Questhaven: The Honorable Order of Theurgic Master Craftsmen

The Honorable Order of Theurgic Master Craftsmen

Some cities trade is silks, some in salt, others deal in slaves, and still others in simple food stores. The city of Questhaven’s foremost trade good however is magic. Driven primarily The Evocative City’s ruling class the Questor’s Society or what the common folk call “Adventurers.” The Questor’s Society represents less than one percent of the city’s population yet they possess ninety nine percent of its wealth, and the one trade good they place value on are vessels of eldritch and divine might. What developed in the early days of the Council of Heroes that governs that Questor’s Society to help control this most precious of commodities was a government sponsored organization that has evolved into The Honorable Order of Theurgic Master Craftsmen,

This independent craftsmen’s guild holds an iron grip on the most profitable trade good in the city, several of their members belong to the Questor’s Society and the order’s Grandmaster, Mystic Theurgist Romtinel of Our Lord of Secrets and Spells sits on the Council of Heroes. This mysterious and secretive cabal is rumored to have dealings with both the Great Church of the Pantheon and the Scriptoriums of Our Lord of Secrets and Spells.

By law one cannot sell a magical item within the city without gaining the approval of, or membership in the order, taxes on these sales are paid to the Questor’s Guild, along with dues owed to the Order. The Honorable Order of Theurgic Master Craftsmen does not discriminate against membership for any reason, if a being has access to, or can create magical items the order will do business with them. This includes giants, dragons, devils, demons, angels, oni, jinn, lichs, and other fell beings from the lightless lands beneath the earth.

The operations of the Order follow a complex operating code that governs their sales as imposed by the laws the Council of Heroes has passed down along with the long term economic interests of the craftsmen, primarily for customer this means the order control s the availability of items, their costs, curtailing certain items that they will not sell and certain people they will not sell too (mostly limited to individuals who have offended the order).

Also do to the complex operational code that the order operates under the salesmen is given a long list of knowledge from the diviner about the customer long before they are allowed into the showroom. As such any product brought out for display will not be inappropriate for their level regardless of the customer’s actual wealth. This has more to do with the Council of Hero’s control over the Questor’s Society than with the concerns of the order but they have found it to be very profitable in the long term as adventures are forced due their government enforced monopoly to buy and sell items only through them.

In the Theurgic Craft’s Hall the functioning store front for the order only a single customer is allowed beyond its foyer at any time. In the foyer one can see obvious signs of security with various types of unique golems functioning as the doorwardens and divinesr who require customers not to resist their spell casting lest they be denied entry. They use these spells some of which are custom divinations to learn all they can about their customer, the customers finances, and how a sale here will affect future transactions.

One benefit of this set up has been the tendency of the craftsmen to use this information to create custom items for specific members of the Questor’s Guild, they are able to make this profitable simply be refusing to sell the individual any other items until they purchase the custom item, the quality and usefulness and status of these custom items has actually made this tactic popular, rather than causing resentment amongst members of the society.

This is not so say there are not those renegades who simply don’t care about the loss of access to the order’s creations; there have been the rare attempts at theft and even one outright raid by a renegade fellowship of adventurers. From these it was learned it provides for its own security which include extradimensional safeholds, and that all of the items here can be used in the defense of the facility, that all of the unsold items have tracer spells attached to them, the tracer spells being girded so that they are very difficult to remove, along with an invisible guardian monster whose attacks did not reveal its true appearance.

The Honorable Order of Theurgic Master Craftsmen is not entirely limited to its guild hall when dealing with high value customers, will often send an agent to continue close ties, relations, custom orders, information about caches of items, estate auctions, purchasing items from other sellers, if a person is to be entombed with an item, and even what items are contained in which monster’s hoard. The order occasion uses member of the Questor’s Society to retrieve or escort items with the members being paid in commissioned work.