(~500 Years Ago)
The Slavers Guild has operated in some form for as long as sapients have inhabited Nod, but its current shape dates to the Compact, a formal agreement between the Guild, the Council, and the Prefex that granted the Guild legal protection in exchange for a share of its revenue and a commitment to operate within defined boundaries.
Before the Compact, the slave trade was unregulated, which meant it was everywhere. Slavers operated in every district, seized targets without regard for species or status, and answered to no authority beyond those who could muster a defense. As the cities population size reached a critical density, Slaver operations began to produce an instability that threatened the city's commercial infrastructure badly enough that the Merchants Guild petitioned the Council for intervention.
The Compact did not abolish slavery. It institutionalized it. The Slavers Guild was given exclusive rights to the trade in exchange for yearly limits on how many of each species could be taken and the requirement to maintain their own military rather than relying on the Prefex. Management of the so-called 'harvest quota' was established by taking away the right to create Fetters, the cruel devices the Guild uses to control its property. These are now produced by specialist engineers under the control of the Council.
The Compact is the single most controversial arrangement in Nod's political life. The quotas are a political weapon and currency used by the Council which defends them as a necessary stabilization of a trade that would exist regardless of legality. The Order condemns the pact entirely, as proof that the Council values commerce over human life. Resistance groups attack the Slavers Guild headquarters in the Glass District with a regularity that has made the assaults almost seasonal. The Guild survives all of it, because it is profitable, because it is protected, and because the powerful always happy to profit off the misery of others.