Broken Sea Merchant Alliance¶
The Broken Sea Merchant Alliance is "an alliance of non-aligned merchants which operate across Kingdom and Imperial borders" on the Broken Sea in the Fifth Age. "They hold licenses to trade and operate warehouses in most ports in the Broken Sea. They are a trading and merchantile powerhouse and are believed to command the second largest fleet on the Broken Sea (after the Sancturi)" (S317).
Also called: the BSMA.
Relations¶
The Sancturi Imperium "barely tolerate them, mostly because they act as a trading proxy with the Riven Kingdoms (ie it is profitable to tolerate them) and because many of the Great Houses hold significant shares in the company" (S317).
Neutrality is no shield at sea. The new Pirates of Azmeran, who prey only on Sancturi shipping, "have been known to target BSMA ships when their cargo holds are filled with Sancturi goods" (S317). The sea's other dangers, the Oesterkull raiders who "raid weak settlements across the Broken Sea, wherever plunder is to be acquired", are described with their people.
Gap
Only the one survey of Broken Sea organizations describes the Alliance. It names no officer, house or home port, and does not say how the Alliance is governed or when it was founded.