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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

Enzo Sarlas's picture
Submitted by Enzo Sarlas on Thu, 2005-04-21 15:18
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One of the cool things about guilds of old(e) is that they were a source of secret skills, practices and knowledge. In fact, guildmembers guarded such knowledge closely, often with their very lives. To me, that's an idea that is ripe for the picking.

So I figured I'd start a thread. I'm looking for ideas, be they rough or fully developed, for new feats, skills or prestige classes specific to Sigil's guilds. I've already got a few feat ideas of my own, with names like "Cony Catcher", "Lady's Grace" and "Give 'em the Laugh". I'll share 'em once the conversation gets going.

So what do you think? What kind of special feats or skills (or maybe even special uses of existing skills) might these guilds be privvy to? What about prestige classes? What about existing PrCs? Do you think that the Gatecrasher seems a perfect fit for the Doorsnoops? Which guilds are PC-worthy?

Following is a list of the 'official' guilds from the 3.5e Planescape Campaign Setting. (knicknames are mine, and aren't official... yet. Mwah Hah Hah!) Some of these guilds aren't of much interest to PCs, but then again who's to say. Maybe you want to play a chimneysweep or carpenter.

Builders Fellowship
Craftsmens Guild
Council of Innkeepers (Tappers)
Daylaborers Guild
Entertainers Guild (Players)
Escorts and Touts Guild (Touts, Peelers)
Guild of Doorsnoops (Nosers)
Guild of Teamsters and Lightboys (Apple-Chasers)
Lawyers Guild (Wigs)
Minders Guild
Sanitation Guild (Reekers)
Order of Master Clerks and Scribes (Inkers)
Runners and Messengers Guild (Streakers)
Funerary Guild
Planewalkers Guild

Without bogging the game down with dozens of guilds, what's missing? An Arcanists Guild for mages and the like? A Slavers Guild? (or maybe they form part of the Daylaborers Guild?)

Thu, 2005-04-21 18:46
#2
Nemui
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

I vote for option 3, but I'm somewhere between 3 and 4. I don't mean to be too negative or anything, but I really can't see how you can develop skills & feats for all these guilds, particularly those that don't appeal to PCs.

Factions were/are about belief, and one of the good things about joining them was the fact that you could still adventure pretty much as you wanted.

Guilds, on the other hand, are practical. They are about running the Cage, and not about planewalking (except, of course, the pwk's guild, but you get my point). Why would your average PC in your average game ever want to join the Council of Inkeepers, or the Sanitation Guild? Sure, there may be reasons, but not enough to warrant a set of guild-specific feats.

IMHO, of course. I'd be happy if you could prove me wrong by making a bunch of useful and entertaining feats and skill uses for the guilds.

Thu, 2005-04-21 18:59
(Reply to #2) #3
Krypter
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

I'd be more interested in knowing what chant and darks the Guilds know than what feats they have. I doubt any of my players (or me) would be interested in joining these guilds, but they could supplement use of Streetwise skills and serve as useful NPC contacts. Feats and prestige classes seem a little silly for such mundane occupations. It'd be better to flesh out the machinations, rivalries and resources of the guilds as organizations that can be adversaries or allies to players.

Also, as I said before, they need more creative names. The 'Entertainers' Guild' sounds so hum-drum.

Thu, 2005-04-21 20:29
(Reply to #3) #4
Enzo Sarlas
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

"Nemui" wrote:
I vote for option 3, but I'm somewhere between 3 and 4. I don't mean to be too negative or anything, but I really can't see how you can develop skills & feats for all these guilds, particularly those that don't appeal to PCs.

No argument. A good many of these guilds have no appeal for 99% of the PS campaigns out there. Like, how's a PC supposed to adventure and run an inn at the same time? And who in their right mind would want to roleplay a Reeker?

But there are *some* guilds better suited to PCs, especially in campaigns where most of the intrigues happen right there in the Cage. In such cases, the Touts, Nosers and Minders have lots of potential. The Streakers and Planewalkers are good choices for those who'd want to take part in the guilds while still adventuring outside Sigil.

Quote:
Factions were/are about belief, and one of the good things about joining them was the fact that you could still adventure pretty much as you wanted.

That's the cool thing. You can be a factioneer *and* a guilder. With the factions, you are what you believe. And with the guilds, you are what you do.

Since the idea of guilds growing in importance in the Cage is entrenched and 'Official', PCs and NPCs alike must accept the new economy. If you don't wear the guildmark, you don't work in a guild profession or trade, not in the Cage, not without a cartload of trouble. And if you follow that, and if your DM makes this new economy a reality for your PCs, then why not sign up, get yourself entangled in the guild politicking, and maybe learn some neat new skills and feats while you're at it.

Quote:
Guilds, on the other hand, are practical. They are about running the Cage, and not about planewalking (except, of course, the pwk's guild, but you get my point). Why would your average PC in your average game ever want to join the Council of Inkeepers, or the Sanitation Guild? Sure, there may be reasons, but not enough to warrant a set of guild-specific feats.

