Continuing Education: The Champion's Guild
When I was a bairn I lived on a little farm, in a little town. There was a little river and there was a little wood. Outside the town there was a little ruin. Lots of little town's have ruins but we were proud of ours. The bugbears hardly ever bothered us. But one year it got much worse. They had a new chief or something and Mayor Bogle broke down and sent a cart up to the big city, where the Champion's Guild ran one of their conservatories. The town did a whip round and put up a princely sum.
My pa dragged out some old gold coins he'd been saving up for a new plow. Just about everyone chipped in. When the adventurers arrived they weren't the handsome men and women the Champion's Guild sent around to ask if we had any quests or jobs for 'em. They were mostly young, and desperate looking. Tattooed, scarred, hungry, they bargained like the devil, cursed like sailors, and drank like fish. We told 'em we had a round hundred gold for them and they asked for five hundred. We bargained them down and down, but in the end folks were dragging out their heirlooms, deeds, and livestock.
They left and went to the ruin, and one of 'em didn't come back. The rest were bloody, scarred, and dark-eyed, but they were heroes to us. We threw a big party and the handsomest folk in town practically threw themselves at them. I knew then that I wanted to do that, be that fucking cool, make that much money in a couple days. So what if they were tired? So what if some of them died or came back different?
Well that was before I joined the Champion's guild, before I met Foxglove, the old burglar whose skin is covered in teeth that grow in fractal patterns he says are prayers to the Hungering God in a dead language. Before I had to cut out Younger Hess' eye to make sure the demon that had found its way into it didn't eat his mind, body and soul from the inside out. Before I had to give over that hundred gold to the dead-eye'd collectors. Before I watched what happened to Lohr after she didn't pay up.
They took me in, helped me figure out what the hell I could do down in the dungeons of the world, and paid for everything. I wasn't rich, but I wasn't working a field, and I had a future. Of course, there was a cost. There's always a cost with the Guild. So now I fight with a thousand other adventurer's all in the same fucking boat, all desperate for another quest or job to pay off the leeches and lawyers of The Champion's Guild, for jobs that I know will maim, mutilate and break most of us.
My name is Rodney Strong. I'm a Champion. You've probably seen me on the posters. I'm 22.
But we could also map a quintessentially modern device onto this. Student loans.
In various versions of D&D they've had different indications of how much money you started with and how old your character is at the start of the story. Most wizards were in the their thirties by the time they started adventuring. The equivalent of having multiple doctoral degrees. How did they pay for all that time to learn?
There's an adventuring guild in some settings. They help find jobs and organize groups. What if a particularly "innovative" individual found a way to "disrupt" that system. Start a guild with those services AND provide loans to individuals to let them learn skills. Higher win rate because of more skills and an income stream beyond dues to the guild or charity. But eventually the people might not pay. They'd have to be punished. Eventually they'd resent the guild. They'd have to be controlled. Eventually people would stop joining for a dream of easy money. They'd need to be tricked, convinced, that the road to their future as heroes is through a debt now that of course will be worth it.
You'd save a lot of people. You'd solve a lot of problems. You'd make a lot of money. You'd be evil.
Regional Organization (Corporate)
An guild of adventurers with three branches. The Ivory branch is made up of lawyers (advocates/barristers), salesmen, and accountants, who track and enforce debts owed to the guild and handle charters and contracts. The Gold branch is made up of semi-retired adventurers, craftspeople, and domain experts who educate members of the guild and help provide them with the continuing training and equipment necessary to work. The Ruby branch journey out into the world to complete quests in order to pay back the debts they owe to the guild. The guild is largely sustained by a pernicious advertising campaign that glamorizes the lives of members of the Ruby branch and encourages the young to enter into exploitative contracts and loans for training and equipment. Members of the Champion's Guild who default often have contracts placed on them that are picked up by eager/desperate members of the Guild's Ruby branch.
While the organization itself is Neutral, bordering on Evil, many members of the Guild are genuinely and generally heroic people trapped inside a structure of artificial desperation.
My pa dragged out some old gold coins he'd been saving up for a new plow. Just about everyone chipped in. When the adventurers arrived they weren't the handsome men and women the Champion's Guild sent around to ask if we had any quests or jobs for 'em. They were mostly young, and desperate looking. Tattooed, scarred, hungry, they bargained like the devil, cursed like sailors, and drank like fish. We told 'em we had a round hundred gold for them and they asked for five hundred. We bargained them down and down, but in the end folks were dragging out their heirlooms, deeds, and livestock.
They left and went to the ruin, and one of 'em didn't come back. The rest were bloody, scarred, and dark-eyed, but they were heroes to us. We threw a big party and the handsomest folk in town practically threw themselves at them. I knew then that I wanted to do that, be that fucking cool, make that much money in a couple days. So what if they were tired? So what if some of them died or came back different?
