Guilds¶
Blitz Eternal: Adventures Beyond the Mists — v0.4 Draft¶
Guild is the vocation and social-identity layer, separate from Class. Class governs combat: what a Character's Pool does, what they read in it. Guild governs everything else: who trusts a Character, what doors open to them, what favors they can call in, what non-combat expertise they bring to the table. Any Character, regardless of Class, belongs to a Guild.
Seven Guilds are established for v1. Two more (Heralds, Guides) are strong candidates, held back for now; see open-questions.
This page is the identity layer: each Guild's vocation, its rank lore, and its flavor choices. The mechanics live elsewhere. The Opening Ability granted on joining, any signature resource, and the Specialties a member can buy are each documented on that Guild's own page under Characters, Specialties (linked in each entry below). Joining a Guild grants standing plus two things: the universal perk (the right to recruit a Retainer of that Guild's type into your Company; see companies-and-command, Part Five) and a personal Opening Ability, small and immediate, distinct from the larger Guild Specialties a Character can earn later. How joining and buying Specialties works is in character-creation, Advancement. All seven Opening Abilities are provisional and untested.
Thief¶
Breaking in, getting out, and knowing what a lock, a guard rotation, or a mark's habits are worth. The Thief's territory is property and access: what should not be reachable, and how to reach it anyway.
Guild Rank, not found in canon. The Golden Rose's source material names two singular leadership roles, the Thornkeeper and the Master of Flowers, but no mid-tier personal rank ladder for ordinary members the way Guardians, Bards, and Alchemists have. Not building a ladder here rather than inventing one unsupported by canon; see open-questions.
Mechanics. See Thief Guild Specialties for the Opening Ability and any Specialties.
Mage¶
The Guild home for the Witch's kind of power, and for anyone who studies the uncanny rather than merely wielding it in a fight. Covers lore of the Mists, the old bargains, and the standing that lets a Character be taken seriously when they claim to know something true about magic. The Guild's communal, ceremonial magic, Ritual casting through seven Components (Circle, Silence, Word, Flame, Root, Blood, Bone), is the Guild's marquee Specialty; see Mage Guild Specialties.
Aspect. A Mage Guild Character's personal expression of their power: how their magic looks and feels to someone watching it happen. Chosen at Guild entry, purely flavor, as light as a Priest's Domain or a Character's Lineage. Named Aspect rather than the source material's "Focus" to avoid colliding with the Ranger Class's own Focus resource; see style-guide. A starting menu, meant to grow alongside Domain (see open-questions): blood, song, fae illusion, carved runes, a half-understood relic device, mirrors, smoke, a familiar's borrowed voice.
Guild Rank, flagged rather than built. Canon's own Mage ladder is trainee-then-Mage, and canon's own word for the trainee rung is "Apprentice," the same word already locked to the Mage Guild's Retainer type (companies-and-command, Part Five; style-guide). Reusing it for a Mage Guild Character's own personal rank would overload a term that's supposed to mean one specific thing. Not building a Mage Guild Rank ladder until this is resolved, either a different name for the personal rank or a case for why the collision is fine in context; see open-questions.
Mechanics. See Mage Guild Specialties for the Opening Ability, the Appraising Eye Specialty, and the Ritual system. Volition, the name for the arcane force a Mage channels while leading a Ritual, is described there.
Priest¶
Faith, rite, and the vocabulary of the sacred. Covers standing within a temple or order, the authority to bless, witness, or condemn, and the social apparatus around death, oaths, and the Mists that a temple would care about. The Priest's Hand, in-combat revival, is the Guild's signature Specialty; see Priest Guild Specialties.
Faith: Religion or Cult. A Priest Character chooses whether their faith is an established Religion, with its own temple, clergy, and a patron deity already known to the world, or a Cult they are personally building from nothing. No mechanical difference yet; this is a flavor choice carrying the same light weight as Lineage. Every Priest, Religion or Cult, communes with a deity of their own; Hynafol confirms no single, shared pantheon. Nothing about a Priest's patron confirms or denies anything about the Mists themselves. Whether any deity has a hand in the Mists' workings is exactly as unconfirmed in-fiction as everything else about their origin; see 00-design/03_The_Mists and open-questions.
Domain. A Domain names what a Priest's patron represents: the essence their faith is built around. Chosen at Guild entry, purely a naming and flavor choice for now, deliberately as light as Lineage. A starting menu, meant to grow to 30 or more entries over time (see open-questions): the Vow, the Passage, the Hearth, the Judgment, the Long Vigil, the Hunt, the Harvest, the Salt Road, the Nine Bells, the Unspoken Name.
Guild Rank. Canon's three-rung clergy ladder: Cleric (the rank granted on joining), Priest, High Priest. Reaching Priest is what earning The Priest's Hand as a Specialty represents fictionally, so The Priest's Hand doubles as this Guild's Priest-rank Specialty rather than needing a second name. High Priest is a singular, campaign-scale position (an Avatar of their deity, and canon ties heavy use of that power to the deity eventually consuming them), tied to the already-logged Priest-led Rituals and corruption-cost questions rather than a normal Specialty purchase; see open-questions. The High Priest's signature power is Reclaimed by the Mist; see Priest Guild Specialties.
