The Guild

“Why do we travel to remote locations? To prove our adventurous spirit or to tell stories about incredible things? We do it to be alone amongst friends and to find ourselves in a land without man.”

– Quoted in The Wildest Dream: The Biography of George Mallory, George Mallory

After the First Crusade, the City was presented with a new problem: How to deal with the influx of money. The tops of the forested Spires were literally gilded. Horrible monsters brooded over ancient hordes of coins from a forgotten dynasty. The immense wealth brought by returning crusaders was a great boon and a terrible problem.

The Beggar Prince, who was far from a beggar, inadvertently devastated the price of copper and silver when he returned from the Crusade. Prices in the Omphalic Market greatly inflated. To rectify the market, he borrowed all the gold he could house from moneylenders at high interest, founding the Centrum Bank.

It was the Tyrant Emperor who imposed the 50% taxes on all coins returning from the Underworld. For every two coins plundered, one would join the royal treasury.

Non-liquid assets, like gems, fine clothes, or works of art could pass onto the surface without being taxed: a surfeit of beauty to enrich the City.

To better regulate the flow of coin from the Underworld, the Tyrant Emperor further sought to establish control over who descended and ascended. It was decreed that all adventurers must register their names with the Cult, as well as some sign or symbol that they might be identified by. This led to the formation of guilds, with adventurers incorporating as collective units and borrowing from the human custom of heraldry.

When the Griffin King rose to power, many (very wealthy) adventurers asked him to unmake the Tyrant’s edicts—or, at the least, lower the tax rate.

He did not.

Collectively, you and your other adventurers form a guild during the Call to Adventure. In the same way that you track your adventurer by way of your adventurer sheet, the entire table tracks the guild by way of the guild roster. The guild roster can be downloaded from hismajestytheworm.games.

All players collectively decide a guild name. This incorporates your guild as a legal entity in the City, for whom it is lawful to descend to the Underworld.

Choose a name that is evocative of your guild’s theme and representative of your guild’s shared goals. Most importantly, choose a guild name that is cool and sounds fun to everybody.

Example guild names: the Four Aces, the Maidens of the Moon, the Steel-clad Snakes, the Handmaidens, Justice’s Sons, the Faith Militant, the Kegbreakers, the Chimera Company, the Brotherhood of the Burned Banner, His Majesty’s Delvers of Unplumbed Depths, the Sword Sisters, the Finders, the Busy Bees

The guild roster defines your guild’s rules for looting rights. The default contract stipulates that all members of the guild split loot equally and funeral rights are paid for by the guild.

As you fill out the guild roster, take a moment to talk about your guild’s looting rights, who gets the most shares, how expenses are arranged, what happens to fallen adventurers’ gear, etc.

Informed by the guild name, the players collectively choose the guild’s seal, heraldry, or portraiture.

Fay guilds prefer the use of abstract seals: kaleidoscopes of shapes that roughly correspond to some natural phenomenon like a mountain range, a meaningful flower, or an auspicious star sign. Underfolk guild sigils layer meaning in beautiful calligraphy. Both orcs and humans prefer heraldic symbols of animals and monsters that evoke a sense of danger, humor, or power.

The player with the most artistic skill should draw a sigil or a sketch of the guild in the space allotted on the guild roster sheet.

It is important to understand the order in which the guild marches.

For instance, if there is a pressure-plate trap in a hallway in the Castle of Crossed Destinies, the GM should consult the guild roster sheet. This trap ignores lighter adventurers, such as halflings or gnomes, but activates when someone human-sized or larger steps on it. The first adventurer in the marching order with enough weight to trigger the plate will suffer the consequences.

Each player decides where they want their adventurer to fall in the marching order. Write down your marching order—whether you’re in the first position, second position, last position, etc.

If you’re the first person in the marching order, you have an opportunity to react to dangers the guild approaches.

• The GM will tell you what you see and ask you what you do.

• For example, if you spot a goblin, will you attack, shout a warning, or order a retreat?

• This action is a split-second decision on your part.

• The GM might call for a test of Cups if the danger you’re marching into is particularly well hidden and your guild is not moving carefully.

• If you’re first in the marching order, you will also be the first attacked by charging foes.

If you’re in the middle of the marching order, you have someone in front of and behind you. This can be the safest position (sometimes).

If you’re the last person in the marching order, you have similar responsibilities to the person in front.

• You act as a lookout and must deal with ambushes (Ambushes and surprise).

• If danger comes up behind you, the GM will tell you what you see and ask you what you do.

Decide what job you have in the guild. There is no exhaustive list and no mechanics tied to this decision. Instead, your choice of guild role gives you a niche inside which you operate during play.

Your guild role might determine what Camp Action (Camp Actions) you take. For example, a cartographer might be obliged to use the Update Maps action for the good of the guild, a smith might use their tinker’s kit to repair armor, and a cook might prepare rations from hunted game.

Your guild’s theme will inform the guild roles available. A pirating guild that spends time raiding will feel very different from a witch hunting guild sent by the Cult to root out corrupt magic users.

Here’s a quick, non-exhaustive list of guild roles for inspiration:

If all else fails, just write “Sell-sword.” It’ll do in a pinch.

The guild contract

We, the Undersigned, agree to a journey and subsequent extraction from the Underworld of any and all goods, valuables, and chattels (which activities are described collectively herein as the Adventure), which shall proceed in a timely manner and with all due care and consideration as seen fit by majority rule, to wit, the Guild, named: __________

Funeral expenses to be defrayed by Guild or representatives, if occasion arises and the matter is not otherwise arranged for.

Agreed hereto, freely and under neither duress nor force nor coercion nor extortion nor threat to life and/or limb, and superseding any prior contract, agreement or undertaking, survivable clauses notwithstanding, signed and witnessed below, as set forth hereunder:

The Underworld has monsters and it has treasure. Powerful, influential, and rich people want things in the Underworld. They offer contracts: risk for reward. Do what they want in the Underworld and they’ll make you rich too.

When your guild takes a contract, note it on the “Current Contract” space of your guild roster sheet.

When you fulfill a contract, everybody in the guild gains 1XP.

It’s the GM’s job to create interesting characters who offer interesting contracts in the City; see Plan the next Crawl for more details.

Whereas a guild may only pursue one quest at a time, a guild may have as many contracts at a time as seems prudent. Patrons who aren’t receiving results, however, may withdraw the contract, defame the guild, or take matters into their own hands.

In general, fulfilling a contract is a smaller and more discrete task than finishing a quest. A quest might require several descents into the Underworld; generally, contracts only take one or two.

When great deeds are done in the Underworld, the whole City buzzes. Adventurers are big business—guilds that pull off big stunts will start to attract the attention of important people. Each discrete achievement your guild accomplishes are cataloged as noteworthy deeds. You track your noteworthy deeds on the guild roster during step 2 of the City Phase (Noteworthy deeds).

Your guild’s Fame is equal to the number of noteworthy deeds you have performed. Fame is an abstract measurement of how much gossip and name recognition your guild receives. Fame is rated 0–5. The GM frames role-playing exchanges within the context of your current Fame score.

Note that Fame isn’t necessarily good. It just means people have heard of your deeds. If all of your deeds are dastardly, you’ll be known as dastards. If your guild’s Fame is very high, a GM character’s starting Disposition might be more or less favorable (Starting Disposition).