House CopperWire

Officially known as The Organization/guild/merchant house responsible for cataloging, tracking and publishing definitive lexicons, dictionaries, and syntaxi, for all the Mortal, Spiritual and Elemental Languages in Crescent, and the teaching, dissemination, and spread thereof, founded by the CopperWire family but now a conglomeration interested parties, House CopperWire is the only major gnomish mercantile House.

They may not have managed to actually get any lexicons, dictionaries, and syntaxi out for publication (due in part to a disagreement with Barnabus and Nobble, which, if you believe one of the rumors, is why B&N are in Luminaux), but if you need a translation, someone there will probably speak, read, or write whatever it is you need to translate. Discretion costs extra.

CopperWire Service

House CopperWire has recently funded (and consequently monopolized) telegram service between the same major cities served by the Lightning Rail. The Gnomish technical name for telegrams is very long, but most people just call them 'copperwires'.

Though the Lightning Rail line between Luminaux and Mt. Daneasus is still under construction, CopperWire line has been laid ahead of the train tracks, and thus the Mountain City is connected to the network.

Gnomish Ministry of Engineering personnel are hard at work trying to figure out how to run a line from Wild's Reef to The Spire, with a spirited debate raging between those that want to run it under the sea and those that favor a series of tethered balloons. The deadline for submitting plans for this passed several years ago, and there is no telling when this debate will get settled. In the meantime, telegrams to/from the Spire are sent by boat to Wild's Reef and then dispatched from there.

The business side of this was an accidental byproduct of an effort to get real-time translations by various far-flung experts, and no one's sure if the House leadership is aware of exactly what they've accomplished.

Regardless, it also means they have agents in most of the major cities in the world, providing translation and information services for a fee.