Guild of the Lotus

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One of the Guilds of Benacia honoured with representation in the Chamber of Guilds and Corporations of the Benacian Union, the Guild of the Lotus exercises a controlling interest over all forms of entertainment and hospitality carried on within the territorial jurisdiction of the Union.

Background

By custom and practice stretching back into hallowed antiquity, has responsibility for the protection of the paradise districts and flower streets of Benacia. The film studio network, such as survived the Kalirion Fracture, now also falls within the remit of the Guild. The guild is self-policing, enjoying a fully fledged autonomy within the walls of the paradise districts especially to govern its liveried companies and their customers as it sees fit. This leeway is paid for via generous tributes made over to the secular authorities of the realms within which the guild operates.

The guild also endures an ongoing low intensity conflict with the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia, in part due to the perceived immorality of the guild's core work, but also, more tellingly, because the Church of Elwynn once enjoyed the exclusive right to collect the fruits of the flower streets in the era before the Vanic interlude in Elluenuueq and was jealous of its loss of that privilege after the Auspicious Occasion to the workers-collectives which would eventually become the guild.

The Benacian Union meanwhile. whilst far from being interested in the emancipation of vice-workers (as it classifies actors, bath attendants, popular musicians, and prostitutes), considered the revenues generated by the guild to be altogether too lucrative to dispense with. Moreover the protected enclaves of the guild, walled off from the tightly regulated society outside, provided an outlet for the passions of the populace which might otherwise be contrary to the interests of the coordinated state and harmonious society were they allowed to manifest in normal public life.