Ikthibar Consortium
Let others dream, We build our Fortune
~Motto of the Ikthibar Consortium
Aside from the Desert Rose University, the Bennain Guildhall and the Taqadum School of Technomancy, there are numerous merchant guilds, political conglomerates and artisan co-operatives scattered through the diaphanous layers of Shal’Azura’s social stratosphere, but for all the city’s ostentatious gilding—those iridescent bridges and crystalline minarets—there remained an undertow of ruthless competition.
The current powerhouse among the merchants, their headquarter a labyrinthine hall of rare silver marble, is the Ikhtibar Consortium, led by the cunning Shanaq the Blue-Fingered.
Second only to the University in influence and, there are whispers they have power over the Erudite Triad's resolutions, the Ikhtibar cultivated a reputation of being dour, but in the right company, no one could out-feast them in their own banquet rooms, nor outmaneuver them on the trading floor, and their research expeditions and resource outposts always seem to find the perfect locations for maximum profit.
There are not only many alumni of the three high-level educational institutions of Shal’Azura among the upper echelon of the Consortium, Shanaq the Blue-Fingered has even managed to poach two former Deans from the University itself.
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