Faction symbol/insignia: Two hands shaking in front of a trade vessel, that looks typical of those used to transport goods by sea. The ship is depicted as if seen from the front, and has a single large sail visible.
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The Wayfarer's Union's membership base can be divided into three categories: the merchants, artisans, and craftsmen that make up its members; the three delegate families that essentially own the Union; and the workers they employ to operate the Union's Offices and its services.
@@ -41,8 +41,8 @@ dateCreated: 2023-01-06T16:54:37.763Z
Re-implementing the old assembly with its hundreds of delegates is also no longer a straight-forward task, even if the assembly still technically exist with its three members. The distinctions between the old guilds have been so eroded over time as to make it hard to even determine what portion of today's Union belongs to which of the historical guilds. Cities who used to have multiple guilds now have a unified operation under whichever of the three families control it, making it close to impossible to determine what would belong to what guild. The Union has also expanded since the three families took control, with it being unclear whether the new locations would act as separate guilds in the assembly. The notion of who would get to vote for each delegate is also unclear, as members of today recruited as direct members of the Wayfarer's Union itself, and not members of a guild within the Union.
In simple terms: the procedures around incorporating new guilds, expansion of current guilds, and the overall procedures of the assembly have been unused for so long as to have eroded to the point of requiring a make-over before being implementable again.
The Wayfarer's Union of today operates as a large business jointly owned by three families who are both partners and rivals. They each thus operate their own geographic section of the Union mostly independently, cooperating and negotiating where necessary to maintain the Union's image of being a large, strong, and united force. They of course maintain these partnership due to it being beneficial in their own endeavors — but also because they fear cracks in the Union's perceived unity could cause a cascading effect that could threaten to tear the Union itself apart. They three families are at the same time rivals who try to grab territory from one another.
-Each of the union's three “owning families” operate the Union through a number of Union Offices — many of which used to be guild halls that belonged to the historical guilds. These are all staffed by people employed and salaried by the family who controls said area. Each of these locations operate similar to what one would expect of a guild: providing support, training, and loans to its members; providing benefits and assistance during hardships; setting fair prices for goods; negotiate deals with suppliers and customers; enforcing standards for quality and craftmanship, and so on. The difference here is that each office acts as a business providing these benefits, rather than the members themselves pooling their funds together to provide it for themselves.
-Each Union Office is typically lead by a single representative whose directly employed by one of the three owning families. He'll/She'll then appoint their own assistants, managers, accountants, receptionists, inspectors, warehouse workers, and so on. This leaves the door for each of these locations potentially becoming the new “guilds” should the Union ever re-introduce a proper delegate assembly Each of the three owning families also have their own massive headquarters from which they control and operate their portion of the Union. These locations tend to have a large number of employees holding similar positions as those mentioned for the Union Offices.
+Each of the union's three “delegate families” operate the Union through a number of Union Offices — many of which used to be guild halls that belonged to the historical guilds. These are all staffed by people employed and salaried by the family who controls said area. Each of these locations operate similar to what one would expect of a guild: providing support, training, and loans to its members; providing benefits and assistance during hardships; setting fair prices for goods; negotiate deals with suppliers and customers; enforcing standards for quality and craftmanship, and so on. The difference here is that each office acts as a business providing these benefits, rather than the members themselves pooling their funds together to provide it for themselves.
+Each Union Office is typically lead by a single representative whose directly employed by one of the three delegate families. He'll/She'll then appoint their own assistants, managers, accountants, receptionists, inspectors, warehouse workers, and so on. This leaves the door for each of these locations potentially becoming the new “guilds” should the Union ever re-introduce a proper delegate assembly Each of the three delegate families also have their own massive headquarters from which they control and operate their portion of the Union. These locations tend to have a large number of employees holding similar positions as those mentioned for the Union Offices.
Members still pay a portion of their income as a fee for being members of the Union. A portion of this goes directly to whichever of the three families own the Union Office where said member pays their fee. The rest is split between the Union Office, the headquarter of said delegate family, and the Union as a whole. The portions that go to the Union Office, the delegate headquarter, or the Union as a whole technically belong to the Union, and are therefore not directly available for use as personal funds. Though, since the three remaining delegates technically control the Union's rules and regulations, they have the power to overturn this when they want.