Murray Fife's Blog

The guild halls of Faerûn are filled with merchants, couriers, artificers, and adventurers who spend half their lives on the road. The Waterdeep Trading Company relies on these workers to keep trade routes open and contracts moving. This means travel costs and merchant expenses must be tracked with care. Quill ledgers alone cannot support the pace of modern trade.

Expense Management within the company gives workers a clear way to record their spend. It helps the arcane treasurers separate per...

The Waterdeep Trading Company has grown into one of the most respected builders of crafted goods across the Sword Coast. Many requests are small enough to be filled with stocked items, yet the most valuable work comes from large commissions. These include reinforced wagons for mercenary companies, enchanted devices for mage guilds, and custom tools for noble households. These builds require planning, steady coordination between workshop and finance, and careful tracing of every coin. Project fab...

Trade across Faerûn moves from city to city, guild to guild, and plane to plane. A single contract may involve Cormyrean Golden Lions at the point of origin, Calishite Crescents at a mid stop, and final settlement in Faerûn Standard Dollars. To keep these movements steady, the Waterdeep Trading Company uses a method called currency triangulation. This keeps conversions fair, keeps ledgers clear, and protects the company from swings in regional markets.

Triangulation uses the Faerûn Standard D...

The Waterdeep Trading Company has always understood that wealth drawn from the land must be returned in kind. Yet as the company’s reach expands beyond Faerûn, into elemental planes, shadow markets, and the drifting isles of air, a new challenge has emerged: how to measure and restore what is taken from other planes of existence.

From the first enchanted ore shipment mined in the Plane of Earth to the bottled winds imported from the Plane of Air, planar trade has quietly altered the balance b...

In a realm where caravans share the roads with wyverns and trade ships brave seas patrolled by sahuagin, commerce must be guarded as fiercely as it is managed. The Waterdeep Trading Company, ever watchful of both profit and peril, has expanded its reach through the Complete Merchant Stall Program, a fully managed retail partnership combining supply, training, branding, enchanted marketing, and now, comprehensive protection for both merchants and their goods.

This initiative turns local trader...

In the heart of Waterdeep’s Dock Ward, beneath the scent of brine and forge smoke, the Waterdeep Trading Company maintains its Alchemical Quarter—a labyrinth of retorts, cauldrons, and spell-bound distillation coils. Among the many products refined there, one holds legendary status across guilds, workshops, and airship docks alike: Grease of the Serpent.

This emerald-hued substance, smooth as silk and alive with subtle motion, resists rust, corrosion, and even arcane interference. It is the m...

In the bustling trade networks of Faerûn, where merchant ships sail from Baldur’s Gate to Calimport and enchanted caravans roll through Silverymoon, the ability to track products with precision is a cornerstone of responsible commerce. The Waterdeep Trading Company (WDTC) has long understood that every item tells a story, and that story begins with its number—its mark of origin, identity, and journey.

Through a combination of batch and serial numbering strategies, the company ensures that eac...

In the mystic halls of the Waterdeep Trading Company’s Department of Arcane Inscription, a new craft has emerged that bridges art, magic, and structured design: GlyphForge.
GlyphForge serves as both a philosophy and a system, a structured language of symbols that can describe, evoke, and empower. Much like accountants use ledgers and artificers use schematics, glyphwrights use glyphs to bind meaning and magic into form.

This guide provides the full codified structure of the Glyphic Arcanum, a ...

In Faerûn, where caravans cross nations and portals link planes, trade is a living, breathing force. Yet even the best-run merchants of Waterdeep, Baldur’s Gate, and Calimport know that not every deal goes as planned. A cracked wand, a spoiled crate of moonwine, or an amulet that misfires its enchantment, all must be handled with discipline.

The Waterdeep Trading Company has built a structured framework for such cases known as Returns and Dispositions. This process ensures that every returned...

In the world of Faerûn, danger is not confined to dungeons or battlefields. It hides in flasks of alchemical fire, vials of venom, and enchanted relics that hum with infernal energy. The Waterdeep Trading Company, ever mindful of the perils of commerce, established a comprehensive framework to track, transport, and contain these threats within its supply chain. This framework, recognized across the Sword Coast and beyond, is known as the Faerûnian Hazardous Materials Classification System (FHMS)...