The Guilds of Lathmar

The Adventurer Guild was the first guild founded after Humans reached Aeltharion. They built Kaapstad where they landed, on a coast where the land was rough and the wild lay close. Groups went out to map the surrounding country. The guild required each explorer to register so it could track who had left and reduce the chance of losing whole parties. Gnomes helped provide equipment from the start. In time, Adventurers helped settle the continent's eastern half.

The Kataxi wars

When Adventurers pushed into the central plateau, they met the Kataxi deep in the desert. The Mystics followed close behind, and misunderstandings between the two guilds deepened the conflict. The Kataxi stopped the Humans' advance. Elven intervention kept the empire from suffering an even worse defeat.

The conflict led to a century-long ban on the Adventurer Guild. Some cells took the name Nomad Guild to work around it. “The Nomads are coming” became a familiar warning, and rarely a friendly one.

Beyond the eastern frontier

Another part of the guild's history gets less attention: expeditions through the southern jungle, first contact with the Ithrax, and farther west, with the Wood Elves. Their old home lies in vast forests on the far side of the continent.

The guild in Lathmar

Adventurer Guilds have returned in many cities, and registration remains mandatory. About six years ago, Henry Barth became the Adventurer Guild Master in Lathmar. He led several expeditions to the Kataxi that improved mutual understanding. His travel books became standard reading for guild members who want to understand other peoples. In old age, he received the honorary title Master Nomad and took charge of the Lathmar guild.

Most newcomers to Lathmar begin as Adventurers and choose a specialty after training. The guild also coordinates expeditions into the mines and dungeons below the city. Adventurers learn quickly and accept every people, alignment, and play style. They may not be the strongest fighters or the cleverest thieves, but they can survive long enough to find another path. Every Lathmar legend starts here.

The Guardians began as the Human Warrior Guild. From the first settlements, its members guarded families and children. The guild supplied the core of city armies and watch patrols. Gnomish merchants helped its members find old Dwarven weapons and Elven armor.

After the Flattening, monsters flooded Lathmar and the Guardians formed the first line of defence. At the Citadel, the Lord Protector's household troops fell, but the Guardians broke the attackers' waves. Barbarians claim their charge decided the battle. The two guilds have never settled the argument.

When the Lord Protector fell, Marius Ironwall, head of the Warriors' Guild, was named Lord Protector. Marius was said to be undefeated in ten thousand duels and demanded precision above all else. One of his first acts was to rename the guild the Guardians of Lathmar.

Guardians train relentlessly to master the sword. They can equip the finest weapons found in the dungeon and strike with a force no other guild can match. They do not sneak or negotiate; they cut through.

Barbarians are not one people. The name covers clans who grew in lands shattered by the Kataxi wars and in lawless country opened by the southern push toward the jungle. Some baronies remain rough ground, dangerous to cross.

Cities once gave travelling clans a house of their own, a place to sleep among their own people. Those clan houses grew into regional guilds, which joined into a guild network across the country in the modern era. Enak the Axe leads the Lathmar branch as War-Chief. Stories say he once cleaved through a dragon with his bare hands.

Barbarians fought beside the Guardians at the Citadel and helped turn back the monsters. They still dispute Marius Ironwall's rise to Lord Protector. Their account gives the Barbarians a larger part in the victory, and the quarrel has never cooled.

The guild prizes strength over subtlety. Barbarians have the highest raw attack power, with little patience for magic, locks, or elaborate plans. Elves and Gnomes cannot join; the guild considers neither hardy enough for its training.

The order's ancestors may have reached Aeltharion with the first Humans. Its early members left the settlements for the wild and built hermitages there. Monks train the mind and body as one. They need no magic to fight; a focused mind and bare hands can end a fight.

They do not seek conflict. Monks serve through charity and social work, and their discipline shapes both their craft and daily life. In Lathmar, Zensai Moru, Master of the Inner Path, leads a small monastery. He teaches, “A still mind survives where a strong arm fails,” and warns that “compassion without control is just another form of chaos.”

After the Flattening, the monks cared for people left behind in the sealed city. They took in children who had lost their parents and raised them at the monastery.

Only Good-aligned characters may join. Monks rely on discipline rather than spellcraft or weapons.

Ninjas began as the assassin branch of the Scavenger Guild. The old guild later split: its assassins formed the Ninja Guild, while its machine-minded members became Saboteurs. The two trades share roots, but work in different ways.

Lathmar has only a small Ninja lodge. Kage no Tora trained under a hundred masters in the Eastern Mountains and outlived each of them. The guild accepts only Evil-aligned candidates with exceptional strength and dexterity.

A Ninja works in silence and at close range. The guild's training favours stealth, speed, and paired weapons. It takes jobs other guilds will not discuss in public. In Lathmar, there is always a rival, husband, or enemy someone wants removed.

The lodge does not advertise. Its door is in the Guild District, and its master rarely shows their full face.

Rangers keep order in the forests and unsettled lands. They follow explorers and settlers, often arriving before a baron or prince claims the region. They work from cities where they can resupply, then form patrols that may spend weeks in the wild.

Their wardens protect roads, track threats, and hunt criminals when the city calls. Aldren Vey, Warden of the Green Paths, leads Lathmar's Rangers. After the Flattening trapped the city, the Rangers became a key support for the Guardians and helped keep order inside the walls.

Rangers use bows and fight with paired weapons. Their training balances combat with field skills and a practiced dodge. They are Good or Neutral and must show strength and intelligence. They are rarely the best at one task and rarely caught unprepared for the next.

Saboteurs split from the Scavenger Guild with the Ninjas. They chose machines, mechanisms, and the technical side of combat. They work more openly than Ninjas or members of the Thieves' Guild, though their trade stays close to the city's darker dealings.

Silas Vorn, once a strategist for fallen regimes, teaches them to take systems apart with care. Saboteurs build thievery skills close to those of Ninjas and learn to dodge attacks. They can disable a threat from a distance, then move through the dark before it can recover.

After the Flattening, Lathmar's Saboteurs mapped the cursed doors and rescued trapped relatives for ransom. They also fence stolen goods and take other jobs through the underworld. To an ordinary citizen, the guild is often the first contact for such work; few know how to approach a Ninja or a thief.

Only Neutral or Evil-aligned characters may join.