House Lyrandar — Services & Prices

"You want to get from Sharn to Stormreach? You've got options. You can take a mundane galleon — two months, give or take, weather permitting, pirates permitting, your crew not mutinying permitting. You can take a Lyrandar elemental galleon — three weeks, smooth as glass, the captain reading the weather before it arrives. Or you can take a Lyrandar airship — eight days, straight line, above the clouds. The airship costs ten times the mundane passage. It is worth twenty times."

Mark: Storm | Guilds: Windwrights Guild, Raincallers Guild | Symbol: The Kraken

House Lyrandar bears the Mark of Storm and dominates weather manipulation, elemental transportation, and maritime and aerial commerce across Khorvaire. Its services blend dragonmark magic with bound elementals to provide fast, reliable movement across sea, river, and sky, as well as localized and regional control of wind and weather. The house operates ports, airship towers, storm stations, Storm Spires, and shipping offices throughout Khorvaire.

A note on the two guilds: the Windwrights Guild manages all transport operations — Air, Sea, and River divisions, along with the Bounty Division for logistics and cargo — while the Raincallers Guild handles all weather manipulation services. The guilds operate independently and maintain separate pricing structures. Contracts with one do not imply access to the other, though many clients engage both. Licensed captains displaying the Kraken seal are monitored for reliability but are not agents of the house; bound vessels — crewed by Lyrandar heirs and sailing on house schedules — are. Contracts for bound vessel services carry the full weight of house guarantee. Licensed vessels do not.

Prices are listed in gold pieces (gp) unless otherwise noted. Final rates vary with route danger, weather volatility, political conditions, and elemental fuel costs.

What House Lyrandar Will and Won't Do

The house will: Sell passage and freight services to any client with coin and no disqualifying legal status, regardless of nationality — this posture was maintained throughout the Last War and has not changed. Contract weather services to city governments, agricultural combines, military forces, and private clients. License the Kraken seal to reliable independent operators. Provide weather forecasting and storm warning to allied houses and governments.

The house will not: Provide direct battlefield weather support on an exclusive basis to any single nation — Lyrandar sells to all sides of a conflict and will not become a tool that decisively advantages one belligerent against another in a way that threatens the house's neutral commercial position. Operate in active war zones without indemnification by states or wealthy patrons. Extend Windwrights Guild guarantees to cargo it has not inspected and cleared. Control the weather for militarized purposes under the Windwrights Guild banner — such arrangements fall under Raincallers Guild specialty contracts and are individually negotiated with additional confidentiality requirements.

The house reserves the right to: Refuse service to vessels using illicit or rogue elemental bindings. Cap compensation for airship losses by contract terms. Suspend operations in war zones or during planar incursions. Extend preferential treatment to long-term partners.

WINDWRIGHTS GUILD — PASSAGE TERMS Passage is contracted between the bearer of this ticket and House Lyrandar for the route, class, and date indicated. The house guarantees departure within two hours of the scheduled time, weather and security conditions permitting. Delays caused by weather, elemental instability, planar incursion, or armed conflict are covered by force majeure and do not entitle the bearer to compensation. Luggage is limited to one trunk and one personal item per berth. Hazardous, volatile, cursed, or living cargo requires prior inspection and approval. Refunds are available only if the house cancels the voyage; partial journeys are not refundable. The Kraken carries you safely. The rest is your responsibility.

I. Dragonmarked Weather Services (Raincallers Guild)

These services require a bearer of the Mark of Storm and are performed at Lyrandar enclaves, storm towers, contracted sites, or in the field by traveling Raincallers. A Raincaller reading the sky is not guessing — the Mark of Storm gives heirs an intuitive sense of weather currents that others cannot perceive. They feel the storm the way a sailor feels the deck. When a Raincaller works the weather, they are not casting a spell so much as negotiating with the storm within them and releasing it outward in a controlled direction.

Weather effects produced by individual Raincallers are temporary and localized. The house does not guarantee regional climate stability, and its philosophy treats weather manipulation as an industrial service rather than an ecological intervention. The Wardens of the Wood and certain druidic orders dispute this position vigorously; the house dismisses these concerns.

Manifest zones, storm belts, and unstable climates impose a 25–75% hazard surcharge. Storm Spires are eldritch machines operable only by a Khoravar with the Greater Mark of Storm — and fewer than a few hundred heirs in the world can operate one. A Storm Spire's hundred-mile range is significant: the distance from Vedykar to Vulyar on the most popular Sivis-produced map is about 160 miles, meaning a Storm Spire halfway between the two could cover either city. Storm Spire contracts are long-term agreements with city governments or agricultural regions, not individual service calls. When a Storm Spire pushes a cold front away from a city, the problematic weather goes somewhere else — and the somewhere else is rarely consulted about the arrangement.

II. Elemental Transport — Airship Passage (Windwrights Guild, Air Division)

Airships are the fastest transport in Khorvaire, traveling at approximately 20 miles per hour in clear skies and capable of carrying up to 30 tons of cargo. They look like oceangoing ships rigged with control fins and rudders rather than sails, with an air or fire elemental bound into a ring around the hull, suspended on four struts jutting outward. Most are outfitted with the finest amenities, including decorative flourishes and creature comforts that make clear these are premium conveyances. They cannot land — the struts holding the elemental ring protrude ten feet from the hull — so passengers and freight are loaded via elevator at docking towers in major cities, or by rope ladder at smaller stops and in open terrain.

