Kasaal Merchant House

Among the legendary trading consortiums of Shal’Azura, the Kasaal Merchant House retains an aura of ancient pedigree and deep-seated tradition. Their crest—three stalks of ripened wheat twined around a silver weighing scale—might as well be stamped on every bag of flour, every cask of dried lentils, and every length of treated lumber in the city. To most citizens, the Kasaal are the pulse of the city’s mundane existence, overseeing a vast web of agricultural exchange, construction materials, and domestic necessities that keep all districts of the metropolis functioning in silent, unglamorous harmony.   Their membership hails from the sturdy old bloodlines of the city: upright, pious, and publicly committed to the ideals of the Erudite Triad. The Kasaal are the sort who donate to the baths, sponsor public fountains, and ensure every orphanage has a monthly surplus of grain.   And yet, despite all their good work and reputation, there are rumors of an unnamed agency that specializes exclusively in commodities that cannot be openly listed in the city’s trading ledgers; in wares that are forbidden, cursed, or simply too advanced for common hands. Other rumors tell of their long-lived dominance persevering in no small part due to their alliances. Some say the Kasaal’s reach extends through the Taqadum School of Technomancy, where students and professors alike are supposedly indebted to the House for rare components and hush-hush funding of research too controversial for institutional oversight. Others claim the House’s agents regularly associate with the Auctioneers of the Lantern Market, where even the most exclusive bidding wars are said to be orchestrated by Kasaal hands pulling unseen strings. It is even rumored that the Venerate Three themselves tolerate the Kasaal’s existence as an unofficial extension of the city’s intelligence apparatus, allowing them to regulate what would otherwise be uncontrollable flows of technological and esoteric contraband.   The most shocking rumors, of course, are those implicating the Kasaal in acts of outright heresy. Notable members of the Bank Aljaza’ have supposedly heard of whispers that the House once procured, a cache of blasphemous tomes that could have upended the city’s religious orthodoxy. There whereabouts of said books are unknown.   Regardless of those rumors, the Kasaal have an unquestionable reputation and the fact that these rumors have only begun to sprout over the last few years must always be taken into account when weighing fact against fiction.