Free Trader
Risky business it is. Not that a merchant's life is ever safe - but a free trader is not even allowed the hope of someone coming to his rescue.Most merchant travel and trade under their nation's flag, be it on land or on the sea. In that they gain the protection of their country's army and ire of its enemies'. A while ago, some daring souls chose to trade one for another and started travelling with no flag whatsoever, hoping that would spare them the dangers of war. Which is surprisingly did, for the most part, allowing some of them to become incredibly wealthy - or end up in some ditch with a sliced throat.
Career
Qualifications
Any person can choose to travel as a free trader, provided their caravan or vessel is not flying any nation's colour. Unsurprisingly, that leads to a fairly common abuse where merchants would travel across the dangerous lands under the proper colours and only taking them off when crossing the border or entering a town. A practice much discouraged by most authorities, and often treated as some sort of criminal conspiracy.
Other Benefits
While they are still subject to road tolls and any local regulations, free traders are generally exempt from many of the "solidarity taxes" and "good will donations" that many nations like to impose upon their subjects. It is also generally considered bad manners to seize free traders' goods, even if they are going from your rival's nation. Sounds great, right? Helped many a people pad down their margins.
Operations
Provided Services
A lot of people, me included, credit free traders with how well the world's economy has been doing lately. I mean, despite all these wars and famines and such - it used to be so much worse before. You would have all borders shut the moment war was declared, and all trade between warring states effectively cease to be. Now a local community can still get the goods they may be in urgent need of, even if that comes at a steep increase in price.
Dangers & Hazards
Now, while soldiers of all major nations are often reminded to act civil with free traders, they are rarely told to actually assist them. You know, different flag and all. So a group of soldiers might very well stand a mere hundred meters away while you are being robbed, and only attempt to "rescue" the goods after all the free traders in the caravan have already been killed. A fact that many bandits are all too aware of, and would often use
Legality
And being robbed is only the start of potential misadventures awaiting an unlucky free trader. They are considered to be a citizen of no country when acting as free traders, which often makes things rather difficult when dealing with local authorities. Who can vouch for your credibility, or threaten with consequences in case of an unjust ruling? Can you even rely on any international treaty if it is old enough to be signed without the concept of free traders in mind? All these questions are still very much being worked out by the lawyers and scholars nowadays.
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