Re: (TFT) Guild membership

["John Paul Bakshoian" <hailmelee@hotmail.com>]

> From: WarPlayer@aol.com
> Subject: (TFT) Guild membership
> Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 00:28:04 EDT
> > Hey there.
What do you think might happen to a person who hired a non-guild wizard? Do 
you suppose mysterious misadventures might befall his business, home family, 
and even himself?
Try getting a job as a contractor if you are not a member of the union, um, 
guild even today in some towns.  What happens?  No one will hire you openly, 
for fear of retaliation by the union / guild.  Plus, the union /guild holds 
its members to certian standards of pay, treatment, and quality.
Now apply this to an adventurer-wizard.  He has the experience and memory to 
learn that spell he has wanted for two years.  But 99% of the wizards in the 
area are union members.  Where will he learn it?  And since he can't get 
work as a wizard, to make money, he has to do manual labor, like cleaning 
stalls.  (There is no stall-cleaners guild.)
Just apply union politics to the campaign, and every wizard will eventually 
join the union, if only to try and change his "bad luck".>

I agree with this view of the long arm of the Guild (union).  I wouldn't go 
so far as to say that a non-Guild wizard wouldn't get employed because in my 
continent on CIDRI (thus my viewpoint), society is a little to chaotic and 
feudal to completely fall under a guilds auspices.  But the guild could make 
things difficult.

I have fallen sway to Heinlein's "Magic Incorporate" which in modern times 
has magic as an art/science studied in college.  One needs to be certified 
if one wants work or status.

Lets say a contractor (who is a mundane and not a wizard) uses magic to help 
with building.  He has fallen under bad luck.  He suspects magic.  If he 
goes to the guild they might help him.  But not being a wizard, he doesn't 
know that this guild considers curses as accepted magic if it is filed with 
the Guild ahead of time.  Since this was the case, they inform him that 
there seems to be nothing they can do.  Enter F. Ajaye, attorney at law.  He 
happens to be from the jungle colonies and is also a practicing witch 
doctor.  (Definitely not with the local WIZ guild, but a member of the 
Blackfoot Medicine Men's Association in Darkest 'Frica.)  He snoops around, 
finds a few bugs, a few talismans.  He gives our contractor an amulet 
against curses.  Because the witch doctor cannot use WIZ Guild wizards to 
sets up wards against earth elementals, he hires some non-guild wizards to 
do it.  Now the lawyer can start investigating the WIZ guild, pulling 
permits, etc and files a statement of inquiry with the Royal Keeper of the 
Guilds.  Though the WIZ guild would like to terminate this non-WIZ guild 
wizard, they do not dare.  1)  It is officially logged as being investigated 
 and 2)  The Blackfoot Medicine Men's Association, though far away, is 
larger and more powerful than this local WIZ guild.  The risk is too great.  
The WIZ Guild settles out of court for this knowing violation of a townsmans 
rights, lifts all the curses on the contractor and promises to provide 
levitate and weather spells for a month.

ah, I'm not sure what that story shows... but it was fun to speculate.

Oh, yea.  The Wizard's College is a place to learn magic theory and the 
practical arts.  A Wizard's Guild is an organization that can teach magic 
because it KNOWS it.  It will try to provides up to date information on 
magic goings on.  I like the idea that it would try to buy a bulk of raw 
ingredients.  It will probably try to rank the ability of its members:  
Mage, Master Magician, Journeyman (in other business the craftsman took his 
cart and went from village to village to perform his profession, thus 
'Journey Man'), Apprentice, Novice or some equivalent ranks.  If it was like 
other Guilds, it would set some standards for these ranks.  The Master 
Magician would become a master of magic when he performed his master work 
and presented it to the Wizard's Hall.  There he would receive his hallmark 
(if it was deemed exemplary and be entered into the Master's Scroll.  Does 
this affect his salability and prestige?  Yes!  Would a regular player 
character care if their wizard was a Master Magician or not?  No!  Can the 
son-of-a-bitch throw a fireball or knock that lock or 'persuade' the guard 
to look the other way is usally all that is demanded.  Do the PCs even show 
any respect due his station to this Master Magician who is somehow in this 
party?  Right, you're on guard duty tonight from 3-4am and try and control 
your summoned gargoyle; he crapped shale all over our bedding this morning.

I, too seemed to have digressed.  But in a nutshell...

oh well.  more on this at another time.

Hail Melee

John Paul
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