Invisible Fortress:The Guild

The Guild is simultaneously a business enterprise, a trade organization, and a social institution.

As a business, it is a collaborative effort between the most wealthy and influential merchants in Creation to increase that wealth as much as is humanly possible.

As an organization, it oversees standards of weights and measures. Although the Realm and other governments mint their own currencies, The Guild is the reason why those currencies have value in daily use. (They do not, however, have any sway over taxes.)

As an institution, it links distant regions together, employs thousands, and creates a sense of community.

The Guild trades in everything, including drugs (both pharmaceutical and recreational) and slaves, as well as more conventional trade goods. The most profitable drug they move is opium.