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BY MICHAEL A. GOODWIN, ERIC MINTON, JOHN MØRKE, NEALL RAEMONN PRICE, HOLDEN SHEARER, DEAN SHOMSHAK,

CHARLES H. SPAULDING, AND ROBERT VANCE

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CREDITSAuthors: Michael A. Goodwin, Eric Minton, John Mørke, Neall Raemonn Price, Holden Shearer, Dean Shomshak, Charles H. Spaulding, and Robert VanceDeveloper: John Mørke with Holden ShearerEditor: Stephen Lea SheppardCreative Director: Rich ThomasArt Direction and Layout: Brian GlassArtists: Tazio Bettin, Groundbreakers Studio and Melissa UranCover Art: Melissa Uran

© 2012 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf and Exalted are registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. Scroll of Exalts, Scroll of Heroes, Scroll of Kings, Scroll of the Monk, Scroll of the Monk the Imperfect Lotus, Scroll of Fallen Races, the Manual of Exalted Power the Dragon-Blooded, the Manual of Exalted Power the Lunars, the Manual of Exalted Power the Sidereals, the Manual of Exalted Power the Abyssals, the Manual of Exalted Power the Infernals, the Manual of Exalted Power the Alchemicals, the Compass of Celestial Directions the Blessed Isle, the Compass of Celestial Directions the Wyld, the Compass of Celestial Directions Yu-Shan, the Compass of Celestial Directions the Underworld, the Compass of Celestial Directions Malfeas, the Books of Sorcery, Wonders of the Lost Age, Oadenol’s Codex, the Roll of Glorious Divinity II, Dreams of the First Age, Masters of Jade and the Second Age of Man are trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by CCP hf.

CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf.The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned.This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature

content. Reader discretion is advised.Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com/

Special Thanks: While this book deviates from Mana-cle and Coin, we nevertheless owe a debt to the vision of Geoffrey C. Grabowski, who used the Guild to show us Creation. I’d also like to thank Allison Cheek for her good taste in movies, and for being my first reader. Also a big thanks to Liz Grushcow for her attention to detail. Lastly to Michael Goodwin, who fought through pain to make his contribution to this book the best it could be.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

CHAPTER ONE: THE GUILD 6

CHAPTER TWO: POINTS OF THE COMPASS 17

CHAPTER THREE: CHAINS OF NO IRON 32

CHAPTER FOUR: A GAME OF MASKS 51

APPENDIX: COUNTED AND WANTING NOT 67

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INTRODUCTION

He was by profession a salesman; that had been his business since his early adolescence. More than his business, his

genius. He prided himself that there was nothing alive or dead he could not find a buyer for. In his time he had been

a raw sugar merchant, a small arms salesman, a seller of dolls, dogs, life-insurance, salvation rags and lighting

fixtures… Amongst this parade of items there had of course been frauds and fakes aplenty, but nothing, nothing that he had not been able to foist upon the public sooner or later,

either by seduction or intimidation.—Clive Barker, Weaveworld

INTRODUCTIONBartering with the supernatural, selling the birthrights

of the Exalted and blazing a trail across the map, the Guild is a merchant enterprise that spans Creation. A union of financial empires backed by mortals with the wealth of titans, the Guild is a massive conglomerate that seeks to dominate world economies. It is an engine of industry that controls the movement of products, from the extraction of raw materials, to construction, to the point of sale. It is

a force for the invention of new trends, new products and services, and a provider of the same. It seeks one thing above all else: profit.

In a world once dominated by the Exalted, the Guild has risen up in the wake of apocalypse to grasp the reins that fell from the hands of dying god-kings. To buy, discover, or steal the greatest power of them all, the Guild pushes business to the ends of the world and beyond. For the Guild knows that destiny is not the sole purview of the Exalted.

To that end, money becomes a form of Exaltation.

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5INTRODUCTION

AS THE TALE OF EXALTED CONTINUES… Masters of Jade explains how to use the Guild in your

Exalted Storytelling campaign. It gives a close up view of how the Guild sees Creation, and how merchants—normal men and women—get the better of gods and the Exalted while pushing the Guild’s agenda.

Chapter One: The Guild gives an overview of the Guild as an organization, from its founding to the ascension of a Guildsman to the Directorate. Finally, it touches on how the Guild exists in the face of supernatural opposition.

Chapter Two: Points of the Compass paints a picture of the Guild as a Creation-spanning network of trade hubs, merchant franchises and industries each with their own culture and way of doing business, including differences between Guild caravans in each Direction.

