Overview
This is a concept that I'm currently testing in my Matchmaker Campaign because of the nature of the players' ability to accept "side quests" and the fact that they're running in upper class circles.
Most, if not all, fantasy settings have guilds of some kind. Some fantasy settings, like my worlds of Farrowyn and Roglovar, have adventurer's guilds. Today, I want to focus on the leaders or guildmasters of adventurer's guilds in those kinds of settings. The guildmaster of an adventurer's guild would probably be a former adventurer, right? Well, some adventurers can be pretty weird. Some can be morally gray.
And, if you're a DM like me, sometimes you really like to subvert expectations and pull something like I said I did in this tweet.
Function / Motivations
Before we get into the craziness that is a lich being an adventurer's guildmaster, let's take things a little slower. Who, in your world, would be a prime candidate for someone to head up an adventuring guild? For me, the answer is almost always retired adventurers. How "high level" are they? Obviously, they need to be a cut above most other adventurers, so... how high is that? In my worlds, I always say that most adventurers that you meet never make it past level 8. More often than not, if you meet a well-known adventurer, they're probably close to level 8. This isn't always the case; my Pirate Lords in TPW are anywhere between level 12 and 14 but that's because they're meant to be challenging. Many of the cult leaders in TPW are level 20 characters with increased health and magic items because they are the BBEGs. I'd put a guildmaster somewhere in the level 10 to 12 range if I was making them a PC-type character with a character sheet.
I always give guildmasters like these strange quirks, or I create them based on some of my more chaotic character builds and concepts. They may also have knowledge about specific things. This one is obsessed with beholders because a beholder killed their whole party one time. This one knows a lot about the Feywild because they accidentally spent hundreds of years there once. It makes them more interesting as characters, and that information might be pertinent to a party member's backstory or even the main quest.
Like I said, I like to do the unexpected, hence why I made the guildmaster of the adventurer's guild in the capital city of the kingdom a lich. Why? Well, firstly, I thought it'd be funny. I never expected the players to meet him, but due to a well-placed cast of Primeval Awareness by our Ranger, they did. Otherwise, they might have heard about him along the way or met him in another place while he was away on business, but other than that, I expected them to have no idea. Having guildmasters like these are more interesting for the DM than anything. It also means that you have a secret weapon up your sleeves - a surprise for the party. I've done this outside of a guildmaster setting too, but it's so funny to me that adventurers would follow the kinds of creatures that they're meant to fight. Other examples of these kinds of creatures I have used or seen used before (not necessarily in this context, but in my campaigns in general) include:
- A beholder, True Polymorphed into a halfling and forced to repent for the wrongs he's done.
- A dragon, shape-changed into a person. Matt Mercer has done this in the first campaign of Critical Role and I've also played in a campaign where that was the case.
- A lich who was fighting an adventuring party that took pity on him for some reason, and allowed him to join the guild they were part of. This is, word for word, the explanation of the lich in my Tweet as to why he was in the guild to begin with.
- A djin of some kind who's trapped here on this plane for whatever reason.
- A devil because they're crafty and all they want is a group to be in charge of, but they don't necessarily have evil intentions. Why do all evil-looking things have to be evil? This is D&D - they don't.
- A demigod or oracle who has extreme power and wants to use it to help the heroes of the realm.
Obviously, these creatures don't follow the rule of "level 10 to 12" for guildmasters. If you want to put these ideas into your campaign, make sure you have a reason as to why they're able to be in those positions. After all, nobody just... lets a lich be a guildmaster for no reason. He had to have either deceived his way there, or was allowed in by someone with more power bureaucratically than him.
They can serve a few main functions. My primary function for them is information-givers. They've been around the block and they know a lot about many things, sometimes very specific things. My players can go to them if they feel like they might know something about a creature or object related to a quest. Secondarily, they can be quest-givers, though I would say that these quests are typically more difficult and would probably be more like fetch quests or quests that have to do with killing an especially large or difficult monster. They'd definitely have better rewards though.
Another function is that of some kind of antagonist. They could be corrupt and involved with noble blackmail and bribing. After all, a guildmaster who was a former adventurer would probably have a fair bit of personal gold. They'd definitely be invited to parties and galas held by noble families. They could also be antagonists in a more direct way: violent, cruel to others or their employees, or involved in evil plots against noble families. The monster-like guildmasters are great for evil plots because... they're already monsters. Or again, if you want to subvert expectations, have two guildmasters of two different adventurer's guild. One is a green dragon in disguise and the other is a cleric of a Neutral war god. Pit them against each other, or make them both suspicious in a plot against a noble family. If the party knows the identity of the green dragon, they may be more inclined to believe that they're the culprit because green dragons are evil. Then, subvert expectations and - surprise! It was the war cleric all along!
Why Should I Include This?
Honestly, I like this concept because of its intrigue and because of the variety. You can have one guildmaster that's just a veteran adventurer, and another who's a djin that people follow because of... some reason within your own world.
It also extends into other occupations or other types of guilds, but I think that an adventuring guild is the best place for weird guildmasters because... well, many players make strange character concepts. Adventurers are, historically, very weird. There's a great option to play that up here, and make some really memorable NPCs that can be funny and creepy all at once.
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