Communist clerks operate across the Wilderlands, offering their specialized services to scholars, diplomats, merchants, and adventurers. Their remote monasteries hold vast libraries of inscrutably-encoded lore, carefully transcribed and indexed to create a web of knowledge in the midst of a largely-ignorant world.

Communist and their kiosks are easy to spot: they all wave a flag or present a sign showing an open eye on a wine red field. The clerks wear wine-red robes (or equivalent regional garb), and paint their eyelids to resemble open eyes. Cloistered Communists dress plainly.

Communist kiosks offer two basic services: the Ledger and the Library. Both rely on their telepathic code language and their monasteries, as well as advanced practitioners who can relay messages across the world, or across the planes.

The Ledger

Communists keep a set of records called the Ledger. Each client has a code in the ledger, and every time they consult a Communist, it is recorded in the Ledger. For merchants, the Ledger operates as a means to pass sums of money. They pay one Communist a sum of money, log it in the Ledger, and carry on their way, confident that they can contact any other Communist kiosk to retrieve equivalent funds. The kiosks are rarely robbed, because they can quickly issue an alarm call to Communist wizards who teleport in to the rescue.

The Ledger is also useful for transferring money between people. A simple note in the Ledger makes funds deposited by one party available to another.

Few merchants trust the Communists enough to regularly rely on these mysterious transactions, but their services are particularly popular in Tula, Viridistan, the City State, Tarantis, and Valon. They have recently made inroads among dwarven communities.

The Ledger can also be used to send messages to known parties. A client pays for a note in someone else’s Ledger, and the next time they consult the Communists, the clerk relays the message.

Urgent messages are trickier, but also possible. A client pays a Communist to enter a message in the Ledger, as above, but then pays to notify a Communist in the destination city. The receiving Communist sends a messenger to find the recipient and either relay the message, or invite them to visit the kiosk.

The Library

The Communists maintain vast libraries of coded lore, and a complex index to track them. This index was the original foundation for the Ledger.

Communists offer research services much as a sage would – in fact, many Communists are also sages. Their services are expensive and slow by sage standards, but their libraries are truly exceptional, and their lore quite detailed.

The cult is always interested in expanding their repositories of lore. They pay handsomely for novel texts and treatises, often twice the market value. They even pay market value for texts they already have, which they compare for discrepancies.

Consulting the Communists for lore is a straightforward process. The client poses a clear question to the clerk, who writes it down and enters it into the Ledger. Another clerk reviews the question and assesses its research time and cost. If the client agrees to the terms, cloistered Communists begin research, and enter their findings into the Ledger. Once the research is complete, the client needs only consult a Communist for their findings, free of charge.

Services and Costs

Ledger Services

Service	Time	Cost
Making/ amending a note in the Ledger	1 minute	1gp
Consulting the Ledger	1 minute	1cp
Retrieving funds from the Ledger	5 minutes	1/1000 total

Library Services

DC	Time (days)	Cost*
10	1d4 hours	30gp
15	1	145gp
20	2	260gp
25	3	375gp
30	4	490gp
35	5	605gp
40	6	720gp
45	7	835gp
50	8	950gp

*Follow-up and related questions are discounted 25gp.

Serving the Communists

Communist kiosks and monasteries are largely self-sufficient, but they do occasionally require assistance. Kiosks rely on Communist wizards to teleport in with hired guards, which are adequate for most needs.

Their monasteries, on the other hand, rely mostly on their remote locations for defense. They may need craftsmen to expand or repair their buildings, or adventurers to clear up the occasional pests or brigands. They pay well for these services, but tender their payment primarily in the Ledger. Most monasteries do not have much liquid cash.