“Managing a guild is like balancing a dozen plates piled high with food while riding a unicycle. You can do it by yourself if you’re amazingly talented, but you’re better off finding a lot of other people to help you carry the load.”
Advice for prospective Guild Masters
Year 1, Month 1, Day 25, 09:00
Torgon examined the chaos of over 500 people milling about in a new place. He stepped forward and addressed the crowd, “Greetings everyone! My name is Torgon and I’m the guild leader of Risk of Injury. Welcome to your new home. I know this can be a bit overwhelming, so we have a short introduction to everything separate from the tutorials you just completed. Follow me to the park and we’ll get everyone some food and start you on your journey.”
The mass of people moved into the park and quickly found seats at the tables. The tables were piled high with comfort foods. The children and adults had wide selections of their favorites ready to go. Dirk led around thirty individuals over to Torgon and began a round of introductions. Chef Bridges and Chef Daniels eyed each other before embracing and getting down to talking about the layout of food. Experienced children and family members circulated among the tables, reassuring the newcomers about their experiences. Everyone settled in to eat and have relaxed conversations about the new world that they found themselves in.
Once the atmosphere lost the tension and worry Torgon moved to speak again, “Once we’re done here, the first thing we need to do is get everyone to finish the quest to build their initial residence. As you leave the park, we have people ready to hand out sets of basic gathering tools. That should allow you to gather all the materials you need to construct your homes in about 20 minutes. It takes another 10 minutes to build the homes then you’ll be ready to start exploring the opportunities here.”
“There are three mandatory activities set up for everyone. The first is an hour-long weapons session in the training yard. You’ll learn how to use a long sword and a long bow as well as a heavy crossbow. Basic versions of these weapons will be given to you. Yes, even the children. We all have to be able to defend ourselves and our guild members here. We just finished fighting a massive siege in the nearby town of Miller’s Crossing and tomorrow we have to deal with a base defense here at the guild. In fact…”
The system interrupted Torgon’s speech,
“The Guild Base Raid set for 1/1/26 at 06:15 has been adjusted to 5 waves of 2,000 monsters each with a boss in the final wave. Your guild continues to grow and prosper, and your tests will reflect that.”
Torgon continued, grinning broadly, “You’ll get your first taste of real combat tomorrow if not sooner. Don’t worry, we should be able to handle it easily but it’s an opportunity to learn and to get your nerves under control. Everyone fights, even the children. Our second mandatory activity is a visit with the different crafting groups. People can focus on gathering such as fishing or harvesting logs and stone or they can check out activities that are familiar such as cooking. There are more esoteric pursuits like alchemy or weapons and armor crafting. If you want to pursue crafting professions, information on obtaining skills and blueprints will be provided to you.”
“For the third mandatory activity we have a tour of the town of Miller’s Crossing. We’ll show you the basic quests and how to earn reputation with the town. Treat this like the real world and the world will treat you well. There’s very little difference between a person playing the game and an NPC generated by the game. They have their own thoughts and feelings and should be treated no differently than you would treat any other person.”
“The guild has resources available to help you on your journey. The basics are given to you, and more specialized gear can be earned through Guild Contribution Points. You can earn these points by defending the guild, completing quests, gathering materials or crafting items for the guild. It’s an easy system and one that lets you get skillbooks quicker and with less expense than other methods. I’ve said enough though, get out there and have some fun while you adjust to everything.”
Torgon walked back to the leadership team and went to speak with Dirk and the returning players. “Dirk, glad to have you back!”
Dirk shook Torgon’s hand, “It’s good to be back. I see you guys have been busy. We all logged into a bunch of free xp from whatever you guys did while we were gone. It’s a little trippy, I know for us it was a single day, and it felt like just a few hours, while for you guys it was six full days.”
Allestor sprawled on a bench sipping on some faerie root beer while he spoke, “The joys of time dilation. I’ve gotten pretty used to all this. I love only having to sleep a couple of hours a day.”
Hyperia grinned suspiciously, “Now we’ll welcome you all back in the most proper way, a meeting!”
Groans were heard around the group before Torgon spoke, “Yeah, we need to have a meeting for a few reasons. We just finished tier 2 on the guild hall and that opens up a lot more building options. We also have the base raid tomorrow and afterwards we should finish up the first quest in a long chain for the Broken Hills.”
They quickly gathered in the meeting room inside the keep. Torgon dispensed with the pleasantries and jumped into the updates. “We have two free defense slots and two free general build slots. No new options for the defense structures have appeared so I would like us to just push for more Trebuchets to hit big targets. Our field siege engines, particularly the mana cannons, deal with the fodder easily. Grabbing the bigger hitting weapons for bosses seems the way to go to me. Any objections?” Torgon looked over the group, and no one seemed to disagree.
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“Moving on, the general build slots have three old options and two new options.” Torgon pulled up the system information on the old buildings first.
Mercenary Hall:
This structure provides the ability to hire guards and weapons crew for the Guild Hall and controlled territories. At higher ranks, hirelings for adventuring parties become available. The quality and quantity of available mercenaries increases as the building increases in rank. Construction Requirements: 2,000 Wood, 2,000 Stone, 5 Basic Core Units.
