House Kundarak — Services & Prices

"The wards and seals used to lock up the royal jewels are the same ones that keep my door shut." — Dreadhold prisoner

Mark: Warding | Guilds: Banking Guild, Defenders Guild | Symbol: The Manticore

House Kundarak bears the Mark of Warding and serves as Khorvaire's foremost authority on banking, vault security, arcane warding, and secure containment. Its services are delivered through Kundarak banks, enclaves, licensed warding halls, and the warehouses it owns in every major city. The house is the largest banker in Khorvaire — in Sharn alone, it holds more loans than all other banks combined — and its security installations are found everywhere from noble estates to state treasuries to the cells of Dreadhold.

House Kundarak enforces conservative pricing, strict verification, and rigid contractual compliance. Services are rarely refused outright — but are frequently conditioned on collateral, identity verification, and additional guarantees. The house's reputation rests entirely on the reliability of its word. A Kundarak contract means something, and the house is willing to take significant financial measures to ensure it stays that way. This is not idealism. It is the business model. The moment a client doubts whether their gold is safe behind a Kundarak ward, the house loses something no amount of gold can buy back.

Prices are listed in gold pieces (gp) unless otherwise noted.

What House Kundarak Will and Won't Do

The house will: Provide banking and security services to any client who meets its requirements, regardless of nationality or faction. Maintain strict client confidentiality under all normal circumstances. Enforce contracts impartially, including against the house's own interests where the contract's terms demand it. Honor the extradimensional vault network's portability guarantee: goods deposited at one enclave can be retrieved at any other.

The house will not: Disclose ward configurations, vault contents, or security layouts to any party, including the client. Extend credit without documented collateral or a formal debt contract. Provide services in support of operations that would compromise the house's political neutrality. Release vault contents without full identity verification — loss of credentials requires re-verification and fees before access is restored.

The house reserves the right to: Seal vaults unilaterally if illegal contents are suspected. Delay or refuse service pending internal review. Refer clients who require armed protection to House Deneith rather than providing it directly. Kundarak secures things. It does not fight for them.

KUNDARAK BANK — STANDARD TERMS OF SERVICE All deposit, storage, and warding services are governed by the terms of the client's contract with House Kundarak. The house guarantees the security of assets entrusted to its care for the duration of the agreement. Liability for assets removed from Kundarak custody, tampered with by the client, or stored in violation of the contract's terms is voided upon discovery. Ward configurations are proprietary and will not be disclosed under any circumstances. Identity verification is required for all vault access; no exceptions are granted. Disputes are arbitrated through the Committee of the Twelve. The manticore guards what you value most.

I. Banking & Financial Services

Standard Banking

Advanced Financial Instruments

All Kundarak letters of credit must be notarized with a House Sivis arcane mark — the longstanding partnership between the two houses is structural, not optional. A Kundarak letter without a Sivis seal is not a Kundarak letter; it is a forgery, and the house will treat it as one. Loans require collateral in the form of property, magic items, or house guarantees. The house complies with Treaty of Thronehold sanctions and freezes outlawed assets without exception.

The anonymous account is worth particular note. Kundarak will open an account without attaching it to a public identity — but the scrutiny involved is intense, the access restrictions are severe, and the house maintains its own private record of the account holder's identity. Anonymity applies to the outside world. It does not apply to Kundarak. The house always knows who its clients are.

II. Vaulting & Secure Storage

Standard Vault Services

The Vaults (Kundarak Bank of Sharn)

The lowest levels of the Kundarak Bank in Sharn are known simply as the Vaults — nearly a separate operation from the bank proper, with their own staff, their own security protocols, and their own reputation. The house offers storage for small-to-medium items of significant value at 15 gp per month, including insurance against theft. These are long-term storage arrangements; items held in the Vaults cannot be retrieved magically from other Kundarak sites. This distinguishes the Vaults from the extradimensional vault network, which is a separate and substantially more expensive service.

The Vaults are where Sharn's wealthy store the things they cannot afford to lose but do not need daily access to: family heirlooms, legal documents, rare components, evidence for ongoing litigation, and objects whose value makes keeping them in a private residence inadvisable. The security is comprehensive — arcane wards, mundane traps, Kundarak wardens on every level — and the house's insurance guarantee means that if something is stolen from the Vaults despite all precautions, the house pays the claim. In the Vaults' entire history, the number of successful thefts from a Kundarak facility can be counted on one hand. The house prefers not to specify which hand.

