The Adventurer's Guild
The Origin of the Adventurer's Guild
The Adventurer's Guild was founded on the continent of Rigda centuries ago in response to the First Dragmar Horde. As the number of Dragmar grew both in strength and number, it became increasingly dangerous for ordinary people. Death spread across the land. Terror and Chaos reigned supreme in a vicious cycle where the Dragmar slayed people inspiring terror, creating more Dragmar. From out of the darkness, however, came the dim light of hope.
A group of a dozen adventurers had ventured into a crypt which had been a source of Dragmar threatening the region. As they reached the deepest part of the dungeon they were assaulted by a fierce monster, stronger than any that they had ever encountered. The battle raged for hours as the beast assaulted them with overwhelming force. At long last, battered and weary, their leader, a young human named Vendarin struck a fierce blow to the creatures back, causing it to turn and focus its malevolent gaze on him. While he occupied the creatures attention, exchanging blows that shook the very foundations of the crypt, his group mates were able to strike the creature with a powerful blow to the neck, destroying it.
Their victory was not without its costs. While Vendarin had given them the opportunity they needed, he had paid the price for that with his life. The three remaining adventurers, forced themselves to continue on though they mourned the loss of their companions. Passing through the great doors that lay beyond the body of the beast, they found the first Fade Seed to have been discovered. They each found themselves drawn to it, the eerie glow from its depths calling to them, and as they lay their hands upon it, the dungeon around them began to waiver and fade from existence. Moments later they found themselves blinking into the sudden sunlight, standing where the entrance to the dungeon had once been, with the bodies of their fallen comrades lying in graceless heaps around them and a Fade Seed each of their hands. The three made camp weary, wounded, and with heavy hearts.They had won but the price had been high. That night, they held a memorial for their fallen brethren, mourning their loss and praying for the Gods and Goddesses to watch over them.
As they sat around their camp fire, each of them lost in their grief, three visitors appeared at the edge of their camp. Though the hearts of the adventurers were heavy, they felt a sense of timeless peace fall over the camp. The strangers gave them food and drink and tended their wounds, thanking them for the gift of hope that they had bought for the people with their sacrifice. The woman among the visitors, who had been silent up to that point, finally stepped forward. Her hair was the color of moonlight and her eyes were like the stars themselves and it she spoke with a quiet voice. She told the three adventurers about the nature of the Dream, of the Fade, and of the seeds that they had been gifted with, explaining to them things that few, if any, other mortals knew. Most importantly, she told them how the wars and greed of man had given rise to the Dragmar horde in the first place as the mana of the world reacted to the hatred within the hearts of the living.
Finally, she showed them how to manifest their personal sigil and how to bind that sign upon the fade seeds. As each of them did so, they were filled with a sense of power like they had never felt, though each of them described the experience differently. After ensuring that each of them could remember how to do it again, the woman and her companions left, disappearing as suddenly as they have arrived.
When the dawn came, and the adventurer's awoke, they could remember little of the previous evening. Their hearts felt lighter, though they still mourned, their overwhelming grief having been relieved ever so slightly with a sense of hope. Each of them discovered that somewhere upon their person they had acquired a small tattoo of the sigil they had each manifested the night before. However, the battle against the Dragmar Horde was far from over, so they gathered up their belongings and headed back to report to their leaders.
When they rejoined the remainders of the armies amassed to fight back the Dragmar, the kings and leaders of the nations each tried to convince them to share this new found power with only them. They each sought to give themselves an advantage over the other nations, and quickly returning to the fighting amongst themselves that had led to the rise of the Dragmar horde to begin with. Disgusted with their leaders, the adventurers left the council of kings and set out to fight on their own. Before they had even reached the outskirts of the camp, word of what had transpired had spread among the soldiers and civilians alike.
The volunteers fought along side of them, clearing one dungeon after another, and as they did, the three leaders taught them as they had themselves been taught. In time, they eventually beat back the horde to the point where the local garrisons could once again keep the population safe, and in doing so, those that survive had become more powerful than the mightiest warriors from any of the kingdoms and closer to each other than with their own kin. They decided to return to the place where they had been granted the knowledge of the Fade, and there, in the little clearing where their fallen brother and sisters had been laid to rest, they established the first Adventurer's Guild. A place outside the boundaries and politics of the kingdoms for all of those who were determined to fight for those who could not.
The guild grew over the centuries as people turned to them for help when their own rulers could not. Over time, the kingdoms allowed the Guild to establish guild halls in most cities, in return for the Guild's assurance that, as an organization, they would stay politically neutral. And so began the age of Heroes, adventuring men and women of formidibale powers who take on the dangerous jobs that others could not.
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