Factions
Coalition of Tradesfolk
The Antonican merchant guild. Cross-city trade alliance, neutral on politics, hostile to bandits.
Coalition of Tradesfolk is the Antonican merchant guild — a cross-city alliance of vendors, caravan masters, and tradeskillers operating chiefly out of Freeport but with chapters in Qeynos, Highpass Hold, and lesser outposts in between. They run the trade lanes, broker between cities, and keep the road wardens paid.
The Coalition is fiercely neutral. They sell to Paladins and Necromancers alike, ship goods to Kunark and the Faydark, and pay tribute to whichever city watch will keep their caravans safe. Their enemies are the people who interrupt commerce — bandits, thieves' guilds, orc raiders, gnoll scouts on the King's Road.
Lore
The Coalition predates most modern city alliances. Founded as a mutual-protection compact between Freeport spice traders and Qeynos grain merchants, it has grown into the de facto regulatory body for legitimate Antonican commerce. The Coalition prints standardized weight stones, certifies caravan masters, and maintains a shared blacklist of debtors and thieves circulated between member cities.
Coalition members are vendors first and informants second. They have no formal army — they pay city watches and adventurer guilds for protection — but their political reach is wide enough that openly killing a Coalition merchant is a faster way to get blackballed from civilization than killing a city guard. The Indigo Brotherhood is their oldest enemy: the Brotherhood's Freeport wing exists primarily to extort Coalition shops, and Coalition gold has bankrolled several attempted purges of the Brotherhood's safe houses.
The Coalition's relationship with Sir Lucan's Militia is transactional. The Coalition pays the Militia in coin and information; the Militia keeps the docks open and the gates clear. Neither side trusts the other, but both need each other enough that the arrangement has survived three Militia commanders and counting.
Why grind it
For most characters Coalition standing is a quality-of-life unlock — at Apprehensive or worse you cannot buy from major Freeport shops, which makes resupply between adventures painful. For tradeskillers it gates access to the better merchant inventories (rare components, higher-quality smithing molds). For travelers on long Antonica routes, Coalition standing makes the difference between a stocked caravan stop and a hostile one.
The Indigo Brotherhood kill chain is the canonical efficient grind. Brotherhood members operate openly in Highpass Hold, the Commonlands, and the back alleys of Freeport itself. Killing them grants Coalition, Knights of Truth, Freeport Militia, and Ashen Order faction in parallel — the same four-faction stack that the Bloodsaber-orb grind hits from the cult side.
Notable NPCs
- The senior Coalition merchants of East Freeport — the city's primary armor, weapon, and tradeskill vendors
- Caravan masters operating out of East Freeport's trade hall
- Coalition-aligned bankers who handle cross-city money exchanges
- Coalition couriers who issue most of the cross-Antonica delivery quests
Faction path
+faction
- Killing Crushbone Orcs, Befallen bandits, and Highpass thieves
- Killing Indigo Brotherhood members across Freeport, Highpass, and the Commonlands
- Coalition-sponsored quests handed out from East Freeport vendors
- Anti-bandit bounty turn-ins — orc scalps, bandit sashes, Brotherhood pickpocket tokens
- Cross-city courier deliveries between Freeport and Qeynos
-faction
- Killing Coalition merchants or caravan guards
- Aiding the Indigo Brotherhood — pickpocket quests, smuggling chains
- Killing Knights of Truth — their formal allies
- Open theft inside Freeport (caught by guards triggers Coalition loss alongside Militia loss)
The Last Camp any-race-class adjustments
The Coalition is cosmopolitan by design and starts neutral or better for most races. The exceptions: Iksar, Troll, Ogre, and Dark Elf start Apprehensive in Freeport and need the Indigo Brotherhood kill chain or Crushbone Orc turn-ins to reach Indifferent before vendors will sell. If you rolled a non-canonical class for those races (Iksar Bard, Ogre Wizard, Troll Druid), the Coalition grind is one of the first quality-of-life faction grinds you should knock out — it unlocks resupply across half the continent.