Frayed Knights - The Adventurer's Guild
Welcome to another installment of dev diary / commentary on Frayed Knights - the unabashedly tongue-in-cheek indie RPG forthcoming from Rampant Games.

This time, I want to talk about the Adventurer's Guild.

Those of you who played the pilot may recognize the Adventurer's Guild as the reason our non-traditional heroes are seeking the Eyes of Pokmor Xang in this "test" adventure. The Adventurer's Guild plays a role in the storyline of the full game. But what is the Adventurer's Guild?

The Adventurer's Guild was started over ten years ago by Argus Stormhammer, a veteran and highly successful treasure hunter / adventurer. His fame came not only from his successes, but also by his tracts which he created to try and help other adventurers. In these pamphlets, Stormhammer noted that he had seen many a fellow adventurer suffer not only loss of life and limb, but failure and insolvency. His writings not only aided fellow adventurers, but inspired many people to take up the the life of an adventurer.

Argus sold the pamphlets through various merchants, but as demand for his writings grew, so did the number of people who came to him requesting personal assistance and training. He had become the guru of fortune-hunting. As the demand for his services and writing threatened to overwhelm him (and left no time for actual adventuring), he decided to delegate.

He created the Adventurer's Guild to be a network of service providers for fortune-hunters all over Kaldera. Not only would they distribute his growing number of tracts and other treasure-hunting self-help books, but they would provide critical services and training to guild members:

1. A clearinghouse for rumors, reports, and opportunities
2. A meetingplace for hiring / partnering with other adventures
3. Contracts (bounties) for rescue should an adventurer or group not return by a certain time. Basically, you pre-pay a reward for people coming to rescue or recover your remains.
4. An adjudication system for conflicts between adventurers
5. Legal assistance for adventurers (who often run afoul of the law or need to have a will drawn up)
6. Appraisal services for rare items of collectible or magical value.
7. Training, training, and more training
8. Sponsored missions
9. Rapid communication between guild houses
10. Member discounts on adventuring equipment (usually used)

Due to some unfortunate circumstances early in the creation of the Adventurer's Guild, membership is no longer open to anybody who calls themselves an adventurer and is willing to pay the dues. A prospective member of the guild must prove themselves with accredited action prior to acceptance in the guild. While some services are available (at a fee) to non-members, the most valuable services are strictly for members only.

Would-be members complain that this Adventurer's Guild members an overwhelming advantage and a jump on any possible opportunities, leaving slim possibilities for the non-guild member to "prove" themselves.

The Adventurer's Guild has responded to this complain in the last year by offering some sponsored "quests" to non-members only, with success resulting in automatic accreditation. Again, this solution is imperfect. Several non-guild adventurers claim that these missions are excessively dangerous without guild training, and many adventuring groups do not survive their "audition." They also complain that these quests are exploitative, paying only a tiny fraction of the value of recovered artifacts that the guild, with its connections throughout Kaldera, can obtain. And finally, while completion of these quests do tend to provide a "fast-track" into guild membership, it is by no means guaranteed. Many contend that this is an unfair policy that exploits non-members that the Guild has no intention of recruiting.

These issues notwithstanding, membership in the Adventurer's Guild seems to make a tremendous difference in the success and survival rates of adventurers throughout the kingdom, so nearly every fortune-hunter aspires to join its ranks.

Labels: Frayed Knights

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