The Chardonian Chalyte Trade Reforms

In DR 1749, the Chardon chalyte trade underwent a series of major reforms, following the Chardon Chalyte Riots caused by the exposure of Fausto’s corrupt influence over the Curia of 42 and magical coercion of important bureaucrats in the Chamber of Stamps.

Background

Before DR 1749, Chardon’s chalyte trade was concentrated in the hands of four oligarchic families: the Auratan Family, Patelios Family, Caloren Family, and Veldari Family. Together they controlled the northern mines in Greater Voltara, overland transport, shipping across Lake Valandros, and local refineries in Chardon, mostly concentrated in Ragwater Basin. After the Chardon Chalyte Riots, which saw the destruction of significant local infrastructure on the North Bank, a return to the status quo was untenable.

However, Chardon and the Magistros faced a practical crisis. Chalyte is and was essential to Chardonian public works, including the system of fountains and wells that provide clean, fresh water across the city, but merchants would not send raw ore into a city in open unrest and in any case raw ore processing had largely halted. Existing reserves could keep some systems functioning for a time, but without new shipments the city’s infrastructure would eventually fail.

Upending Oligarchic Control

The kernel of the reforms came from a new chalyte source directly under the control of the Magistros. This was possible only because the Dunmar Fellowship went to the Chataan Mountains, where they defeated the stone giant king Dhrukmir who had prevented Chardonian access to rich chalyte veins in the mountains.

With this new source of chalyte, the politics of reform changed. Since the old families no longer asserted control over the only accessible source of raw chalyte ore, the Magistros could break with them. He denounced bribery and corruption, using the public charges of bribery proclaimed by members of the Eightfold Flame to exile all members of the Patelios and Veldari families.

The New Order

Into the void left by the dissolution of the chalyte oligarchs and the removal of the chalyte monopoly from the chartered monopolies regulated by the Chamber of Stamps, the Magistros created two new institutions. First, the Magistros claimed the chalyte monopoly for the Imperium itself, and granted an exclusive monopoly on the sale of refined chalyte to the newly created Chalyte Refining Corporation. Second, to retain control of upstream sources, the Magistros created the Imperial Chalyte Mining Company with exclusive rights to chalyte claims in the Chataan Mountains. These reforms centralized control of chalyte in the imperial bureaucracy itself, and in its designees, primarily the Windcallers and the Guild of Chalyte Workers, who jointly control the Chalyte Refining Corporation.

In the end, the new order shifted power from the university-affiliated Hetaeri Magica and the Curia of 42, to the imperial bureaucracy, the Windcallers, and the chalyte workers themselves. These reforms played a key part in stabilizing Chardon in the aftermath of revelations about Fausto, and amid growing popular unrest and distrust of academic institutions and the special status granted Precinct IV. But the ultimate stability of the new order, and the role of magical institutions in the future of Chardon, remain to be seen.