Mientras Oppara brilla como la la más grande y opulenta ciudad de Taldor, y Zimar languidece como una fortaleza de mando rudo y militar, Cassomir mantiene su propio y orgulloso estatus como el corazón naval del imperio y el corazón de de toda la actividad naval del Mar Interior. Cassomir ha sido la fuente de los más grandes naíos de la Armada Imperial de Taldor, con algunos de los más diestros constructores y diseñadores trabajando para el Almirante y el Gran Príncipe docenas de generaciones, Cassomir rara vez ve una semana pasar sin que se bote y se remolque una nueva embarcación en la Bahía de la Estrella para empezar a servir al Imperio de Taldor.
	
Taldor, Imperio en Declive.
Taldor, está muy cerca de Absalom, sede de la sociedad Pathfinder. Cassomir es la segunda ciudad más grande y es famosa por sus astilleros.
	
El Consorcio del Áspid.
	
	Most people of Avistan and northern Garund
	view the Aspis Consortium as just another trade
	syndicate, albeit possibly the largest and one neither
	controlled by a specific state entity nor bound within any
	single nation’s borders. Aspis employs a vast pool of hired
	mercenaries and local labor eager to earn Consortium
	coin, and their business certainly enriches many. Clients
	and employees alike are puppets for the Consortium’s
	agents and merchant lords, earning them considerable
	good will and oftentimes a blind eye turned to other,
	darker rumors.
	Goal: Profit Above All
	Morals, laws, loyalties, and national boundaries fall by the
	wayside in the name of wealth. The Aspis Consortium acts
	superficially like many other merchant and trade cabals,
	but unlike them, it actively manipulates the market and
	its patrons to achieve its vast wealth. From the lowest dock
	worker who cares for nothing save for earning his promised
	pay, to the soldier of fortune willing to spill blood for coin,
	the Consortium’s masters rely on the supreme power of
	human greed to further even darker aims.
	Alignment: NE
	Aspis Consortium members are in it for themselves and
	their own profit. But they realize that by working within
	the Consortium’s loose framework and increasing its
	profit, they enrich themselves, even if they must be the
	tools of their superiors at times, while likewise using their
	inferiors as ignorant puppets. Members will do anything
	in the name of monetary profit, from slave trading and
	smuggling to market manipulation by extreme means such
	as engineering crop failure, causing plague, sinking ships
	to lower availability of imported goods, and obtaining
	exclusive development and import rights by any means
	necessary (including wiping out indigenous natives who
	prove uncooperative).
	Leader
	The Aspis Patrons each have their own personal goals, which
	they attempt to keep secret from their fellows; of course, they
	all ultimately work toward an unknown goal at the direction
	of the Aspis Prophet, the enigmatic and possibly inhuman
	person manipulating them all. The three Patrons living
	in Westcrown who are likely to interact with immediate
	underlings are Arvemis the Benighted (NE male half-fiend
	human sorcerer 8), Muriel Azphitra (LE female human cleric
	of Zon-Kuthon 7), and Kara Thistlecauldron (NE female
	bleachling gnome alchemist 8).
	Headquarters
	The Aspis Consortium maintains powerful centers of
	inf luence regionally in areas of interest and exploitation
	(such the Mwangi port of Bloodcove and Magnimar in
	Varisia). However, the strongest of these power centers is
	found in the city where the Aspis Consortium was first
	founded—the old Chelish capital of Westcrown. This
	branch shifts the location of its meetings more than any
	other branch; locations vary between heavily warded
	mansions, crypts, and even private rooms at inns.
	Joining
	The Consortium has many hirelings, but becoming an
	actual employee or member of the organization requires
	dedication and talent—a common laborer gains none of
	the benefits of this faction other than the daily silver of
	his wage. Unusual folk (such as adventurers) can join after
	proving themselves in specialized missions.
	Resources
	The Aspis Consortium has money, and given that its
	members are spread across much of Avistan and Garund, it
	can count on ready assistance from either formal members
	or locally hired muscle, even in remote regions. It has access
	to raw and manufactured goods from those distant places
	as well, often for much cheaper costs and in more abundant
	supply than the market typically supports. As Aspis agents
	tap into markets in corners of the globe barely known to
	most nations and only tentatively explored by groups such
	as the Pathfinders, they often have exclusive access to
	resources found there.