Members of this guild are an overworked, underpaid
lot, who labor around the clock (most are family businesses,
with the family members working in shifts) to
wash the dirty garments of Waterdhavians in opentopped
tubs, usually stirred with long poles (the “honest”
use for a ten-foot pole) full of boiling water and scented
soap. Everyone buys his own scent: some use cider, some
use wine, some use straight perfume, some strong herbs.
but the Guild provides various soaps for its members at
cheap rates (1 gp per 10-gallon barrel). These soaps are
sludgy mixtures, not hard bars or dry flakes. A launderer
never guarantees that your garment will survive
cleaning, and Waterdhavians do not expect perfection
(nobles usually have their own servants launder difficult
or delicate garments, and buy new garments for themselves
often) Washing can be done while you wait (2 sp
per garment: it is put back on wet, and dries on the
body), or overnight (1 sp per garment). Most launderers
have numbered-bins (with wooden tags) as a clothes filing
system—no tag, no laundry unless you pay 2 gp or
more for a new tag and your garments. Unless a launderer
remembers you, there is also a wait of three or four
days in case you’re mistaken and someone else comes
with the tag to claim the same clothes.

All cleaning must be paid for when the clothes are left,
not when they are picked up; this is due to nobles who
refused to pay for cleaning, every time, on the grounds
that it was not satisfactory. Magisters grew tired of the
constant disputes.

A favorite trick of mercenaries coming into the City
used to be to find some drunken patron in a tavern about
their size, follow him and beat him up, take his tag and
money, and promptly claim his clothes for their own.
This practice was one of the reasons that the Watch
escorts many tavern-goers home, but the Watch can do
nothing about those gamblers who wager their laundry
tags in card, dart, or dice games when all their money is
gone