Mechanics. See Priest Guild Specialties for the Opening Ability, the Verbum resource, The Priest's Hand, and Reclaimed by the Mist.
Bard¶
Art, inspiration, and memory. The Bard's territory is what gets remembered and how: songs, genealogies, the shape a story takes once it is told a second time. A Bard's leverage is reputation, not force.
Guild Rank. Canon's Echelons of Recognition: Player (the rank granted on joining), Performer, Idol. Aficionado sits alongside these as Guild-officer standing (brokering bookings, handling the Guild's purse) rather than a fame rank, reserved for a future social or political Specialty distinct from the four current Specialties, not yet designed. Impresario Extraordinaire is the Guild's singular leader, narrative rather than purchasable.
Mechanics. See Bard Guild Specialties for the Opening Ability and the Specialties (Performer, Idol, The Long Watch, Before the Horns Sound, Information Broker).
Alchemist¶
Potions, poisons, cures, and the transmutation of ordinary materials into effects that are strange but not uncanny. Distinct from the Mage, whose power is channeled, personal, and drawn from the Mists. The Alchemist's product is consumable and mundane-adjacent: a vial, a draught, a tincture, something anyone can use once it is made.
Guild Rank. Canon's five-rung ladder: Novice, Apprentice (the rank granted on joining), Journeyman, Artisan, Master. Journeyman, Artisan, and Master are reserved Specialty names, not yet designed; see open-questions. ("Artisan" is why the Artisan Guild was retired; see Retired, below.)
Mechanics. See Alchemist Guild Specialties for the Opening Ability and the Specialties (Field Alchemy, Immunization).
Guardians¶
Wardens of walls, gates, and watches, in the social and vocational sense rather than the combat sense. A Guardian's standing is about what they are trusted to protect and who lets them stand at the door: castellans, night-watches, oath-bound sentinels of a keep or a border. In Hynafol canon (2025 Hynafol Guilds) their real work is investigation and the sanctioning of Rituals: protecting the ones done properly, disrupting the ones that aren't, and getting to the truth of a suspicious death. Distinct from the Warden Class, which is a combat role (Borrowed Strength, Hit Points 8) available to a Character of any Guild, including a Guardian who never draws Warden as their Class, or a Knight who happens to belong to the Guardians Guild.
Guild Rank. Canon gives the Guardians a five-rung ladder: Guardian (the rank granted on joining, no special reward beyond standing and the Tabard), Detective, Sergeant, Lieutenant, and Captain. Captain is a singular position, the Guardians' own leader, narrative rather than a purchasable Specialty. The others are used as Specialty names on the Guild's own page.
Mechanics. See Guardians Guild Specialties for the Opening Ability (The Tabard) and the Specialties (Detective; Sergeant and Lieutenant reserved).
Assassins¶
Killing on contract, and the craft of reaching someone who is guarded, warded, or asleep behind a locked door. The Assassins share the Thief's stealth toolkit but not the Thief's goal: where the Thief's territory is property and access, the Assassin's is the life itself, taken cleanly and for a price. What sets the Guild apart from the Thief mechanically is the Contract, the distinct hook it was held back for until 2026-08-01.
Guild Rank, pending canon. Hynafol's own Assassin rank ladder is not reconstructed here. As with the Thief, no mid-tier personal rank is invented without canon to support it. Logged in open-questions.
Mechanics. See Assassin Guild Specialties for the Opening Ability (The Contract) and any Specialties.
Held Back for Now¶
Heralds. Oaths, courts, treaties, and heraldry. A strong Arthurian fit and a natural foil to the Bard (law and word, versus art and memory), held back for v1 scope. Logged in open-questions.
Guides. Known-World and Hynafol liaisons: who knows the safe roads, and where the Mists run thin. Less combat-adjacent than any Guild above, useful mainly as an adventure hook. Logged in open-questions.
Retired¶
Artisan (Guild). Retired 2026-07-29. Proposed as the in-fiction source of Named Weapons, Mounts, and Foci. Cut for two reasons: it collided with "Artisan," an existing Alchemist rank title in established Hynafol canon (the 2025 Guilds book), and it contradicted that same canon's statement that true Artifacts "cannot be crafted or made; they must be found." Named items are now found relics rather than commissioned work; see character-creation's Advancement section. See retired-mechanics.
Changelog
- 2026-08-05: Split the mechanical layer out to per-Guild Specialty pages under Characters, Specialties. This page is now identity only: vocation, rank lore, and flavor choices (Aspect, Faith, Domain). Opening Abilities, Verbum, the Contract, the Tabard, Reclaimed by the Mist, and every Guild Specialty moved to their Guild pages, each linked above.
- 2026-08-03: Added to the v0.3 playtest site.