The Guild of Gondoliers

"Are you quite sure you want to know this?" Beyond this point lie major spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, or Mask of the Rose. This may include endgame or major Fate-locked spoilers. Proceed at your own risk. You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.

"Jericho Locks is home to its Guild of Gondoliers: the canal-men and women who live and work the necessary but distasteful trade routes between the two great cities of the west."

"The canals are full of barges, black-painted and sombre. Some are adorned with silver bells, others heavy with crates, bottles and stacks of padded envelopes. Each barge is staffed by two gondoliers: one to row, the other to play a reedy viol."

The Guild of Gondoliers is a trade guild based in Jericho Locks. Its members travel along the rivers of the Hinterlands between Hell and London, facilitating trade and carrying passengers between the two cities.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

“Barges steered by black-liveried oarsmen pass by slowly. Somewhere, a distant viol plays, before being lost upstream.”

The Gondoliers give a rather somber first impression. They are clad in black, and their boats and oars are painted the same color. Boat captains wear silver half-masks, and senior members of the Guild wear black and silver full masks, at least when performing official duties. Each barge is staffed by two gondoliers, an oarsman and a viol player, regardless of whether they are carrying cargo or passengers.

The Guild is a highly structured organization. At the bottom of the pyramid are waterboys and watergirls (we may hypothesize a gender-neutral title as well), new initiates who perform menial tasks like wayfinding. Above them are pole-arms, explorers, and scouts, who take on more specialized roles. At the top of the hierarchy are masters, captains, the Gonfaloniere himself, and his second-in-command, the Doleful Poleman, who handles the Gonfaloniere's affairs in his absence. The Guild's governing body, responsible for meting out punishments to members who break the rules, is called the Court of Penances.

In addition to trade, the Guild carries the responsibility of monitoring the Hinterlands' waterways, demanding tolls and firing upon those who refuse to pay. They also have to defend their territory from trespassing devils and fearsome monsters of the canals. The Gondoliers do not, however, tend to explore the canals outside of trade interests. In order to secure passage through the Cedarwoods, the Gondoliers are known to associate with certain factions of devils.

When not on the waters, Gondoliers often congregate at meeting places like the Fiddler's Scarlet, an inn which they run to house their own. Not all of the Gondoliers are human; some are devils, like the Saturnine Gondolier, who is apparently "on loan."

Origins

“A Neapolitan scholar details the exodus in the wake of political upheaval. A time of promises hastily made, of opportunity opening in deep below....”

After the Fall of London, the first people to row the Hinterlands' rivers were Neapolitan workers, who came to the Neath in the wake of an unspecified political upheaval. It may have been these workers who built the Cumaean Canal. By maintaining these early trade routes, they established themselves as a power in their own right. In response, Mr Fires created the highly structured Guild of Gondoliers, with the Gonfaloniere at its head. The first Gonfaloniere spent more time exploring the rivers than leading, which led to a period of instability in the early days of the Guild.

The Guild has a good rapport with Hell; the devils assisted the gondoliers in navigating the Hinterlands' rivers in the Guild's earliest days, and the two parties have forged many a contract. At some point, the Guild faced competition from dockworkers contracted by Hell, but these unfortunate souls disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Culture

“The traditions of the Gondoliers are legion: feastdays of the old world syncretise with the new. Once adopted, a tradition is held in the highest reverence. By such codes, the Gondoliers are willingly and eternally bound.”

The members of the Guild of Gondoliers believe that their organization dates back to the days of the First City, when its membership supposedly consisted of devils and "other things." It is said that the ancient Guild formed a treaty between the Neath's powers, leaving behind a monument in an ancient language called the Tongue of Ash.

The Guild is highly traditionalist, hierarchical, and generally conservative in its outlook. Since members may be away from London for months at a time or even for the remainder of their lives, they are rarely up to date on recent events; conversely, there is a heavy focus on the Guild's history, which they stage parades to celebrate. The Guild forbids any music on its territory except the viol, declares that anyone who charters a gondola has the right to ask for any gondolier they wish, and mandates that no one interact with the mysterious Swan Bride. Weddings are taken especially seriously; a member of the Guild may only marry another member, whether devil or human. Some choose to symbolically marry the waters instead, but most choose not to marry at all. These very waters have a special place in the Guild's culture.

Not all of the Guild's traditions arose organically. The Masters of the Bazaar rely on the Guild for trade in the Hinterlands, so they manipulated its previously unaffiliated workers by establishing the Guild's hierarchy and rules, ensuring their compliance. Many of these rules are given justification based on fabricated tomes.

The Guild views the coming of the Great Hellbound Railway with distrust, as it poses a threat to their business. Members have been known to call its locomotives "the devil's own chariots," and some even attempt to sabotage the railway. The Gondoliers also view zailors as rivals, though the two groups interact and trade often.