While searching to try to bring more of our history to the Knowledge of wealth, we came across this scroll written by Iota, an old guide of the Merchant Guild. As you can tell from the writing here, this goes back to roughly the early to mid-30’s of King Yuri’s reign. We also learn the true first uniform of the Guild. Now onto this great scroll.
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The Merchant Guild History and Attire
The history of the Merchant’s is both a grand tale and a tragic story. The Circle, which has struggled and grown over time to become the honored path of today, hasn’t always been so. Sadly, due to it’s own troubled past, and to some quite unexpected natural disasters, much of our early records have been lost. The followin is a short overview compiled mostly from old and slightly damaged scrolls. Please note that even though it mainly deals with the attire and dress codes, it also sheds some understandin on how we have changed, and perhaps even a few hints as to why…
Our history is a simple one though parts have been added by many different people. The Merchant path, first formed by Tswolf, was begun to help control the flow of money and trade in the kingdoms. Over time we have expanded from this and have improved much in doing so. The first Merchants held greed and lust of money in their hearts. Because of this, times for a Merchant where tough. They couldn’t seem trust each other as a family, nor did they treat each other as brother and sister should. Seeking a solution to this problem, a dress code was put into affect to help unite them as one.
The first uniforms of the Merchants were a simple merchant armor dyed red. The Merchant also always carried with him a long spear. Durin this time, Orb still walked the land and a long spear was a rare Sonhi drop. The shatterin was about to begin and money was not as easy to get as it is today.
Movin ahead in time we come to the next Elder RogueShawn. He was a wise man who saw that the Merchants needed a weapon…but what weapon to pick? There was a huge debate over which to pick and finally, it was the plain Wicked Staff which came out as the new Merchant Staff. The reasons for this were many. First, it was an unagressive weapon. Secondly, it showed that your half-way to the wisdom of 99, and lastly the flame of the staff is eternal just as the guild it was to represent.
Movin ahead again we come to the Elder Kalaman. Our older Walkers know this name very well. He was the first Elder to enforce the rule that the Wicked Staves were to be engraved Merchant Staff. This was a great idea and was very easy to do. But with it came draw-backs. Some people fell victim to their own greed and sold their staves off or lost them in death piles. Therefore, these newly engraved staves were soon found around the community in hands other than Merchants. Kalaman, stepping down as Elder, passed this problem to the path’s new Elder, Shace.
Now with Shace as Elder she decided it was time for change in the staff. There was a vote taken from the current Merchants to make the staff a Star-Staff. The idea was to stop those who lied about droppin their staff in death piles by usin a fragile staff which would break upon death. The only draw-back to this plan was that everytime a staff would break, the Merchant must now find a Guide to Engrave another. At that time, there were only around four workin Guides. The demand for the engravin of staves were simply too much work for the path. Shace saw this new problem and moved the staff back to the Wicked Staff, but with one change. The staff must now be engraved with Merchant’s name on his/her staff. The credit to the name on the staff actually goes to Guide Lightwolf as it was his plan. Belgrad, bein a young walker at this time, was the first Merchant to have his name engraved on his staff. This was the birth of the Merchant stave as we know it today.
-Iota