants and animals themselves. But it's enchanters are available for other work as well, which keeps them busy such that there is usually a long waiting list.
The Port Karn Agricultural Council has its offices in a complex of buildings in the Old Town section of the city, near the border of Merchant's Heath. It takes up nearly a whole city block, with most of the buildings four or more stories in height. It includes space for the vast array of clerks' offices, records, the university classrooms, and the offices of both the mages' guild and enchantment divisions. The buildings surround a courtyard that is marked by grassy swards and clusters of trees, with benches and tables strategically placed. There are usually food carts available here, as well, mostly catering to the students and clerks who learn and work there.
There is a significant security presence on the campus of buildings. Some are City Guard, but most are private security trained by PKAC. They patrol the city block PKAC is the prime owner of. They often have magical support, much more so than the City Guard could ever afford. For this reason, the thieves' guilds more-or-less ignore this block. The PKAC Security deals very harshly with criminals caught on the premises.
Structure
High Councillor
Councillors (8)
Dept Heads
Managers
Line workers
Members (farmers and farm workers, mainly)
Culture
The mandate is to feed the city. That said, there are still several departments that are profit centers (the mage guild, enchanter division, the university). It is also subsidized by the city government, which pays for most of the work the clerks do. For the most part, the emphasis is on "what's best for the city", with a bit of "can we get rich doing this?" It's not greedy, but it does try to turn a bit of a profit, and their culture reflects this.
Public Agenda
To organize the food production of the area.
"Using knowledge to feed the city"
Founding Date
464
Alternative Names
PKAC, "Peacock", Farmer's Guild (this last one is used primarily in the more rural areas)
Training Level
Semi-professional
Veterancy Level
Experienced
Leader
Economic System
Mixed economy
Location
Notable Members
Comments