Hoplite Adventurers' Guild
It's a dangerous world, and most people are not able to protect themselves from the worst that's out there. Those who can, often feel compelled to strike out into the wilderness or forests or underdark, in order to eliminate the monsters that threaten their friends and family. They need support to do so safely.
The name is meant to emphasize that adventurers work as a team, not alone. It also implies fast, agile response to threats: if a monster is threatening your village, you won't be waiting a year for the Hoplites to arrive and take care of it.
Structure
The hierarchy is very loose: adventuring parties are never ordered to go anywhere or do anything. Guild chapters are often helmed by a retired adventurer, a former retainer, or just a really good administrator. Archmage Kem Lunos is nominally the head of the Guild in Thalar, possibly in the world, but that is just a formality that helps insulate the Guild from Thalaran politics.
Culture
The Guild is here to help adventurers, who in turn are trying to help everyone else. This helpfulness is the core of everything the Guild does. It also is leading to increasing friction between the Guild and the rising fascism of the Thalaran Empire.
Public Agenda
Adventurers are uniquely able to protect us all from the monsters, fiends, and undead that threaten us from the shadows.
Assets
Every city and most large towns have a guild hall to support local adventurers. The hall has information about jobs, local history, and a library ranging from a few old tomes to rooms and rooms of shelves to the ceiling. The Guild knows very well not to hoard wealth, and will send adventurers into the surrounding settlement for services such as inns, armorers, healing, etc. One thing they maintain a fairly tight control over is adventuring-related magic items. There are lots of magic items that are useful for anyone (everbright lanterns, potions of vitality, goggles of night, etc.) and are part of regular trade. But there are rare, dangerous items whose only value is to people enacting violence on others. The Guild collects these items to keep them out of the wrong hands, and makes them available to trusted adventurers at need. A party that has proved itself to the local hall can borrow an item for a job, or trade an item of comparable value and utility to keep it.
History
The Guild has existed for millenia. It is one of the cornerstones of the balance that has lasted all that time. The various sapient species have been able to thrive without living in constant fear of attacks from monsters and other creatures. The Guild is also the first line of defense against the occasional evil villain that has tried to raise an army and take over the world.
Since the Convergence, the balance has been thrown off. Villains are rising faster than adventurers can deal with them. Monsters and fiends sense that their opportunity has come. And the rise of fascism in Thalar threatens to drag the Guild into war among the sapient species themselves.
Territories
The guild operates worldwide, with guildhouses in most large population centers. Guildhouses are connected together via teleportation circles, and most will also have means of traveling quickly into surrounding areas that are otherwise unprotected.
Foreign Relations
The Hoplites are one of the only organizations that are welcome in all lands, including human. The nonhuman species are wary, however, given that the guild is headquartered in Thalar. If they are ever seen to be interfering with local politics, weakening a region as a prelude to human invasion, or otherwise do anything other than nobly protecting innocent people, there could be massive repercussions. The fact that nonhumans are heavily represented in the guild helps a great deal. (Roughly half of all sapient beings in the world are human; humans make up less than 1/4 of guild members.)
Publicly, adventurers are meant to defend against monstrosities, undead, and planar incursions. In practice, they are also often the only ones capable of dealing with powerful mortal villains. Ideally, these villains are then handed over to secular authorities to deal with, however imperfectly. There are some cases, however, when guild members claim the villain was killed, when they were actually secretly hidden away in guild imprisonment. This likely involves demiplanes. If this ever comes out it will be a serious crack in the trust that the guild relies on.
Education
Part of the stated purpose of the guild is to train new adventurers. They can't throw their highest level adventurers against every threat, because eventually they'll be killed. At best, they'll age out and retire. There needs to be a constant stream of new adventurers coming up the ranks who will be able to handle the greatest threats in the future. Sadly, there is a lot of (FIND WORD AND CONTINUE FROM HERE)
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