Food for Thought: Your Character's Best Guild

Cenarion Circle and Sisters of Elune
1

Today’s Question: If your character were to start a guild, what kind of guild would it be?

Background:
There’s been some new RP guilds popping up recently! It got me to thinking on whether I should start one, based on an old character concept that never really saw the light of day, buuuuut guild leading has never been a terribly pleasant experience for me, so I’m giving that a hard pass. And so it is: guild leading takes a lot of OOC responsibility and work, that doesn’t always fit in with our IC perspective of a particular character.

In Food for Thought, we don’t have to worry about such things as logistics though, hence I pose to you today’s question! If your character were to start a guild, or you otherwise were to be able to join the perfect guild for that character that doesn’t (yet) exist on this server, what would it be like? What would the IC theme be? What would their position in the guild be? Who else might be in the guild with them?

1 Like
2

I’ve debated making a guild for this guy myself, but like you, I’ve never had a particularly good experience running one (my Horde warlock is the GM of Modas il Toralar at the moment, but only because I happened to be the only one on for long stretches, and… I haven’t the foggiest clue what to do).

To answer your question, though, if I were to start one, it would be the idea I had for this guy and for my leveled-up mechagnome, his sister Marennia: Sputterspark Industries, a crafting guild with their “guild hall” based in Mechagon. Rakeri would be the boss and chief engineer.

2 Likes
3

Well, I have zero experience with starting and managing guilds, so it’s unlikely I would ever venture into creating my own.

That being said, I would love to see a guild of librarians and archivists running a functional in-game library. If feasible, it would be fun to create and “publish” in-game books with TRP3: Extended (or other applicable add-on) for use in the library that players could check out.

Archivists could search the world for rare tomes to add to the Library’s collection, scribes could make copies of those tomes for check-out, and the librarians would organize and manage the process.

A travelling “bookmobile” service could make stops in major cities on a regular circuit to facilitate roleplay in other parts of the world. I think you could also have some fun collaborations with the knowledge-seeking guilds to create events and shared RP experiences.

Anywho, that’s my silly guild idea. :wink:

4 Likes
4

Well, I’ve attempted to lead a monastery guild back in MoP but it didn’t really go well, maybe the premise wasn’t that appealing maybe I wasn’t good at advertising…whatever it was, it never really grew, I did get some members but they were all inactive alts, people’s mains and even secondary characters already had found homes they were comfortable in.

I’ve recently thought about a pseudo-revival of the Azeroth Explorer’s Guild, which is the first guild Z joined back when I started playing on this server, maybe with some Hearthstone version league of Explorer’s elements added in to spice things up and give IC reasoning for the members to take part in fighting the in-game big conflicts.

But the first experience trying to lead a guild burned me pretty badly, and I don’t know if it’s an idea that enough people would be interested in. And of course, life is different now and I’m busier than I used to be.

2 Likes
5

Well, for sure I’ve started a niche guild. DKs oriented under the Ebon Blade, yet I’m finding not many people are interested in it. That’s where my DK would really be in a guild ICly if it were to ever pop up in popularity. Were it to work out, it’d work mostly as a training guild for the new generation of DKs, the Fourth (Allied Races / Anyone raised recently), with some small events peppered in. Nevermind Shadowlands is going to have the Ebon Blade in an even bigger light… That said, I dunno what else.

I’m all for smaller sects of larger factions. Maybe get some Kirin Tor sects to throw toons into, much like Magus Senate of Dalaran on MoonGuard, or other smaller factions as well. Just to fit more niche roles. Just like the Stormwind Watch led by Orwyn. That’s my two cents.

2 Likes
6

Way back when I was setting up my bank guild, Azeroth Heritage Society, I spent the time actually planning what kind of guild and organization it might be for the fun of it.

So my banker, Elren, is a clerk working for a a conservationist group that documents and preserves Azeroth’s history and culture, particularly trying to save artifacts from all the cities and kingdoms that have been destroyed since the opening of the Dark Portal. Of course, to fund all the expeditions and restoration of artifacts, they also run a gallery and sell some of the items they find.

For a while I thought it might be fun to set up ‘historical tours’ and make up those kind of facts you hear while visiting famous places. checks notes Yep, I still have the half-finished tour for Stormwind saved in my files.

“…We stand here at the gates of Stormwind City, in the area known as the Valley of Heroes. The Valley of Heroes provides a valuable defensive checkpoint in the event of another invasion, forcing any land based army to take the bridge or attempt to climb through the mountains surrounding the city…”

I don’t play Elren as often as I like, but it’s a good reason for her to pop up just about anywhere and go poking around ruins and ancient civilizations.

Or, you know, spend a lot of time around the bank and auction house :wink:

3 Likes
7

giggles echo in a charnel house

“So many helping, hands to hold…! You and you…c-come with me…if your dance c-card is not full kindly ask another who appears unescorted…for more on ballroom etiquette p-please see chapter twelve…”

clack, clack, bones in a sack

2 Likes
8

I LOVE guild leading and organizing events and finding reasons to bring characters/people together. But I agree, leading ONE guild is hard enough, leading more than one is nearly impossible without dedicating your life to the game, and IS impossible without some good guild officers to run things for you while you handle other business.

My first guild actually went pretty well (all things considered) on a Normal server. I was focused on using only IRL friends at first, and then branched out to people just looking for a safe place to learn the different aspects of the game. It was called The Motley Conflux, to emphasize that even though we all had different reasons for playing, we were bound together. When I moved to Cenarion Circle, I reflected on TMC and thought of it as a school. I wanted to bring that idea to the server, like a training guild that would teach folks whatever they wanted to learn about the game, from battle pets, to PvP, to roleplaying, dungeons, mat farming, toy collecting, etc. The idea was shot down as “dumb,” because “people here already know how to play, no one wants to roleplay being a noob.”

Eventually I grew attached to Troubadour Night, and I thought it would be cool to do group performances. When the opportunity presented itself, my group of friends banded together to form the Bards of the Lion, a guild originally designed to gather stories from fellow adventurers and put on plays to re-enact moments of the server’s history. The guild’s evolved since then to accommodate interests of the server, but the mantra still exists: Boost morale of the people, and preserve the lessons of hard-fought history.

On the antithesis of that, I did want to make an evil guild organization, but my last couple attempts have failed due to the fact that I already had Bards, and in order for a guild to succeed, you have to maintain a constant presence, so your main has to be in the guild. Balancing Bards and Villain stuff was too much. Their outward appearance would be “hardcore war training”, as heroes are only made strong by the conflicts they face. Inward appearance of course would be “it’s just fun to be evil, let’s go stir some chaos and see if we can take over the world!”

3 Likes