Stables:
This structure provides the ability to produce mounts for the Guild. Players can trade Guild Contribution Points for mounts that have been nurtured through the stables. Potential mounts can be captured, found or purchased throughout the world. The base structure provides 10 stalls per floor, and it allows unlimited underground floor expansions. This is a multi-level structure, and each floor may be built and upgraded independently. Construction Requirements: 2,000 Wood, 2,000 Stone, 5 Basic Core Units.
Wizard’s Tower:
This structure houses and powers teleportation rings to linked zones. Each floor can support 1 portal per level of upgrades. This structure establishes fast transportation to minor cities or guild areas of influence not properly managed by control points. This is a multi-level structure, and each floor may be built and upgraded independently. Construction Requirements: 1,000 Wood, 1,000 Stone, 2.5 Basic Core Units per floor.
“The two new options are intriguing.” Torgon showed their information to the group.
Specialist Crafting Hall:
This structure is attached to an existing crafting hall and provides quality tools for crafting of a specific type inside its walls. It provides players with a bonus equal to twice the level of the structure for all crafting attempts related to the specialization inside it. This bonus is cumulative with the crafting hall. This is a multi-level structure, and each floor may be built and upgraded independently. Each floor applies to only a single type of crafting. The number of players served by this structure is equal to 20 per upgrade level per floor. Construction Requirements: 1,000 Wood, 1,000 Stone, 2.5 Basic Core Units per floor. This building requires a crafting hall and cannot have more floors or more upgrades than the attached crafting hall.
Research Hall:
This structure allows the use of collected research materials to create blueprints obtainable by guild members. Guild members may purchase discovered crafting blueprints using Guild Contribution Points. Players may utilize their research skills in order to unlock blueprints and make them available for purchase to all guild members. Each rank increases the maximum level of the blueprints obtainable by 20. The initial rank allows research of blueprints up to level 10. Construction Requirements: 4,000 Wood, 4,000 Stone, 10 Basic Core Units.
Allestor groaned, “You’re going to make us wait on mounts again aren’t you.”
Torgon chuckled, “Yeah, I am. Nobody knows when we can use them, how much good they do or where to find them. We’ll get two more general build slots with the next base upgrade, and we can wait that long at least. The specialist crafting hall and the research hall are going to let us lean into our push to be the best crafting guild out there. Plus, having better gear will make it easier for us to push our lead on the other guilds in the kingdom.”
Allestor shook his head, “I get it. I do. I just want to ride instead of walk.”
Dusty tapped her finger against her lips in thought before speaking, “The research hall has possibilities. We have no idea how long it will take though. Knowing us, we’re going to focus on the more difficult blueprints that will take longer.”
Torgon nodded along, “My thoughts are more automatons, siege weapons and anything exotic that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
Allestor nodded sagely, “Mechanical Horses, got it.”
Torgon snorted, “Moving on. We’re going to save the other common core units for improving the Faerie Tree and the Library next. The library will give us access to common skills for GCPs and push the entire guild higher faster. The Faerie Tree gives us our best unique bonuses, and it will be nice to give Elder Chestnut and his people more space.”
Elder Chestnut spoke up then, “While we could use more space, the bloodsap has made improvements already. I think we should expand the library first. Many of the younger faeries want to expand their available skills. Overall, the benefits for the library are higher than the tree.”
“Thanks for that Elder,” Hyperia spoke. “So, two trebuchet towers, that’s 5 basic core units, the research hall, that’s another 10 and what, specialist floors for armor, weapons, potions, cooking, siege weapons and automatons for another 15 core units?” Hyperia looked at her system information quickly, “We have the resources. The new players are attacking the gathering to build up their contribution points. Ever forward.”
“Ever forward it is.” Torgon looked around the room slowly, making eye contact with everyone present. “The other zones are finishing their sieges and starting their push towards the Broken Hills. Are we ready for the conflict?”
“We are,” Ovarrix declared with confidence. “I’d put most of our members on par with the elites in the Young Master’s Alliance. They’ve shown a dedication and willingness to learn that’s hard to find. It’s such a pleasure to be able to teach people rather than deal with those that know everything already.”
Hyperia added, “We’ve marked all known member guilds of the Young Master’s Alliance. Their character IDs should show up with little red flags. They are fluctuating between 80,000 and 100,000 total members among the 7 zones they control. Their percentage of total players is dropping. Their behavior has restricted them to being able to recruit only certain types of players. They’ve already hamstrung themselves long term unless they can subjugate crafting groups. They’ll target us for that reason alone beyond the fact that we’re the cutting edge.”
Allestor rubbed his hands together, “Kill on sight, right? We don’t have to wait?”
Torgon nodded, “No sense in giving them any advantages at all. They aren’t going to be our friends, and it seems they’re being quite helpful in concentrating the players we should be suppressing long term. Get your hunting parties ready. For now, get out there and do anything to help our newer players along. Tomorrow, after the base raid, we’re focused on the Broken Hills quest line. I’m going to find Markus and see about trading off these common writs.”
Torgon dismissed the group and they headed out, eager to push the guild forward once more.