Chapter Three: Chains of No Iron explores the relationship between the Guild and its supernatural clientele. It details Guild interactions with demons and the raksha, and shows how the Guild is perceived by the Celestial Exalted. Finally, this chapter covers the Guild’s dealings with the Underworld, and tells the tale of the curse that has followed the Guild since its formation.

Chapter Four: A Game of Masks introduces the web of politics and power the Guild weaves around itself to keep it safe in a world full of gods and devils. This chapter also details the hierarchs who sit on the Guild’s Directorate.

Appendix: Counted and Wanting Not unveils at long last the rules for building and running an organization.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE GUILD

It happened that there was a Guildsman who scorned Heaven with his wealth.

Where he made his stronghold, he raised a tower so that he might look down upon the world. There he minted silver rupees from his treasury and drove nations into poverty. Soon there were no kings but for the Guildsman, whose power was vast, his empire great. As he swallowed up neighboring regions, deposed kings, flattened temples and placed the populace in shackles, he watched the strength of his money grow, and boasted that his empire would last forever, for his fortune was immense and growing, and his coin would carry his name to the far corners of Creation and keep it long after the pillars of Heaven had fallen down.

When word of this reached Saturn, she stood up from the Games of Divinity and said, “Vast is your wealth and far is your reach, but nothing under Heaven may stand if those pillars fall. All the world is dust in time.” Then she made the sign of Endings against the Guildsman’s house, and his

tower fell, and all of his interests crumbled. The mines that pulled his wealth from the earth were filled in and forever lost. Fires raged through his storehouses. His slaves aged and withered but did not die. His coins tarnished and turned to lead. Those who traded with him struck his name from their books and he lost all credit.

In the ruins of the tower laid a young Solar swordsman who was the merchant’s protector. Glimpsed through curtains of dust he saw a silhouette of billowing robes and flowing hair, a figure untouched by the miasma of destruction. The Sidereal reached out to him and said, “Come now.”

The Solar’s eyes swept the rubble for signs of his employer. The Sidereal took his hand to secure his attention. She

shook her head no. “This is not your Ending.”When they were gone, the shadows moved, and through

them came the ghosts of the Timeless Order of Manacle and Coin.

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CHAPTER ONE • THE GUILD 7

THE BIRTH OF THE GUILDThe Guild was born in the time after the Contagion,

to a world decimated by the Balorian Crusade and rocked by wars and terror that were only assuaged by the power of the Scarlet Empress. More an idea than an organization, the Guild—much like its founder—saw fortune in a shattered world. But more importantly, the Guild saw a chance to seize something that had been long held out of the reach of mortal hands. It was a chance for continuity.

One man can claim credit for the Guild. In the wake of the apocalypse, where others were concerned with rude survival, Brem Marst was a man of ambition. A carpet-bag carrying swindler and failed politician, Marst’s true birthplace is unknown. Some accounts claim he hailed from Whitewall or Gethamane. A shrine near Marst’s tomb in Great Forks claims that his family was a merchant concern located in the area almost three hundred years before the foundation of the city. This claim is a conjecture almost completely derived from questionable evidence. The only supportable account of Marst’s time in the region that would become Great Forks is when he stopped overnight in the shadowlands (then ruled by the Princess Magnificent), got drunk and taught the ghosts how to keep a ledger, freeing them from a temporal loop that prevented them from moving on. His entombment in the area remains a source of speculation.

What is known is that Marst traveled thousands of miles, and that one of his journeys brought him to the Lap. There he came into contact with a cloister of merchant-philosophers and market-spiritualists called the Counters. The Counters were in the possession of antique treatises on the function of trade, many of which spoke of the Order-Conferring Trade Pattern and its role in stabilizing reality and perpetuating market enterprises to keep the Pattern strong.

Surrounding the Counters were dozens of merchant cults that had sprang up in interest of these teachings. These groups believed that they could supplement their business practices with prayers to the Pattern, following the rituals and coda of the First Age, and that wealth would simply come to them; that they only had to sit back and wait. But in his travels, Marst had seen the truth: that world was gone, and the old rules—and the old magic—no longer applied.

Still, Marst studied the Counters’ manuals on ancient trade. Originally he’d intended to gain their trust as an interested student and use his influence to rob them blind. Instead, he found himself feeling indebted. Exposure to their cults had shown him how helpless mortals had grown at the beneficent tit of the Exalted, such that without them, and in a world where Exalted magic was failing, people would cast about, praying for the trade that would never come, and waste their lives building idols to money instead of going out and reaping it from a world that was bleeding wealth into the air. Given such easy marks, the formation of the Guild began with Marst turning his sights from flensing

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