Guild of Goldspinners

The Guild of Goldspinners is an order that will provide gold in exchange for pledges.

Background

For humans and changelings alike, money is an ever-present problem; for changelings especially, as freehold business can make holding down a 9-to-5 job difficult. The Guild of Goldspinners help mitigate this by providing gold to their clients in exchange for a pledge, leveling the economic playing field for those willing to pay the price. Those unwilling to pay that price in the end find that disaster befalls them. Changelings, as such, are easier for the Guild to work with, since the Lost understand the power in bargains.

Joining and Membership

Prerequisites: Wyrd 2, Crafts 2 + Specialties: Textiles and Smithing, Mantle (Spring)
Title: Rumpelstiltzkin, Goldspinner

The Guild is cautious about potential applicants. Their first criterion is membership in the Spring Court, due to the order’s heavy focus on desire — and preferably mastery over the same. The common challenge given to a potential applicant is “Show me what riches are worth to you.” There are many potential answers to this question: some offer to do whatever it takes for riches, others destroy something valuable as a sign that wealth has no power over them. But the proper answer is to show the Goldspinners an investment of some kind. To be a member of the Guild, one must demonstrate that the purpose of riches isn’t to have things; it is to affect change in or gain favors from others.

Many of the Goldspinners, prior to being taken to Arcadia, were fabulously wealthy and joined to regain their lost wealth. Others, much like those within the Satrapy of Pearls, started out life dirt poor and seek to help others in a way they never were helped. Regardless of background, Rumpelstiltzkins are skilled financiers, with a strong sense of personal responsibility.

Privileges

• Gildwheel (•••): A Gildwheel is an enchanted spinning wheel, claimed by a changeling by investing a Willpower dot into it — without this investment, the Gildwheel does not function. According to custom, every Goldspinner carves his initials or personal sign on his wheel. Some old Gildwheels are covered in markings, but most only have a few, as they’ve more recently drifted from the Hedge in accord with the old, secret pacts that founded the Guild. Once claimed, the Goldspinner always knows where it is. When a properly bonded changeling puts fiber to the wheel he can spin gold into unnatural looking strands called “Sif’s Hair.” Any decent smith can melt and beat it this thread into bars, coins and jewelry. Once the Goldspinner starts to work the wheel, it puts out Sif’s Hair at an exponential rate, producing one Resource dot’s worth per day, to a maximum number of dots equal to the changeling’s Wyrd (or a non-changeling’s equivalent trait). Mortals can spin one Resource dot’s worth of gold. Of course, these other users need to mind the Token’s catch (see below). A Gildwheel’s bonded owner can’t spend Gildwheel gold. If she tries, it dissolves into thread and dust immediately.
  Action: Standard
  Mien: The Gildwheel takes on a golden shine, as if it’s been well-polished and is just the right color to reflect rich, yellow light.
  Drawback: If unsanctified by a pledge, the gold turns into crudely painted and glued yarn a day after it is used in an economic transaction. The Wyrd draws the swindled individual’s attention to the “gold”.
  Catch: The Gildwheel can be used by others by soaking the fibers to be spun in freshly-wrung human or changeling blood — specifically, from the heart. Naturally, anyone hoping to use the wheel needs skill with real spinning wheels.

• Gildwheel Pledges: Permanent gold can be made by way of pledges.
  Type: Corporal Oath upon the Gildwheel, a Title Emblem
  Tasks: Endeavor, Lesser (-1) for Gildwheel’s user; creating the pledge’s boon is the Goldspinner’s task, so it’s pretty easy. Both parties agree to transfer a set amount of spun gold, measured in Resource dots. This gold does not change after it’s used — it lasts forever unless the Goldspinner spends it, in which case it turns into the same dull muck as it normally would. (Giving the gold to the other party in the pledge doesn’t count as spending it.) The other party negotiates her own task with the Goldspinner. This task must have a value at least equal to the Resources dots’ worth of gold she’s getting from the deal.
  Boon: Blessing (Resources dots in gold only — variable). This takes the form of enough Sif’s Hair that, when worked into a saleable form, would bring in money equal to the negotiated Resources dots. It’s up to the recipient to sell the gold to get the negotiated Resources dots. These dots are not added to the recipient’s current Resources, so bargaining for less gold than one’s Resources dots is usually a waste of time, unless the recipient plans to give it to someone else. As a courtesy, the Guild customarily works the Sif’s Hair into saleable form, but anybody with the requisite skill could do it.
  Sanction: Variable. Desperate clients have been known to accept terrible sanctions to drive down the value of the task they need to perform. Goldspinners try to minimize their risks whenever possible.
  Duration: Variable, though the payout in gold is immediate and is not replaced if lost or stolen.
  Invocation: 1 Willpower (both). By investing a Willpower dot in the Gildwheel, the Goldspinner avoids Willpower dot costs, should they arise.

Gallery

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  Goldspinner

References

• CTL: Lords of Summer, p. 130-133