Wayfinder Foundation

Nature: Organization
Type: Explorer's guild

Whether displaying stuffed owlbears in its Fairhaven trophy room, running a hostel in Stormreach, or sponsoring jungle expeditions in steaming Xen'drik, the Wayfinder Foundation promotes the hunger for exploration that drives Eberron.

The Wayfinder Foundation is an exclusive organization. Membership is by invitation only, and offers are extended only to renowned adventurers and explorers. The Wayfinder Conclave manages the affairs of the Foundation. The conclave meets in Aundair, and all decisions are resolved by a majority vote. As long as he still lives, Lord Boroman ir’Dayne has the final say on all expenditures of foundation funds, even overriding decisions of the conclave. Despite his skills, Dayne has been crippled by the wasting curse and rarely leaves the foundation’s enclave in Fairhaven.

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Origins

Part philanthropic trust and part professional networking service, the Foundation was organized and endowed by the hobbit Lord Boroman ir'Dayne — a renowned explorer in his own right until an expedition to Xen’drik left him with a mysterious wasting curse. Lord Boroman seeks to encourage exploration and make a legacy for himself, but his support of the Foundation also has a more personal motive — his dream of the day when a Wayfinder explorer stumbles from the rain forests of deep Xen'drik clutching an ivory flask, filled with some elixir that might save the lord’s slowly ebbing life.

Boroman ir’Dayne is a true philanthropist; he wishes to have his name attached to the great adventures of the future, since he himself can no longer participate in the adventures of the present. His one ulterior motive is the hope that an explorer may discover a cure for the strange wasting curse that is slowly sapping his life. Of course, many of the members of the Foundation are more interested in personal wealth or glory than in increasing the reputation of the Wayfinders or pursuing scholarly exploration. The Wayfinder Foundation is very much an alliance of individuals, and each Wayfinder has a distinctly different personality.
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Activities

Adventurers often turn to the Foundation for sponsorship, and its Conclave of trustees can underwrite a penniless explorer's forays into terra incognita by providing gold for equipment, travel expenses, legal permits, and healing. Many other explorers and greedy tomb raiders find themselves competing with rival Wayfinders racing against them as they attempt to be the first to uncover a storm giant tomb in Xen’drik or they both seek to retrieve the same ancient schema from its long-lost hiding place.

Conversely, the Foundation can serve as a kind of Khorvairian cavalry, dispatching Wayfinders to rescue explorers who have gotten in over their heads. For those who make it back under their own power, the Foundation is an excellent market for obscure art objects and rare beasts brought back from far-off lands.

The Foundation often plays an active role even in the lives of adventurers who aren't members, as the organization usually hires large crews when they organize their daring expeditions. Being the foremost financial backer of all adventuring activities in the Five Nations, and the most respectable and dignified one, has allowed it to be quite dominant within the field. And when they learn of the Foundation’s membership benefits, even more adventurers want to join. In the end, the quest to earn an entrance often ends up being an exciting adventure in and of itself, which is presumably intentional on the Foundation's part.

To become a Wayfinder, an applicant must receive a personal invitation from one of the Foundation’s trustees. Unless a trustee has blacklisted someone out of personal or professional animosity, the Foundation Conclave extends an invitation to any invited person who meets one of their standard criteria, though the Foundation does sometimes extend invitations for other remarkable achievements of exploration, as the Conclave sees fit.

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Membership Benefits

•Access to Wayfinder Foundation lounges, bunkrooms and travel lodges at lightning rail stations and airship docking towers

•Subscription to the Wayfinder Foundation’s quarterly newsletter, the "Rope and Piton", published by the Korranberg Chronicle. (reading the Piton lets you pick up explorer tips and survival techniques, which can give an insight bonus to Knowledge (geography) or Survival checks).

•Automatic success when bidding for a place in a Wayfinder Expedition.

•As a sponsor, the Foundation can pay an adventurer in advance in return for a 1/5th share of the treasure on select expeditions. The Foundation also reserves the right to place the words “Wayfinder Foundation explorer” in front of any use of the adventurer’s name in coverage by the Korranberg Chronicle or other journals. Sponsorship is available for forays into the Demon Wastes, Q'barra, the Shadow Marches, and any continent other than Khorvaire.

•The opportunity to sell big-game carcasses to the taxidermists responsible for the trophy room in the Foundation headquarters at Fairhaven. Taxidermists will purchase the body of any magical beast, aberration, or plant creature recovered from the Demon Wastes, the Shadow Marches, Q'barra, or any continent beyond Khorvaire. To keep their collection varied and to support as many Wayfinders as possible, the taxidermists buy only one trophy per year from any Foundation member.

•Insurance in the event an expedition goes bad: Every adventure sponsored by the Wayfinder Foundation registers a return date with the Conclave in Fairhaven, and the Conclave dispatches a Wayfinder rescue team to investigate should a mission fail to return in time.

If the rescue team determines that an expedition has been irrevocably lost, the trustees send 100 gp and a lily bouquet topped with a kieros leaf to each party member’s next of kin.

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Grand Expeditions

In addition to sponsoring numerous smaller missions, the Wayfinder Foundation organizes 2 major expeditions per year. The spring expedition always sails for Xen'drik, casting off from Sharn on the first of Dravago to take advantage of the cooler winter months in the southern jungles.

The destination of the autumn expedition varies, with Conclave trustees currently considering proposals for a skiff flotilla into the Shadow Marches, a jungle dig east of Adderport in Q'barra, a dinosaur-mounted expedition into the Blade Desert south of Zephyr Keep, and an airship drop into Seren.

These expeditions are grand affairs, and a month or more can pass while porters, thunder guides, field scholars, Wayfinders, translators, engineers, adventurers, House Jorasco healers, and safari-going nobles assemble. Cities and towns vie for the privilege (and economic boon) of hosting a Wayfinder Expedition launch.

Expeditions are typically named after their chief benefactor or highest-ranking noble (f.ex. “The ir'Dayne Expedition”).

The Korranberg Chronicle covers these expeditions in great detail over many weeks, especially if a celebrated noble is accompanying the mission. For example, when the royal twins Wrel and Wrey of Aundair took a break from their studies in Arcanix to accompany an expedition into the Dragonreach, they wound up squabbling publicly over the son of a Lhazaar prince who happened to be serving as first mate. The Chronicle sent four reporters to cover the ensuing uproar.

Always soliciting funds, the Foundation sells shares in its grand expeditions. Anyone can buy shares, but the Foundation’s excellent reputation has created high demand. Availability is limited, and each individual can buy only 1 share per expedition (2 shares for Foundation members). Thus far it has taken an average of 3 month before a Great Expedition returns, at which time the dividends, if any, are paid to shareholders.
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Conclave Trustees

Five trustees administrate the Wayfinder Foundation and make up the Foundation Conclave. Lord ir’Dayne also claims a seat in the Conclave, and (if he wishes) exercises ultimate executive control, including veto power and the right to determine expedition destinations. In reality, though, his wasting curse prevents him from taking an active role in all but the most important matters. Full board meetings occur monthly at Foundation headquarters in Fairhaven.

The current Conclave trustees are as follows:
Shensari Damilek (female human) - oversees the Foundation’s Relics and Antiquities Auctions
Vikan Buristal (male human) - handles logistics for the Foundation’s major (and Grand) expeditions
Dorein Rauthevvit (female human) - sells shares in the Foundation's expeditions, both big and small
Giff Rapelje (male gnome) - edits the Foundation's newsletter, the "Rope and Piton"
Imre Levalle (male dwarf) - the Foundation’s Curator of Acquisitions
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Foundation Members

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