Every airship requires at least two Lyrandar pilots operating the Wheel of Wind and Water in rotating shifts. The mark is not merely a key — it is an active telepathic rapport with the bound elemental, and maintaining it over a long journey demands sustained concentration. Airship travel is new, expensive, and not yet available in all cities; the first airships entered Lyrandar service in 990 YK, and soarwood — the buoyant timber from Aerenal that gives them their lighter-than-air hulls — is exceedingly scarce. The elves of Aerenal limit their annual harvest, and production of new vessels proceeds at a pace that cannot satisfy demand. The discovery of a new supply of soarwood could change the world.

The standard fare of 1 gp per mile represents comfortable-to-wealthy accommodations. Budget travelers can book steerage at 2 cp per mile; conditions are squalid, and on long voyages this carries real physical risk. Luggage limits apply. Hazardous or volatile cargo requires approval and inspection. War-zone and storm-belt routes add a 25–75% surcharge. Refunds are rare unless Lyrandar cancels the voyage.

To put the pricing in perspective: Sharn to Passage (roughly 1,000 miles by air) runs about 1,000 gp at standard fare — affordable for wealthy merchants, adventuring companies, and diplomatic missions, but well beyond the reach of ordinary travelers. The steerage option at 20 gp for the same route brings air travel within reach of middle-class travelers willing to endure discomfort. Chartered airship service — exclusive use of a vessel at 500+ gp per day — is the domain of governments, dragonmarked houses, and the very rich.

"Lyrandar Airship Service — Sharn to Stormhome Departs daily from the Pole, Lyrandar Tower. Eight days, weather permitting. Standard passage: 1 gp/mile. Private cabin available. Luggage: one trunk, one personal item. Steerage available at reduced rates. Conditions are not guaranteed. The Kraken carries you safely." — Posted at Lyrandar Tower, Sharn

III. Elemental Transport — Sea & River (Windwrights Guild, Sea & River Divisions)

Elemental galleons use bound water elementals to cross oceans and major waterways at approximately 10 miles per hour — slower than airships, but faster and more reliable than any mundane sailing vessel. They rarely delay for weather and do not require favorable wind, which is the core of Lyrandar's commercial advantage over mundane shippers. River routes are the backbone of Lyrandar's oldest business and cover far more of Khorvaire than standard maps suggest — the house runs boats between dozens of towns and villages along waterways that appear on no official chart.

River routes coordinate with House Orien rail depots for inland logistics in several major cities — the two houses' transport networks are complementary rather than competitive, with Lyrandar handling water and air while Orien handles land. The relationship is commercially pragmatic; it is not a friendship.

IV. Cargo & Logistics Services (Windwrights Guild, Bounty Division)

The Bounty Division handles the house's logistical backbone: scheduling, cargo contracts, dock operations, and freight investment. All cargo contracts are logged with House Sivis for legal compliance.

Airship freight is restricted to stable cargo; animals and fragile items require special crating and prior approval. Atmospheric drops are used for relief missions, remote outposts, or clients without access to a docking tower — the cargo is parachuted from altitude by a crew trained for precision delivery. The technique was developed during the Last War for supplying besieged positions and has since been adapted for commercial use.

V. Dragonmarked Hirelings & Crew

House Lyrandar licenses professional crews, navigators, and Raincallers for contracted work. Marked heirs hired through the guild remain loyal to the house; directing them to work against house interests, poaching them from active contracts, or using them for operations that violate house policy results in blacklisting and potential contract termination.

Hazard pay applies in war zones, storm belts, or hostile waters. Pilots require months of training before certification and cannot be replaced quickly — any contract involving airship piloting reflects this scarcity. Binder assistants frequently work alongside Cannith artificers for elemental vehicle maintenance, as the binding and piloting expertise are complementary but distinct: Lyrandar pilots the elemental, Cannith maintains the binding that keeps it in the ship.

VI. Focus Items (Summary)

House Lyrandar produces a range of proprietary focus items that channel the power of the Mark of Storm. These are not sold on open markets; they are distributed to trusted agents and occasionally offered as rewards for service. Any focus item seen outside these channels has almost certainly changed hands illegally. For full descriptions, see the House Lyrandar — Dragonmark Focus Items article.

An unmarked character touching the Khyber dragonshard housing a bound elemental can attempt a DC 20 Charisma check to persuade it to cooperate for one minute — but this is not piloting. It is begging.

VII. Ports, Towers & Operational Policies

Lyrandar ports and airship towers operate under consistent policies across Khorvaire, though local viceroys have discretion in enforcement.

Dock fees run approximately 2 gp/day for galleons and 5 gp/day for airships, scaling with vessel size. Lyrandar ports refuse service to vessels using illicit or rogue elemental bindings — a policy that is both a safety measure and a commercial one, as the house has no interest in legitimizing competitors who bypass its monopoly on elemental binding expertise.

Storm stations adjacent to major ports provide premium forecasting to allied houses and governments; basic storm warning is available to all clients at standard rates.

Operations are suspended in active war zones unless the engagement is indemnified by a state or a patron of sufficient means. Airship losses are rare but catastrophic; compensation is strictly capped by contract, and the house enforces these caps aggressively.

All cargo contracts are logged with House Sivis as standard practice. The house maintains formal political neutrality, though in practice it extends preferential treatment to coastal and trade-friendly governments with which it has established long-term relationships — a category that includes Aundair, Breland, and the Lhazaar Principalities, and conspicuously does not include Karrnath.