Guilds

The Royal Guilde of Map Makers & Surveyors in Coth-Rom

Guilds are civic organizations that provide structure, control, and self-regulation of a skill or discipline in a settlement or region. While they are authorized by the state, they are managed by a civic authority. A particular guild hall (or an entire guild) may receive the endorsement of the King, and may thus use the title style “Royal Guilde”. The officially recognized guilds in Kalderesh are listed in the adjacent table.

A guild hall, managed by at least a Fellow, is the administrative head quarters of a guild. It is usually an impressive building, providing accommodation for visiting members, offices and record rooms, storage space, work areas, recreational spaces, and a formal assembly hall. In some instances, two or more guilds will pool their resources and build a communal guild hall. A guild hall can be as small as an average house, or as large as a temple complex.

The Great Hall, managed by at least an Order Master, is the primary facility of a guild, to which all other guild leaders report. Prominent guilds usually have a Small Hall, managed by at least a Master Warden, where second-tier leaders reside and work.

Members of guilds pay dues and are subject to the guild’s rules and regulations. Guilds also act as insurance policies. If a merchant or craftsman dies, the guild takes care of their family and pays for a proper burial. The guild also provides assistance to guild members when their business is struggling. Guild members eat together, drink together, celebrate together, and live near each other.

Guilds commonly sponsor charities, plays, and other public events, using such occasions to demonstrate their wealth and influence.

Craft guilds

Craft guilds control the production of their craft, the progression of their craftsmen, and the selling price of their products. Craft guilds are stratified into three types of craftsmen: master, senior apprentice, and junior apprentice.

The junior apprentice is the lowest of craftsmen. Taken in by a master craftsman, he usually lives and works in the master craftsman’s home, or in lodgings nearby. The junior apprentice is not allowed to make or sell any item without the permission and approval of his master craftsman. Often the master has his junior apprentices do the laborious tasks of the craft or produce the smallest and simplest items. The junior apprentice earns a paltry amount of money and pays the least amount of dues to the guild. The guild promotes the junior apprentices to senior apprentices on the recommendation of their master craftsmen.

Senior apprentices are the intermediary strata in a craft guild. They can independently make and sell items, though some craft guilds require senior apprentices to have a master craftsman’s supervision and implicit permission. The craft guild limits the products they may make and the selling price of those products.

Masters are the ruling class in the craft guild. Socially and financially, they receive the greatest return from the guild and its regulations. They decide who become senior apprentices and master craftsmen. They determine the selling price for products of their craft based on the item and the level of the craftsmen who makes the item. They are ambassadors of the craft in civic matters and in dealing with the merchant guild.

Merchant guilds

Most merchant guild members are wholesale merchants. They are not concerned with the production of goods, but rather the transporting, buying, and selling of goods. Some wholesale merchants are concerned with buying local goods and transporting and selling them to neighbouring cities or fairs. Socially, they rank above craft guilds.

Unlike the craft guild, merchant guilds are concerned with city commerce on a larger level. They determine how much tax should be imposed on items made elsewhere (i.e. not made in the city by a craftsman of the city). They determine who can sell what, where, and when, and establish trading partners for certain commodities along river and land routes.

Guild of Mages

A wizard’s guild typically grants access to libraries, scriptoria, research facilities, laboratories, special materials, spell components, magical education, spell trading, and magic items. A caster wishing to use magic within a settlement has to be a member of the local guild. Failure to do so risks retribution, as guilds have the social and legal right to pursue transgressors.

Wizard guilds limit who can make what magic items, and restrict what level of spells a wizard can cast for hire. They regulate the prices at which magical items and spells are sold, and who may create new spells. The guild determines who becomes a magic user by controlling membership.

Magic user guilds are potentially one of the most powerful groups in a city. Such organizations have the magical power, and most likely the wealth, to compete against other guilds and power centres for attention and influence.

Independent guilds

Unless prohibited by a local or national law, any persons may establish a guild, defining the skill or discipline it will service, detailing the geographical area in which it will operate, and setting prices and policy. Such a guild is registered with the Court, usually in the city nearest to where the independent guild will operate. To qualify, a guild has to be unique (e.g. may not function in an area where a similar guild is already registered) and sufficiently differentiated so as not to cause confusion about its true nature. Independent guilds often merge with a more established guild over time.

Thieves and Thief Guilds in Kalderesh

Thieves and assassins, as part of the criminal underclass, do not have a conventional guild hall. Persons wishing to pursue such a career are apprenticed to an established thief and have to acquire skill in a common occupation (e.g. artisan, carpenter, craftsman, dock worker, mason, teamster, etc.), usually selected by the master. The apprentice needs to be proficient enough in this occupation to plausibly make a living from it.

The master may have other apprentices and is usually allied with others, operating an apparently legitimate business as a cover for their criminal activities.

Some guilds are infiltrated by thieves, and some may be in danger of being appropriated for illegal activities.

In addition to their secret Thieves’ Cant language, thieves use two systems of rank naming: a secret one for their true position within the thief community, and another for their ranking within their chosen occupation.