Well that was before I joined the Champion's guild, before I met Foxglove, the old burglar whose skin is covered in teeth that grow in fractal patterns he says are prayers to the Hungering God in a dead language. Before I had to cut out Younger Hess' eye to make sure the demon that had found its way into it didn't eat his mind, body and soul from the inside out. Before I had to give over that hundred gold to the dead-eye'd collectors. Before I watched what happened to Lohr after she didn't pay up.
They took me in, helped me figure out what the hell I could do down in the dungeons of the world, and paid for everything. I wasn't rich, but I wasn't working a field, and I had a future. Of course, there was a cost. There's always a cost with the Guild. So now I fight with a thousand other adventurer's all in the same fucking boat, all desperate for another quest or job to pay off the leeches and lawyers of The Champion's Guild, for jobs that I know will maim, mutilate and break most of us.
My name is Rodney Strong. I'm a Champion. You've probably seen me on the posters. I'm 22.
Quentin Massys – The Moneylender and his Wife (1514)
It costs money to learn the skills to be a good adventurer. There's a couple interesting routes to go with that, and plenty of folks have. One idea that comes to mind patronage, the idea that each noble has pet brigand/tomb raider/troubleshooters that he has groomed for a while, and there's a lot to work with there. Also frankly, essentially how feudal nobility worked.But we could also map a quintessentially modern device onto this. Student loans.
In various versions of D&D they've had different indications of how much money you started with and how old your character is at the start of the story. Most wizards were in the their thirties by the time they started adventuring. The equivalent of having multiple doctoral degrees. How did they pay for all that time to learn?
There's an adventuring guild in some settings. They help find jobs and organize groups. What if a particularly "innovative" individual found a way to "disrupt" that system. Start a guild with those services AND provide loans to individuals to let them learn skills. Higher win rate because of more skills and an income stream beyond dues to the guild or charity. But eventually the people might not pay. They'd have to be punished. Eventually they'd resent the guild. They'd have to be controlled. Eventually people would stop joining for a dream of easy money. They'd need to be tricked, convinced, that the road to their future as heroes is through a debt now that of course will be worth it.
You'd save a lot of people. You'd solve a lot of problems. You'd make a lot of money. You'd be evil.
Seal of the Guild of St. George of Ferrera
Champion's Guild
Regional Organization (Corporate)
Lawful (Neutral/Evil)
An guild of adventurers with three branches. The Ivory branch is made up of lawyers (advocates/barristers), salesmen, and accountants, who track and enforce debts owed to the guild and handle charters and contracts. The Gold branch is made up of semi-retired adventurers, craftspeople, and domain experts who educate members of the guild and help provide them with the continuing training and equipment necessary to work. The Ruby branch journey out into the world to complete quests in order to pay back the debts they owe to the guild. The guild is largely sustained by a pernicious advertising campaign that glamorizes the lives of members of the Ruby branch and encourages the young to enter into exploitative contracts and loans for training and equipment. Members of the Champion's Guild who default often have contracts placed on them that are picked up by eager/desperate members of the Guild's Ruby branch.
While the organization itself is Neutral, bordering on Evil, many members of the Guild are genuinely and generally heroic people trapped inside a structure of artificial desperation.
1d6 Champion's Guild NPCs
- Golan Four-thumbs - An accountant of the Ivory Branch who travels to villages who have payment plans to the Guild alongside several hulking members of the Ruby Branch. The extra two thumbs are not where you'd expect.
- Silas Crumb, Esq. - A barrister based out of a medium sized city, he's a nervous man who hates his job almost as much as he hates the idea of being poor. Has a perpetually runny nose.
- Philasto the Adequate - A deeply mediocre mage who runs a summer program for young folks who are interested in the arcane. Essentially a loss-leading feeder program for the Guild.
- Dannika True-Man - A trap-maker raised by a breakaway group of [former slaves/cultists/strange barbarians] in a deep dark wood, she has turned her skills to creating non-lethal training courses for adventurers that teach them how to check for traps and secret doors. Missing an arm, has a new prosthetic every time the players visit and will pay good money for designs/examples of new traps.
- Rainy Rivers - A debt collector of the Ruby branch who very eagerly transitioned from adventuring to going after other adventurers. Believes that while it's equally dangerous, she's less likely to end up mutated or enslaved by goblins. Smiles too much, a side-effect of her preferred horse tranquilizer.
- Bobby Pile - A desperate young [Magic-User/Guild Wizard/Artificer] who joined the Guild to satisfy his dream of becoming a powerful mage. Not very good at magic, or very smart. In a lot of debt. Constantly stroking his familiar, a giant snail.
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