The Gorisonad Light Fair

The motto of House Gorisonad is "Knowledge is Power". The house founder Gorisonad the Wise was academically minded and encouraged his descendants to follow in his path, but over the generations House Gorisonad has gradually morphed from a house of scholars to a house of spies, but House Gorisonad has not completely abandoned their scholarly roots. The Gorisonad Light Fair is one of the last vestiges of their scholarly past and even centuries after the fair's founding, still attracts a lot of people interested in buying and selling rare tomes and illuminated manuscripts. A lot of book binders and illuminators travel to the festival to try to find someone to hire them.   House Gorisonad and House Numaness are long standing frienemies within the Kingdom of Swynfaredia.   Gorisonad and Numaness like to one-up each other and one of the arenas is to throw and bigger and fancier publicly open market fairs then other side. Eventually Gorisonad got the edge and after winning this informal contest nine years in a row, House Numaness gave up on this contest and only sponsors modest market fairs while Gorisonad continues to make a spectacle out of the Gorisonad Light Fair.   While House Manasch and House Cefnor do not have near the numbers or influence that House Gorisonad currently enjoys, Cefnor and Manasch are very mercantile focused and the two upstart houses are mutually supporting each other's own trade fairs and they seem to have set a long-term goal of stealing the Gorisonad's crown for throwing the grandest market fairs.

The Gorisonad Light Fair is officially advertised as an all-purpose market fair, so anything legal can be bought and sold here, and House Gorisonad is as much interested in gaining prestige as they are in gaining money, so the tolls and fees are fairly light compared to market fairs of similar size. Gorisonad spends a lot of money on entertainments and art exhibitions for the fair, so at the end of the fair, they usually just about break even.   Originally, the fair had a focus towards scholarly trades attracting scholars of various stripes, alchemists, book binders, illuminators,, and even paper makers. While the emphasis has moved to general merchandise, purveyors of scholarly goods and services still enjoy a 33% discount on fees and tolls though reputedly the 1839 Market Fair is lowering it to a 20% discount. One of several signs of Gorisonad starting to tighten their belts for....reasons.

Due to a long-standing law, any duke or duchess of Swynfaredia can sponsor a market fair without running it by the king or queen for approval though diplomatic politesse usually it phrases it along the lines "We cordially invite her majesty to partake of the amenities of our illustrious trade fair" as opposed to "We are throwing a trade fair, deal with it."   Swynfaredian Dragonbloods are not especially known for their piety nor is House Gorisonad in particular but in the interest of increasing the festivals' mass appeal, they will at least symbolically include most of the Nonagon into their fair. Maylar and his Testers are octagoned out.

Originally the market fair has been intended to be a celebration of academic enrichment and not just material enrichment. Swynfaredians are not especially known for their piety but Khemra is the goddess of literacy, so on paper at least, the Gorisonad Light Fair is held in Khemra's honor and coincides with the Zodiac Holiday known as Khemra's Zenith. This is roughly analogous to early August on Earth.   Originally this was a nine-day event, but after House Numaness shortened their market fairs from nine days to six days, House Gorisonad shortened their market fairs to seven days.