Overview

Trade is the lifeblood of the Archipelago. While the islands are rich in natural resources, there are precious few sources of metal and only a few islands large and flat enough for large-scale agricultural or industrial centers, making it critical to the Alliance’s continued prosperity that it maintains trading relationships with other nations who can provide metal, food, and finished manufactured goods. Many Captains and Crews are engaged in trade, and it’s a rare Crew that doesn’t have a small shrine to Tekatli, the Saint of Trade and Profit, somewhere for its members to pray to.

While trade is viewed as a vital part of Jadeite culture, money itself is seen as a means to an end — you can buy goods with it or use it to pay for services or experiences, but Corsairs see a pile of gold and lucre as having little value in and of itself besides as a way to keep score. Hoarding coin isn’t quite anathema to them — they can appreciate the desire to have something ready to spend in an emergency — but there’s a cultural inclination towards spending what you have in order to gain from it immediately, whether on a night out on the town, a new outfit, or an investment into your Crew and their ship or equipment.

Trading Customs

Corsairs who are engaging in negotiations over prices, goods, and/or services will pour a shot of Grog for each other and then set them aside, only drinking them once the negotiations are complete. It’s seen as a sign of respect for your “opponent” that you never engage in such negotiations under the influence of alcohol.

Merchant ships fly a black flag with a white spiral painted or stitched onto it as a sign of their allegiance to Tekatli and the pursuit of profit. Merchant Captains and members of a trading Crew will often wear a patch or belt flag with a similar design to indicate that they’re on the lookout for deals and merchandise.

Exports

The Archipelago exports salted fish, beast hides, ivory, exotic woods, coral, Amethran relics, dyes, cocoa, coffee, sugar, salt, a wide variety of spices, and a similarly broad array of tropical fruits. They export only a few manufactured goods, namely ships, candy (including chocolate), scrimshaw art pieces, and of course a wide selection of rum.

The Corsairs are the only regular producers of Royal Ambergris, which they extract from the intestines of the enormous sea serpents that dwell within the Southern Seas.

Imports

Though the seas and jungles of the Archipelago are rich in life, they can’t support massive amounts of agriculture or fishing without suffering ecological degradation, and there are only a few islands large and flat enough to make intensive farming possible. Thus, while the Alliance can be mostly self-sufficient for food, whenever they have the chance the Corsairs import significant amounts of grain and other foodstuffs to enrich their diets.

While there are a few veins of silver and gold running through the mountains of Westreach, the Archipelago is notoriously poor in sources of ore, and the Alliance imports almost all of its iron and bronze, whether as raw ore, ingots, or finished goods.

Interestingly, sailcloth is one of the most critical imports of the Alliance after metal goods. Though the Corsairs have enough sources of cotton that they could, if they were cut off from the rest of the Continent, weave enough sailcloth to keep their ships supplied with it, they’d be pushing their supply lines to the edge in doing so. This makes importing the stuff a much simpler option that’s also less likely to cause the Greensingers to start muttering about the dangers of monocultures and ecological abuse.

Trade Relations

• Aurendale Federation - The Alliance trades a significant amount with the Federation, exchanging the more exotic goods for Dalean wheat and foodstuffs, as well as some of the bows and monster-hunting equipment that the Aurenfolk are renowned for.
• Cerulean League - The League and Alliance have a testy history, as both have jockeyed over the last few centuries for dominance in the Southern Seas and the sea lanes that stretch across the southern edge of the Continent between Sunderwyl in the west and Tomarr in the east. In modern times the two nations have (mostly) stopped sniping at each other over trade disputes, though tensions still occasionally flare up. The Alliance trades furs and other jungle products to the Ceruleans in exchange for metal and the League’s agricultural products such as olive oil and pearls.
• Faen’miir Queendom - The Queendom’s people adore the spices and candies that the Alliance produces. While they don’t have much in the way of raw materials that interest the Alliance, their magical goods and cultural and artistic works are in high demand by the wealthier Corsairs.
• The Grimmwold - Though the Alliance does little direct trade with the folk of the Grimmwold, many of the spices and sugary confections that they trade to Aurenvale end up in Grimmwold dishes.
• Iskaldur Jarldom - The Skaldings only tend to make contact with the Corsairs in the ports of Tomarr, Cerulean, and Faen’miir, but there’s a lively trade between merchants of the two nations. The stone and metal products of Iskaldur are prized by Corsairs, and the spices, furs, and other products extracted from the jungles of the Archipelago fetch high prices back in the Skaldings’ frozen home.
• Kingdom of Rivermark - Like the Grimmwold, Rivermark is only rarely a direct trading partner with the Alliance. Instead, Rivermark wool, textiles, and grain flow south through Aurendale or Vauldan, and Jadefang furs, spices, and fruits flow north along the same trade routes.
• Republic of Sunderwyl - The Republic is a relatively new trading partner for the Alliance, having blocked the pirates from entering Sundland ports for much of their modern history until a few years after the Fairwinds Edict was put into effect. Since then, the Corsairs have found the Sundalfolk to be an odd people on the whole, but one with a wide array of interesting devices, magical goods, and metalwork for sale, and a deep hunger for and curiosity about the natural resources of the Archipelago. However, some of the Corsairs have taken to selling banned alchemical substances in Federation ports, which has led some of the Federation’s politicians to call for a renewed embargo of Jadeite ships…
• Tomarran Clans - The Tomarrans lack forests but have a large amount of silver, gold, and gems and an abundance of craftsfolk skilled at working them, while the Jadefang Peninsula has an abundance of timber and forest resources and a deep and abiding love for shiny objects. The two are not always friendly trading partners, due to the Tomarrans’ instinctive distaste for the Corsairs’ chaotic-seeming behavior, but the two nations have only completely severed diplomatic and trade relations once since the formation of the Alliance, during the lead-up to the Keelhaul War.
• Vauldan Empire - The Alliance was born from the betrayal and destruction of the Empire’s naval forces in the Archipelago, and the Empire has only recently started to treat the Alliance as something other than a cancer on the southern coast of the Continent. The passing of the Fairwinds Edict and the stamping out of piratical behavior by the Admiralty was a start to positive relations between the two powers, but it has only been in the last century that the two nations have started to legalize trade. Smugglers, of course, had been enabling trade since before the Betrayal and the formation of the Alliance, but with the opening of formal trade relations there has been a growing trade in foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and jungle and maritime products between the two nations in the last few decades.