Maelstrom Campaign - The Trading Houses: Raddock Bay

Of the five trade houses this is the largest and the most successful, due in no small part to its hard work and determination to provide every customer in every land with the finest quality goods at the lowest possible prices. Raddock Bay uses only the very fastest Alkonian sailing vessels to transport cargo, which means far fewer losses to pirates than many other trading houses suffer. This ensures that they are able to undercut their competition. Alone amongst the five trading houses, Raddock Bay has been able to avoid specialising in one area of business, developing pre-eminence and excellence in every field of endeavour.

The swift ships of the trading house mean that they are able to move cargoes of slaves across the waters with less wastage from disease than all the other houses experience. As a result of this they are able to offer the very finest quality of slaves at prices that other trading houses have always found impossible to match. Raddock Bay are able to procure slaves of any age and any race that are always in the very best of health.

The Raddock Bay trading house has continued to provide backing for academic works, supporting universities in many lands including Freiboden and Alkyon. This commitment to working with the finest minds of our generation has ensured that the house is always up-to-date with the very latest developments in every field of endeavour. Raddock Bay was one of the first houses to supply darkpowder weaponry and the powder the house supplies is always provided in stamped and sealed drums to guarantee the quality of it’s contents.

Raddock Bay maintain offices in every land but keeps a central office in Bedorfin in Alkyon. The Archon of the Raddock Bay trading house, is a young avian who is famous for his wit and panache as well as his shrewd acumen. Under his astute leadership, Raddock Bay have continued to react swiftly to the latest developments, being one of the first trading houses to realise the potential for exploitation presented by the New World.

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.