The Golden Alliance is largest merchant’s guild on Athania. They have guild halls in most major cities and towns across the lands. The Golden Alliance seeks to dominate and control trading in all areas of the known world. Its members regard ethics as a gray area, even financing brigand activity and piracy to weaken other guilds. They have also secured, through lucrative deals and outright bribery, the protection and advocacy of many high-ranking public officials, although their political philosophy really amounts to the idea that trade should be unfettered by both laws and taxation in the quest for ever-higher profits. The Golden Alliance is in league with the church of Kuvern, the God of merchants, money and wealth. Whether the Alliance is an affiliated sect of the church, or it is “partners-in-crime” with them, only few would know. The Alliance has been known to deal in both illicit and legitimate dealings with nations and kings to secret societies and scoundrels. They deal in the free markets, and the black markets. If something can make a profit, the Golden Alliance will use it.
