The Saddleborn Guild
"If it walks, runs, flies, or hauls, we've trained it, tamed it, or sold it." -Mantra of the Saddleborn Guild.
The Saddleborn Guild is the pulse in Everwealth’s veins, every hoofbeat, wingbeat, and wagon-axle turns at their pleasure. They train courier birds and warbeasts, run ferries and caravans, and lease the muscle that drags the kingdom from one crisis to the next. That public face, reins steady, ledgers neat, hides a harder truth, the roads belong to whomever the Saddleborn allow upon them. Rivals speak of “accidents” on mountain passes and mysteriously broken prototypes whenever non-animal transport threatens their grip. No proof, only wreckage. Their web runs wider than stables and tack. With The Merchant's Consortium, they coordinate “officially” to keep trade alive under siege, routing Manhunter Beetles beetles through dunes and Lanternwings couriers over highlands, while “unofficially” their uninspected wagons become the perfect darkroom for contraband, forbidden reagents, sealed relics, and crates that are never recorded on a dockmaster’s slate. The Scholar's Guild favors . Saddleborn teams as well; scholars book seats on quiet night runs, shadow “groundbreaking” expeditions, and spirit discoveries away before gossip hardens into history outside of their control.
In tavern slang the Saddleborn are called the Guild’s legs and the Consortium's s spine, because the legs carry what the spine refuses to drop. And then there is the traffic no one names on the manifest. In a kingdom where chains are counted like coin, Saddleborn routes are the arteries of the the flesh trade. Hush money buys silence; “valuable packages” ride in padded wagons with forged stories ready for gate-guards, indenture here, prisoner transfer there, until the auction block makes the lie into law. A handler who delivers such cargo learns which checkpoints to avoid and which captains prefer their bribes in coin, not questions. Ask a city watchman how the wagons slipped through and he’ll show you a stamped pass and a sealed crest and swear it was all in order. So the Guild remains indispensable and untouchable in the same breath: saviors when storms close the roads, predators when profit opens them. Hire them and your message arrives. Cross them and your wheels break on a dry road. Watch their caravans long enough and you’ll learn one of Everwealth’s many quiet lessons, whatever moves, the Saddleborn already sold it a saddle, and if it breathes, someone has already paid to see where it goes.
Career
Qualifications
Training begins at the stables, handling dung before reins. Apprentices must prove endurance, empathy with animals, and logistical skill. Familiarity with Everwealth’s beasts and basic veterinary knowledge are required before formal rank is granted.
Career Progression
Apprentices ascend to Riders or Ferrymen, then to Handlers or Couriers. The most talented become Guildmasters, overseeing regional halls. A rare few become Saddlebearers, those entrusted with binding contracts with foreign lands or managing Guild security. Though most Saddleborn rise through sweat and saddle sores, a few leapfrog their peers through more… intellectual routes. The Scholar's Guild often places apprentices or Masters as “observers” within Saddleborn caravans, ostensibly to map routes or record animal behavior. In practice, these scholars shadow shipments of interest, ensuring relics, ruins, or rumors that might rewrite history never slip past the Guild’s notice. A ferryman who proves reliable at looking the other way may find his career accelerated by the sudden favor of both Saddleborn and scholar alike.
Payment & Reimbursement
Members are paid per haul, beast trained, or couriered package. Warbeast trainers and elite couriers command high coin, while public transporters earn modest but steady pay. Coin is the visible wage; secrets are the invisible one. In some contracts, Saddleborn ferrymen earn double not for the weight of goods hauled, but for the information carried quietly in ledgers sent back to Guild colleges. Which adventurers departed where, which merchants purchased exotic creatures, which villages whispered of buried ruins, all of it becomes data, monetized not in Everwealth’s markets but in the Guild’s vaults.
