Sunset Organization
Structure
- Council of Shares: Vote-weighted board; seats purchased, negotiated, or earned via performance contracts.
- First Share: Rotating chair; sets agenda, breaks ties, controls emergency credit lines.
- Directorate: Finance, Routes, Cartography, Warehousing, Security, Intelligence (each led by a Share-appointed Director).
- Regional Cells: Sunfall Prefects oversee city branches, bonded warehouses, and franchise halls.
- Fronts & Arms: Inkspire Cartography Halls (public), Bonded Caravans (logistics), Sunset Ledger (banking/letters of credit), Quiet Office (compliance/intel).
Culture
Pragmatic, precise, and discreet. Members prize audited results over rhetoric, keep double-entry ledgers and triplicate proofs, and follow the house code: neutral in public, decisive in private. Information is treated as currency; leaks are career-ending. Dress is functional—ink-safe fabrics, ledger cords, signet seals—favoring muted ochres, slate, and charcoal.
Public Agenda
Standardize maps and measures, stabilize trade lanes, reduce brigandage through bonded routes, and extend reliable credit to merchants and nobles alike. Present as a neutral utility that “keeps the empire moving.”
Assets
Inkspire Cartography Halls (octagonal public houses) in major cities; bonded warehouses; caravan permits and escorts; master map plates and cipher overlays; countinghouses and letter-of-credit networks; survey gear (mundane and arcane contracts with guard companies; blacksteel-reinforced treasuries; internal courier web.
History
Born from post-conflict trade collapses, seven market houses pooled capital and route rights to prevent price shocks and bandit choke points; their map guild (later Inkspire) became the linchpin. Over decades they absorbed countinghouses, codified bonded caravans, and introduced standardized scrip. The Council of Shares emerged as profits and risk diversified, with the First Share created to coordinate crises. Public neutrality and private leverage became their hallmark.
Technological Level
Advanced arcane cartography; enchanted light tables; cipher wheels; True Meridian calibration gear; expertise in safe handling of pretech mechanisms.
Foreign Relations
Public neutrality with all districts; private leverage via credit, permits, and information brokerage (works with—but not for—the Royal Court).
Laws
Bonded Caravan Code; Map Certification Statute; Non-Disclosure & Client-Privacy Charter; penalties include fines, share forfeiture, blacklisting, and contract seizure.
Agriculture & Industry
Industries include cartography & plate-etching, logistics/warehousing, banking/letters of credit, pretech salvage brokerage, ink-alchemy.
Trade & Transport
Standardizes routes; runs bonded caravans, courier relays, and warehouse networks; sells certified maps, permits, and insurance.
Education
Apprenticeships in cartography, logistics, ink-alchemy, ciphercraft; merit exams for clerks and surveyors.
Infrastructure
Octagonal Inkspire halls (open-oculus atria), bonded warehouses, countinghouses, courier stables, ridge waystations, optical signal lines.
“Control the flow, conceal the source.”
Type
Alliance, Economic
Alternative Names
Sunset Alliance; The Sunset; SO; The Ledger; Golden Hour (slang Inkspire Syndicate (colloq.).
Predecessor Organizations
Demonym
Sunsetters (general members Sunfall Prefects (regional directors Inkspire Cartographers (front-guild staff).
Leader
Ruling Organization
Leader Title
Founders
Head of Government
Major Exports
Certified regional/military/trade maps, route permits, letters of credit, bonded storage rights, intelligence overlays (restricted).
Major Imports
Field journals and survey data, parchment and inks, plate copper/voidglass, salvaged pretech components.
Location
Controlled Territories
Related Species
Related Ethnicities
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