Extradimensional Vault Network

Available to clients who can afford it: a system of vaults allowing goods to be deposited at one Kundarak enclave and retrieved at any other, anywhere in Khorvaire. You deposit a strongbox in Sharn. You retrieve the same strongbox in Korth. The mechanism involves planar magic that the house declines to explain, and the security of the transit is guaranteed by the house's reputation. Pricing is negotiated at the enclave level and reflects the extraordinary nature of the service. This is one of the house's most exclusive offerings, subject to the most stringent identity verification of any Kundarak service.

Ward configurations are never disclosed to clients. The house reserves the right to seal a vault unilaterally if violations are suspected. Tampering with any Kundarak vault or lock voids all house liability — and the house pursues restitution with the same thoroughness it applies to everything else.

III. Security & Warding Services

These services require a bearer of the Mark of Warding and are performed at Kundarak facilities or approved client sites. The mark's dual nature — the ability to seal anything that can be opened, and the knowledge to open anything that has been sealed — makes Kundarak's wardens both the best locksmiths and the best security consultants in Khorvaire.

The arcane seal is the house's signature product. A Kundarak heir wearing the gloves of the locksmith — a house-specific focus item — can cast arcane lock on a portal or object and enchant up to three keys per use. Generally the buyer receives two keys, with the house holding a third at the local enclave — providing a way to regain access in an emergency. The lock is keyed to the Mark of Warding and is effectively impervious to conventional lockpicking.

Kundarak warehouses in Sharn — notably in Precarious, Lower Dura — combine alarm, arcane seal, and glyph of warding with mundane and magical traps, at approximately twice the rate of unprotected warehouse storage. This is the house's standard commercial warding package, and merchants with serious security needs pay it without complaint. A warehouse with a Kundarak ward on the door is a warehouse that thieves leave alone — or regret not leaving alone.

Field services at hostile or remote locations incur surcharges. Wards require periodic inspection to confirm integrity. Tampering voids all Kundarak liability, and the house pursues restitution through whatever legal channels are available — which, given Kundarak's relationship with both House Sivis and the national courts, are extensive.

IV. Investigations & Recovery

Recovery operations typically coordinate with House Deneith or the Sentinel Marshals, as Kundarak does not provide armed enforcement directly. The house investigates. The house identifies. The house documents. When it is time to go through a door and take something back by force, the house calls Deneith.

Arcane forensics deserves particular note. A Kundarak investigator with the Mark of Warding can analyze the magical residue left by a breach — identifying the type of magic used, the approximate power of the caster, and in some cases the specific techniques employed. This information is invaluable in tracking down the perpetrator, and the house's forensic reports carry weight in national courts. A Kundarak breach investigation is not merely a security review; it is the opening stage of what may become a very expensive lawsuit — or a very uncomfortable visit from a Sentinel Marshal.

V. Transport Security

Kundarak coordinates transport security with external partners: House Deneith provides armed escort, House Orien provides logistics. The house's contribution is the warding: arcane seals on cargo, containment wards on volatile materials, and the institutional guarantee that if Kundarak has warded a shipment, whatever is inside will arrive intact.

The vault train car is a particularly impressive service — a lightning rail coach warded to Kundarak standards, with arcane seals on every door, glyphs of warding on every surface, and a Kundarak warden riding with the cargo. The house coordinates these cars through House Orien's rail network. They are not scheduled services; they are commissioned for specific shipments, and their presence on a given train is not publicly announced.

VI. Documentation & Legal Custodianship

Records are logged with House Sivis for legal weight — the Sivis arcane mark on notarized documents gives them authority in national courts across Khorvaire. Kundarak mediation rulings are recognized by many national courts, and the house's reputation for impartiality makes it a preferred neutral party in inter-house or interstate disputes. A contract held in Kundarak custody, notarized by Sivis, and arbitrated by a Kundarak mediator is about as legally bulletproof as anything in Khorvaire gets. Challenging one requires either proving fraud — which Sivis authentication makes extraordinarily difficult — or having enough political power to simply ignore it.

"I asked the Kundarak mediator whether the ruling was fair. She said: 'The ruling is what the contract says. Whether it's fair is a question for your priest.'" — Attributed to a Sharn merchant after a Kundarak arbitration

VII. Hirelings & Specialists

Hazard pay applies at cursed or actively compromised sites. Confidentiality agreements are standard. As with Jorasco's healers, the services of a dragonmarked warden for a day is a recognized favor-tier the house can extend to those who have done it significant service — granting access to mark-assisted security work without the usual commercial rates. A Kundarak favor is not given lightly. It is also not forgotten.