Settlements that aspire to become major powers in the river kingdoms will be competing to attract harvesting / refining / crafting focused companies. The big settlements will have “inhouse” crafters, but convincing a neutral group of skilled crafters to affiliate with your settlement will greatly increase your military and economic power. Buildings will get completed faster, equipment will be better quality and less expensive, and possibly the DI of the settlement will be improved.
Some settlement affiliations will be chosen because of RP reasons, or personal relationships, but imagine a handful of players that want to form a crafting company, with no real RP restrictions, they just want to build the best stuff, get rich, maybe dabble in harvesting or retail, but don’t have the numbers or organization to start a settlement of their own.
What would this neutral crafting group look for in a settlement?
-Safety for their members, they don’t want to get attacked or assassinated all the time.
-Access to raw materials needed for crafting, inexpensive sources and stable sources are a bonus.
-Markets for their goods, some companies will want stable markets, others will prefer the opportunities for profit that fluctuating prices levels will bring.
-Access to the training buildings and crafting buildings that their professions require.
-Low taxes and few demands on their time and resources made by the settlement.
Lets imagine some hypothetical settlements, how effectively could they attract these crucial affiliated companies?
Lawful Good – the “nice guys”
Pros: controlled hexes likely to be relatively safe and patrolled. Likely to have friendly relationships with neighboring hexes, and to establish secure trade routes. Likely to have a high DI allowing them to build adequate training and crafting facilities. Likely to have stable access to raw materials and markets. Likely to have a ready pool of trustworthy caravan guards and merchants.
Cons: May need to have high taxes to afford the protections and maintain the settlement. May forbid some alignments from entering the settlement, which would reduce potential market size. Likely to have multiple crafting groups, increasing competition and reducing profit margins.
Lawful Evil – the “despots”
Pros: controlled hexes likely to be highly regulated and protected from banditry. Likely to grant a monopoly to favored companies and aggressively protect them. Able to call on a skilled military to force access to raw materials.
Cons: likely to be NBSI, which will reduce access to markets and raw materials. Less likely to have cordial relationships with neighbors. Raw materials not able to be gathered in controlled hexes will be expensive. Laws, regulations and taxes likely to change with little notice. State-enforced monopolies are great if you hold the monopoly, but terrible if you are the new guy trying to join.
Chaotic Good – “freedom”
Pros: low regulation provides opportunity for large profits, easy for the new company to compete with established groups. Likely to have access to a wide range of potential markets, as the groups that can’t access the lawful settlements will come here to trade. Likely to have low taxes.
Cons: Less stability, could easily see wild market fluctuations. Controlled hexes are less likely to be safe, protection of the crafters will be their own responsibility instead of the settlements. Relationships with neighbors and status of trade routes likely to change abruptly. May not have enough DI for the best buildings.
Neutral Evil – the “black market”
Pros: potential for great profit, could get cheap raw materials that are stolen instead of gathered. Tolerance for use of undead and slaves to aid crafting. Prices for finished goods likely to be high, as residents can’t access other markets.
Cons: controlled hexes likely to be unsafe. Settlement encourages banditry, cost of protection high. Access to raw materials often sporadic, especially if the settlement is unable to establish trade routes or is the target of a merchant boycott.
I’m not going to consider Chaotic Evil, as I don’t think any of them will make it to the top tier of powerful settlements, they will be minor players on the outskirts of the wilderness.
Conclusion:
I think the Lawful settlements are the most attractive for a crafting group. The Lawful Evils likely establish one official crafting group and give them a monopoly. To me, the Lawful Good looks like the best choice for a crafting company to use as their home base. They can stay nice and secure, get steady access to raw materials, and make occasional well-protected trips to the CG or NE settlements looking for good deals or to unload finished products at high prices, or let the more daring merchant companies do it for them.
Could difficulty in recruiting affiliated crafting companies be a significant drawback to a CG or NE settlement?
Am I wrong in the assumption that settlements will be competing to attract the crafters and merchants?
Do you think there are more advantages to basing a crafting company out of a NE settlement that I overlooked?
What could a non-LG settlement offer that would make them attractive home bases for crafting companies?
Goblin Squad Member
