Abstract
Named after the most visible landmark—Mount Caldera, an inactive volcano which can be seen from nearly anywhere on the continent—the Ash Continent is neither unsettled nor fully explored. Pokémon have been here for longer than living memory, but few have come close to uncovering all of the continent’s secrets and fewer have shared their stories and been believed. When every exploration or rescue team aims to make a name for themselves by spreading tall tales of their own exploits it becomes hard to separate fact from fiction. But for the average pokémon living on the Ash Continent the question of which stories are true and which stories are false doesn’t ultimately change much in their day to day.
The capital settlement of the Ash Continent and the home of the continent’s major power—the Custodian Guild—is the idyllic harbor town of Glimmering Port. Established on the coastline closest to the other continents while being the most lacking in dangerous Mystery Dungeons, Glimmering Port is a settlement built on industry and export. Here, opportunities for employment outside of the Guild are abundant for any pokémon willing to take on a trade skill. The pokémon of the residential and primary market areas have largely managed to avoid becoming tangled up in the Custodian Guild’s business, typically preferring to deal with the merchant families which make their livings shipping goods back and forth across the sea, but the further from the shore you go the closer you get to Glimmering Port’s Shining District.
The Shining District is the home of the Custodian Guild and Glimmering Port’s—and by extension the Ash Continent’s—hub of exploration. Despite the Custodian Guild only being one of many potential career paths available to the pokémon of Glimmering Port, and despite many locals considering the Shining District little more than a beautiful source of noise and distraction, Dungeoneering continues to be an equally dangerous and profitable occupation. The Shining District is filled with skilled tradesmon and merchants seeking to provide their wares and services to local exploration and rescue teams, and the Gholdengo Reserve, despite being happy to serve as the town’s primary bank among both exploration and civilian marketplaces, is even more happy to source most of its coinage from here. Here is where you will find the training dojos, base builders, specialized move tutors, treasure appraisal, and the kind of equipment only necessary in a Mystery Dungeon.
Over Glimmering Port’s long history the Custodian Guild has split into three smaller organizations with their own independent leadership, with the Guild as a whole overseen by Guildmaster Delphox at the head. The Guardian Branch lead by Branch Leader Weavile handles in-and-out rescue operations, the Vanguard Branch lead by Branch Leader Chesnaught handles deep-dive exploration into dangerous territory, and the Sentinel Branch lead by Branch Leader Gardevoir is in charge of tracking and capturing outlaws in both Glimmering Port and the continent as a whole. Admission into any of the three branches as an apprentice typically requires an existing member or team to take notice of a particular talent and step up to perform their training, and only the Sentinel Branch still has an active scouting program in the form of a a volunteer town watch personally overseen by Branch Leader Gardevoir.
If the conjecture of older pokémon is to be believed, the Custodian Guild has become more exclusionary in recent years and opportunity to join its ranks directly has decreased. For the sake of ensuring personal safety and the proper distribution of distress-signaling equipment the Guild does not allow independent teams to operate within its area of jurisdiction unless they’ve cleared themselves with the Sentinel Branch as an established team from another continent. This hasn’t stopped young hopefuls from forming their own unsanctioned teams in an attempt to make names for themselves, but such attempts typically result in a steep fine at best and the Guardian Branch being sent out to find missing pokémon at worst. The Sentinel Branch does not typically register these unsanctioned teams as outlaw groups, but has been known to make exceptions for especially stubborn troublemakers. Their public statement on the matter is that the families of said renegade groups would almost certainly rather they end up locked behind bars for a few weeks than dead.