Other Benefits
Free access to mounts, preferential treatment at inns and stables, and discounts at blacksmiths or armorers for beast gear. Elite members are gifted tailored saddles and personalized reins forged by affiliated crafters. Some handlers joke that the greatest perk of the Guild is not the free saddle but the “listening ear of a Lorekeeper.” Scholars pay handsomely for routes no map shows, for whispers about explorers who found “too much.” Those who feed the Guild reliable information find their beasts outfitted with experimental tack, their inns paid in advance, their families kept safe from the harsh hand of tithe-collectors. It is said a Saddleborn with the Scholar’s favor can cross Everwealth unmolested, though such favor is always temporary.
Perception
Purpose
To manage all animal-based transportation across Everwealth. To breed, train, trade, and protect the creatures that keep the kingdom moving
Social Status
Respected but rarely loved. The Guild is seen as dependable, but often called “greedy hooves” by the poor due to rising ferry prices; Though most grumble little as these charges are, officially, in-response to the number of guild members along with their cargo, vessels, and passengers alike that tend to disappear braving the miles of unguarded roads. Nobles value their elite carriages and exotic mounts; commoners just hope the Guild will fix broken harness lines before the month ends. The Saddleborn are known for their tolls, but in hushed taverns they are sometimes called “the Guild’s eyes.” Common folk know well that scholars ask too many questions, and where a Saddleborn wagon goes, a Guild pen is never far behind. Some nobles mutter that employing Saddleborn carriages is as good as reporting your affairs directly to Opulence, yet still they ride, because no road is safe without them.
Demographics
History
The Guild traces its roots to pre-Schism beastmasters who ferried messages and refugees across war-torn lands. After the Schism, these families unified under a single banner for survival and efficiency. They negotiated contracts with the monarchy and carved out halls in major cities, slowly evolving into Everwealth’s largest transport syndicate. When the Saddleborn first organized after the Schism, it was out of necessity, not ambition. But their eventual partnership with the Scholar’s Guild transformed them into more than ferrymen. Scholars needed couriers who could traverse war-scarred lands, move artifacts in secret, and vanish inconvenient discoveries into vaults. In return, the Saddleborn gained contracts, protection, and, some say, a near-monopoly enforced as much by scholar’s ink as by horseflesh. Every rival transport guild that faltered in the last century did so shortly after a mysterious fire, a vanished caravan, or an inconvenient tax audit backed by “expert testimony” from Guild savants.
Operations
Tools
Custom saddles, reinforced harnesses, heavy-duty carts, weather-tested reins, beast armor, and scent-based signaling tools for animal training. Some exotic couriers use magickal blink-charms or memory feathers to deliver high-priority messages across regions.
Materials
Beast feed, leathers, medicinal herbs, drag-slings, and containment crates. Guild paperwork includes stable records, transport logs, ferry ledgers, and black-market correspondence (kept hidden).
Workplace
Guildhalls double as stables, inns, and training yards. Each city branch hosts a Master Handler and an armory for equipping mounts. Rural outposts serve as rest points and emergency repair stations.
Provided Services
- Ferry and carriage transport.
- Beast training and rental.
- Courier and message delivery.
- Creature resource sales (eggs, leather, meat, down).
- Beast-mounted security for noble caravans.
Dangers & Hazards
Beast maulings, highway raids, unstable terrain, sabotage from rogue inventors, and internal conflicts with disloyal handlers. There are whispered rumors of “debt silencing” among rival transport pioneers. Beyond beasts and bandits, Saddleborn whisper of another hazard, the quill’s shadow. Caravans caught carrying relics without Guild sanction often never arrive, their wagons found months later stripped of beasts, riders, and record. Survivors insist it is not thieves nor cultists, but “the scholars’ silence” that hunts them. To haul knowledge unsanctioned, it seems, is far more dangerous than to haul gold.
Alternative Names
'The Saddlehand Order', 'The Bridle Chain,' 'Beastringers (derogatory among urban elites).'
Demand
Everwealth’s sprawling lands and dangerous roads ensure perpetual need for trained couriers and battle-beasts. In cities without proper infrastructure, Saddleborn transports are the only way between regions.
Legality
Fully sanctioned by The Monarchy. Often exempt from taxation in exchange for military support during times of siege or conflict. Suspected, though never proven, of sabotaging arcane or mechanical transit alternatives.
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