Well sirrah, didn’t I tell you? Best rat on a stick in the city! Crunchy bones and they even leave all the fur on!
Now, most folk think of this place as part of the Market Ward, and there’s plenty of overlap, but plenty of little differences too.
First of all, there’s hardly any decent flophouses in the Market, whereas some of the best, and most affordable, are in Guildhall. That one over there, Nodger’s Bunkhouse, hardly anyone gets robbed in anymore, and there’s Old Featherstone’s, where they throw the bed lice in for free.
Second, the Market is a Faction-free zone, more or less. The hardheads get called in to haul someone out now and again, but there’s no proselytizing unless you’re in the Free League. Here in the Guildhall, it’s fair game. Hardhead’s have a garrison, Ciphers have the Gymnasium, and so on.
Third, because there’s always a third, this is where a lot of the Cagers actually pay their dues, quite literally. I myself am a registered member of the Escort Guild, even if I don’t have the rings tattooed on my forehead. That’s centred in that large building over there. There’s a guild for most professions in the city, even the clerks and secretaries have their guild headquarters here, not in their own Ward.
And because this is where everyone who earns a living starts, there’s also the chance of picking up a few bargains hereabouts, though only if you know where to look.
Most apprentices end up earning a pittance for their own work but they sell it all the same, and even then only on set days and times from the guildhouses themselves. Catch yourself a bargain and maybe find yourself something from the Haberdashers’ that will be the height of fashion in a year or three.
One last Ward sirrah, and that’s the Lady’s Ward. I hope you like not seeing palatial mansions over high walls!
There were once around fifty different Factions in Sigil, fighting their little turf wars and such, until the Lady decreed there were to be no more than fifteen, and so it was.
But those Factions started somewhere, and it’s a pretty safe bet that some were once guilds housed here in the Guildhall Ward.
There’s a guild for everything – razorvine cultivators, ghost botherers, even a secretive Guild of the Post, filled with Knights of the Cross Trade thieving their way across Sigil and the Planes.
These strange organisations feed into the Clerks Ward and leech from the Market Ward in hopefully equal measure to make the city work (as much as that’s possible in Sigil).
The strangest guild is the Guilderman’s Guild, which only has one member – a demigod of some Power of Trade or other, who takes it upon themselves to become a member of each and every guild in Sigil.
In theory, they’re an apprentice haberdasher, cobbler, undertaker, arsonist, projectionist, philanderer and bullfighter, as they pay their dues to each and every guild they’re a member of.
Of course, they must be paying their guild dues somehow, which begs the question… how?!
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