Shipwrights' Guild

Making trade possible since it was established
The Shipwrights and the arcane guild are the professional equivalent of BFF's. Ships are the most advanced engineering in a pre-industrial society, and the guild is always eager for better technology. Since they also get a commission on most Italian (and all Ethaxian) trade, they also have plenty of gold with which to fund research and buy technology. Before the arcane guild became official and came under Primus' wing, most of their larger projects were funded by loans and venture capital advanced by the Shipwrights.

The Shipwrights guild is a pan-Italian business. They are in perpetual competition with the craftsmen of Venice to supply ships. For some discerning merchants Ethaxian ships always win out; but the common customer doesn't know how to work a motor, which makes it somewhat useless. The Ethaxians thus occupy a niche market of the rich and well-connected. Ethaxian ships of some kind or the other are common in large trade missions, where merchants will pay top dollar for decreased risk. Ethax excuses its magic as a trade secret, so foreigners generally consider these ships (and usually their crew) a black box, within which they have no idea what is going on.

The shipwrights have since expanded into a kind of 'general engineering guild' which also has interests in land-based transports; it has begun developing its own unique kind of electric cars. These cars have magnetic wheels, which are connected to a telekinetic pulley system. This is an effectively useless technology for the moment since they don't have a proper turning mechanism. They have tried to implement one, but it has usually led to disaster of some kind- for now most people content themselves with either carriages or walking.

The shipwrights guild is also known to manufacture warships, albeit clandestinely. These are often commandeered or commissioned by Primus for the defence of the city. They also sell smaller, cheaper versions to paranoid merchants, which have basic cannons for the defence of the ships. The ships designed for the city are quite few; since war is expensive and risky, especially for a small island that can be easily surrounded. The few ships that they do make are designed to be piled with lodestone and manned by a mix of tacticians, sailors, and lots of arcanists. They feature boomeranging cannon shots, and storms of iron filings as shrapnel, which can be targeted to decimate enemy officers standing on deck. These have yet to be used, since war is costly and dangerous.