Nightsoil Collector
I don't know where they get all their money, and trust me, I don't want to know!
In most of the world, a Nightsoil Collector is just that - someone with the unpleasant task of ensuring a city's worth of bodily waste is transported out of the city. But in Caelester, this task has been transformed by a number of advancements in sanitation. Here, the Nightsoil collectors have formed a guild, building and maintaining a complex network of infrastructure for the city. Despite this, the guild has no obvious source of income, providing its most obvious services for free.
Infrastructure
Aqueducts
The most visible sign of the Guild's work is the restoration of the ancient aqueducts, originally built by the Asurian Empire. These carry fresh water to a number of towers throughout the city, providing easy access to clean water to citizens throughout the city. Each tower contains several water casks, as well as providing easy access to a constant flow of fresh water. From there, water that is not used flows into a network of lead drainage pipes buried beneath the city streets.
In addition to ongoing maintenance, guild workers distribute water in casks to households throughout the city. This is done through an exchange program - people buy casks from the guild (marked with the guild's crest), and set them, empty, outside the doors to their homes, and these are replaced with full casks delivered on carts. This is available to most businesses as well, though bathhouses and other places with extremely high water usage are required to collect water on their own. (This has the net result of such businesses tending to cluster around the Guild's water towers.
Undercity Sewers
The Undercity, a vast network of caverns and hollow ruins, is home to the guild's other obvious project: a city wide sewer system. With disposal accesses throughout the city, many people handle the disposal of waste on thier own, but the guild maintains a monopoly over nightsoil collecting by virtue of being an established guild. Most of these workers are tasked with cleaning up after horses and oxen, keeping the streets cleaner and fresher smelling than in most cities. Once underground, the sewage flows through the network of sewer systems, continually flushed out by a portion of the lead pipe water drainage system.
In most cities, such a system would simply convey the waste away from the city. However, the Undercity is home to a decay field very close to the centre of the city. This is the final destination of the sewer system, disposing of the waste by magically enhancing the rate at which it decays. At first this had just been a convenient means of disposing of the city's waste, but it was eventually discovered that the rotted material that came out the end was not just dirty water but a valuable flammable substance called naphtha. Recognizing the opportunity, the guild set up facilities to collect the rare material.
Hidden Refineries
The guild operates a number of small naphtha refineries throughout the city. Each maintains appearances of an independent business, importing naphtha from abroad and selling refined lamp oil and Tar, then selling to a variety of independent merchants before shipping the product out of the city. This secretive operation, kept hidden to prevent others from attempting to exploit decay fields in the same way, is extremely lucrative, providing the guild more than enough funding to pay for the complex infrastructure they provide for the city.
Recent Repairs
Caelester suffered a disastrous earthquake eight years ago, which devastated the guild's various infrastructure projects. In the years since, they have worked diligently to repair things, and have rebuilt much of the city's systems. Additionally, with so many buildings destroyed, most are being constructed with an internal disposal chute so that sewage can be more easily disposed of. These chutes extend upward to the roof, ending in a small chimney, allowing gases to be released from the sewer network continuously, further improving the design. However, the guild has had gread difficulty in sealing off the sections of the Undercity the sewer network is built into off from unmapped areas, with an enormous number of new passageways having opened up during the earthquake. They have resorted to keeping a small contingent of dungeoneers on retainer, having them conduct routine sweeps to keep the parts nearest the sewer system clear of underground monsters.
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