Ramoros Customhouse

Ramoros Customhouse is the Ramoran headquarters and westernmost outpost of the Commercial Guilds who operate in the Eleven Cities surrounding the Sea of Jars. It is noted within the organisation for an interesting combination of institutional orthodoxies and local idiosyncracies.    

Location

  Ramoros Customhouse is a compound of buildings located at the southern end of the city's port district, centred around the building that was once the city's temple to Zargyod. Zargyod appears to have initially been revered in pre-Wesmodian Ramoros as a god of the sea, as in Halumay and Oluz, though the temple, built on the waterfront in something of the northern style, underwent extensive renovations during the period in which Ramoros came under the influence of the Chogyan Hegemony, with the god increasingly seen as concerned with wealth and good fortune rather than marine matters. Interestingly, sources attest the existence of a large statue in the open plaza at the northern size of the temple of Morogyad sitting cross-legged on a disc-shaped object. This may well be the stone disc said to be partially preserved in the The Ramoros Fragments embedded in the cliff-face above the port district. The statue was removed at some unspecified point during or after the Wesmodian Reformation, though its circular plinth remains.   The Reformation saw the temple was stripped of much of its wealth and fall into disrepair as its priesthood focused on their new role as the emerging Commercial Guilds. Throughout the first two centuries AWR the temple was neglected and became a haunt of squatters. It was only around a hundred years ago that the Ramoran Guilders, by then a well-established institution in the city, began to seriously investigate the tumbledown wreck of a temple around which they had established their network of facilities. Appalled at the state it was in, they chased off the squatters and spent a great deal of money refurbishing it, essentially rebuilding the entire building in a style strongly reminiscent of the customhouse buildings in Chogyos and Elpaloz - a move that modern thaumatologists have decried as well-intentioned vandalism.  

Facilities

  Ramoros Customhouse fulfils the same purpose as the other Guild Customhouses around the Sea of Jars. The central temple building serves as a meeting place for merchants and speculators and is noted as one of the most ideosyncratically gaudy public spaces in the Eleven Cities. It is a semicircular building (unlike other southern temples to Zargyod, which tended to be much more semi-eliptical) with a collonnaded front facing north-east with a view across the harbour and hour into the open sea. Its floor, ceiling and internal curved wall are all set with ceramic tiles glazed an attractive sea-green colour, with many featuring marine motifs such as crabs, ships, waves and octopuses. These motifs are only very occasionally coloured differently from the prevailing green of the tiles, and indeed are largely indistinct unless specifically looked for; someone walking across the floor is unlikely to notice them as anything more than an irregular texturing of the tiles, but were they to stoop and pay attention a huge pictorial ocean would quickly become apparent. No catalogue of these tiles exists and the work is not credited to any known artisan (or group thereof), but the stylistic kinship with the Morogyad pieces has been observed by those who have had the privilege of seeing those artefacts up close. Less fortunate observers simply praise the overall effect as agreeably weird.   Copper Guilders circulate in this space from dawn until dusk, making introductions and facilitating discussions. Those who wish to conduct their dealings in private may speak to a Guilder and, if they can make a case for the need for privacy (or are simply a known and trusted patron of the Customhouse) be escorted to one of several richly-appointed private suites in the adjacent buildings. There food and wine are provided and music performed, if desired, while the Guilders work to further the discussions. Sufficiently interesting business opportunities are known to produce investment from Guild coffers, although unlike those in Elpaloz the Guilders in Ramoros have a strict policy of never lending money or responding to request for investment; such involvement is initiated only from the Guilds themselves, at private meetings and after considerable discussion behind closed doors in the network of offices and archives which exist around the temple.   Located in the compound is the Guild treasury, where most of the Guild honours in the Eleven Cities are minted and stored prior to being absorbed into the money supply by being used to cover guild expenses. The size and complexity of this operation, mostly delegated to the robust local contingent of the Minters of Metal, precludes secrecy, and unlike the treasuries of most other local Guildhouses the location of the mint is general local knowledge. It is also one of the most secure locations in the Eleven Cities, possessing re-enforced walls, barred windows and a compliment of heavily-armed guards, all Guilders of Iron rank who are, by reputation at least, lavishly paid in order to forestall corruption.   Much of the rest of the compound is given over to the bureaucracy involved in collecting duties and tolls on goods coming into the port of Ramoros. Unlike in Chogyos, the Guilds do not actually run the city, but only in Chogyos do they have stronger influence as to how the city is run, collecting government tolls as well as their own and passing the proceeds to the community in a complex arrangement scrupulously kept track of by a noticeably bottom-heavy staff of Copper and Tin Guilders. In some other cities this arrangement is a source of low humour about corruption and pilfering, though such jokes never go over well in Ramoros, where the Guilds are a well-established and highly-regarded institution.   Guilders of Copper rank or below, including a sizeable complement of indentured Lead Guilders, reside in a cloistered building at the inland end of the compound. The two quadrangles of this building feature famously tranquil and well-regarded gardens. Guilders of higher ranks live in appropriately grand residences off-site.  

Institutional structure and culture

Ramoros Customhouse follows the structure dictated by The Book of Favour. A Gold-ranked Guilder directs affairs with the advice of two Silver Guilders, who pass directives on to a dozen or so Copper Guilders. These senior figures then conduct the business of the Guilds with the aid of a much larger staff of Iron and Tin-ranked operatives. It is the Tin Guilders that do most of the legwork of the guild, notably boarding ships and cataloguing their cargo for the purposes of tallying payable duties. Unless the ships they visit are captained by mariners known to be in good and co-operative standing with the Guilds - in which case Copper Guilders may conduct the work as a gesture of humility and respect - these assayers will be accompanied by Iron Guilders armed and acting as bodyguards. In such instances, the traditional order of command is reversed, with the Iron guards taking orders from their Tin-ranked colleagues.   The drudge-work at Ramoros Customhouse is performed, as usual, by Lead Guilders. Most such workers are indentured, though not all, and Ramoros Customhouse has a long-standing tradition of treating its lowest-ranked members (indentured or not) very well. Whereas other customhouses often consign their Lead operatives to barrack-like dormitories, in Ramoros they receive equal accommodations to Iron and Tin Guilders, and commands issued to them are almost invariably phrased as polite requests. This has led to a contented, laid-back, almost egalitarian ambience within the institution; critics of the Guilds, of whom there are many, wonder if this is anything more than a charade.