Vailian Trading Company is a Faction in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.
Vailian Trading Company
An outward-looking mercantile order from the Vailian Republics. The 30,000 employees are tasked with delivering profit on the homeland's investment. In the Deadfire, this means refining and exporting luminous adra in enormous quantities. The VTC is the largest with a ducal charter and the only trading company with a canc suolias (five suns) charter, meaning it has the full backing of all five Grand Ducs of the Vailian Republics.
In 2708, seeking to consolidate their economic influence and reaffirm their independence, the ruling ducs chartered the Vailian Trading Company under the leadership of Director Ferra Battaret. The goals were to justify the new form of government and reinforce the fledgling national identity through commerce and economic success. The Company's initial capital represented a conglomerate of banking and shipping interests with only one goal: Bring wealth and power to the Republics by any means necessary. As long as it represented a return on the investment, the Company would be free from any legal interference on part of the Republics. The executives of the VTC took that principle to heart and expanded rapidly through a combination of cruelty, embezzlement, manipulation, and hostile takeovers, to name a few of the actions taken in the name of the homeland. Economic intimidation and currency manipulation were also common, allowing the VTC to buying out, supplanting, or otherwise overpowering existing trade interests, then filling in the manufactured gap with their own services and goods.
Regions reliant on bittersquash, svef, or saltpeter experienced few interruptions as a result of VTC's takeovers. The Company's reach grew constantly, with every trading post delivering indispensable resources to economies across much of the known world, expanding the Republics' trade reach globally. By 2720 AI, the VTC had a global reach with outposts from the crumbling Grand Vailia to Ixamitl Plains, including Rauatai and Aedyr Empire. Although the powers bristled at this domination, there was little they could do to counter the Vailian economic might, bolstered by the crumbling of the Vailian empire and the Republics' takeover of its orphaned trade routes and treaties.
The expansion of the Republics did not omit Deadfire. The region's riches were one of the reasons the Company was founded, focusing the Republics' efforts in the colonial competition with the Aedyr Empire. Without the Kahanga tribe's interference that manifested in later years, they relentlessly hounded the tribes to accept their trade. Finally, in 2750 AI, they succeeded and established a colony on Maje Island. Although Port Maje was a small outpost on the southern edge of the archipelago, it was the first step towards establishing a broader presence in the archipelago, acting as waystation for subsequent expeditions. The Republics were followed by the Rauatai and the Royal Deadfire Company in 2758 AI, though their expansion took the form of colonial invasion, rather than takeovers by way of economic hegemony. Competition continued for the next decades, rarely taking the form of outright military confrontation, especially in the wake of the reemergence of the Watershapers Guild as a major force in the Deadfire.
The key turn for the Republics took place in 2819 AI, when a novice animancer by the name of Irassa discovered the unique properties of luminous adra. A seemingly benign shard of the material damaged her instruments with the energy stored within. After confirming the properties of the material in a series of subsequent experiment, Irassa sought to publish the work together with a footnote describing the effects of liquefied luminous adra on humans. The ducs of the Republics took note of the findings and forced Irassa to expunge these findings for adequate compensation, while they studied the economic impact of this discovery. After numerous evaluations determined that trade in luminous adra would generate more money than the economists could estimate, the ducs bankrolled a massive investment into the Vailian Trading Company, refocusing their entire economy towards cornering the market on the adra, from excavation, through processing, to distribution. Banks previously not allied to the company bought their way into it as the trade exploded and turned Deadfire from a side operation into the hub of the Republics' economy.
Vailian Trading Company Faction Quests
Vailian Trading Company Reputations
Your reputation with a faction decides how they see you, there are three types of reputations you can have with a faction: good, bad, and mixed. Losing reputation and gaining reputation don't cancel each other out, but instead are tracked separately. If your positive and negative reputation are around the same, your overall reputation will be mixed.
If your reputation with Vailian Trading Company is bad, all Principi ships at Deadfire archipelago will turn hostile and try to hunt you. Including some special captains.
