The Guilds of Greyhawk

The guilds of Greyhawk are all designed to protect and further the social and economic interests of their membership. While not all of the Free City's Guilds have been granted or have been able to maintain a monopoly on the services and crafts they provide, they can nevertheless present a united front to any form of competition and have a recognized degree of political influence with the Directing Oligarchy.

On the first days of Fireseek, Planting, Reaping, and Patchwall, the Grand Council of Greyhawk Guilds meets at City Hall. All the city's Guildmasters are required to attend (and must send deputies should they be unable to do so). This meeting is used to discuss petitions and legislation before the Directing Oligarchy that may affect the trade or business of one or more of the Free City's guilds, and allegedly serves the purpose of granting those city guilds not directly represented in the Directing Oligarchy a say in the city's government.

Apprenticeships

All guilds offer apprenticeships, and indeed most guilds will only extend membership to apprentices who have successfully completed their trammg under the supervision of an established Free City guild member. Costs of apprenticeships vary in accordance with the relative social acceptability of the profession. An apprentice to the Union of Sewermen and Streetcleaners might only expect to pay 1 gp to begin his or her career, while the Guild of Lawyers and Scribes only accepts apprentices from established Greyhawk families and charges 500 gp for the privilege. Apprentices, if accepted by a guild member, are provided with board and lodging for the duration of their apprenticeship and can expect to be kept busy performing numerous menial household chores in return.

The Guilds and Adventurers

It is assumed that player characters are unlikely to swap the life of an adventurer for that of the average guildmember. In most cases, PCs are not going to be qualified for membership and thus would be expected to serve apprenticeships-not exactly a truly awe-inspiring prospect for the average dungeon crawler.

Dealings between player characters and guildmembers will be colored by one thing: money, and the more the better. There are very few Guildmembers in the Free City who perform their allotted tasks for the love of it. Money talks in the Free City: the most unpleasant task suddenly seems more attractive, and lengthy processes can be speeded up, when the air is split by the chink of a bagful of coin.

Every year on the first day of Planting, all guilds must submit a complete list of their entire membership to Glodreddi Bakkanin, the Inspector of Taxes. The entire roll is then proclaimed aloud by a team of scribes in City Hall, where the list is subsequently posted for all to see for the following year. PCs can thus check to see whether the people they are dealing with are genuine guild members.

While the associations described below are collectively known as guilds, many refer to themselves as unions. The title "Union" tends to refer to groups of workers, while the title "Guild" generally denotes an association of craftsmen.