They are about running the Cage. I agree. For campaigns where Sigil is little more than a jumping-off point, it'd be a waste of time to get involved in the guilds. But for campaigns where most of the action happens within the confines of Sigil (and there are plenty of such campaigns out there), the more opportunities for intrigue and infighting the better.

Quote:
IMHO, of course. I'd be happy if you could prove me wrong by making a bunch of useful and entertaining feats and skill uses for the guilds.

LOL! Nope, not trying to prove anybody wrong. If that's my desire, I know exactly what thread to visit! No, all I want to do is start up a dialogue (just like this) about the possibilities and pros and cons about developing the guilds. I think the idea's got good PS-style potential, but the best way to test the potential is to discuss it with people such as yourself. Sometimes you can come up with what you thing is a brilliant idea, but then when you discuss it with your friends, you realize it was just a really smelly brainfart! I hope this isn't one of those, but I'm prepared for it.

Thu, 2005-04-21 20:43
(Reply to #4) #5
Enzo Sarlas
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

"Krypter" wrote:
I'd be more interested in knowing what chant and darks the Guilds know than what feats they have. I doubt any of my players (or me) would be interested in joining these guilds, but they could supplement use of Streetwise skills and serve as useful NPC contacts. Feats and prestige classes seem a little silly for such mundane occupations. It'd be better to flesh out the machinations, rivalries and resources of the guilds as organizations that can be adversaries or allies to players.

Feats and PrCs for most of the guild is, I agree, silly. But for some of the more PC-appropriate guilds, I think there's potential. Especially in campaigns that spend a large amout of time inside Sigil.

Quote:
Also, as I said before, they need more creative names. The 'Entertainers' Guild' sounds so hum-drum.

I completely agree, which is why I'm pushing for more Planescape-y nicknames like Players, Peelers, Nosers, and the like. Take the Entertainers Guild, for instance. That's a pretty dry name, and doesn't carry much of the character of your typical guildmember. But 'Players' are a flightly lot, more interested in amusing, shocking, or delighting each other then they are about the hum-drum existence of the common people. A Sensate is content to experience a fistfight with an ogre, but a Player, well he wants to *share* the experience. The milder Players'd be content to compose a poem about the experience, or re-enact the fight on a stage, but the wilder Players are just as likely to try to recreate the event so you can experience it for yourself, first hand! The Touts and Escorts Guild... yeah, sounds dull. But when everyone in the city knows 'em as Peelers, you ask why. Gives 'em a much seedier feel, doesn't it. You can almost see the greed in the young tout's red eyes.

Thu, 2005-04-21 22:57
(Reply to #5) #6
Kaelyn
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

"Nemui" wrote:
Factions were/are about belief, and one of the good things about joining them was the fact that you could still adventure pretty much as you wanted.

Guilds, on the other hand, are practical.

Not to be too argumentative (though I have been, lately), but even after the Faction War Sigil's still Sigil. Belief is power in the Cage, and the departure of six of the factions doesn't change that by the smallest whim or daydream.

I see the guilds quickly becoming as much about belief than about practicality, though remember the factions were always about both. The beliefs that develop within their halls don't necessarily have much to do with the activities they govern - think of stonemasons becoming Freemasons, or smiths becoming Godsmen.

Quote:
Why would your average PC in your average game ever want to join the Council of Inkeepers, or the Sanitation Guild?

Because the Council of Innkeepers develops a philosophy about how hospitality is the greatest virtue, and then another sect within it develops a philosophy about how safety is the paramount concern of all planewalkers. The safety sect expands their philosophy thusly:

1. The planes are wild, bashers. Find a safehold wherever you can, and keep it as secret and strong as possible.

2. Sigil is the safest place there is, protected from gods and tyrants by the Lady of Pain. Honor Sigil, make it the best and brightest safehold in the multiverse.

3. Guide others to safeholds, but keep your own a secret within a secret within a secret.

This new sect could turn Mordenkainen's Mansion (and Faithful Watchdog) into a spell-like ability tied to a feat, or something.

The Sanitation Guild could become a group worshipping ooze, and teach abilities related to the attributes slimes and oozes have. Another sect within the Sanitation Guild could worship fire, treating flame as the purifying force that destroys the corruption of Sigil and the planes.

Fri, 2005-04-22 07:27
(Reply to #6) #7
Gerzel
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

I think it really depends on the guild. As far as they go I want:

First and foremost, information on them. General Knowledge, Services, Prices, Important Members, Size, Territory and ect.

Secondly I want more info. I want the Darks and the dirty little secrets, the rumors and the screed.

Thirdly I want a good rundown of the guild's history, and past dealings.

The fourth thing I want (last in order of importance but still wanted) is membership benefits and costs. Now depending on the guild this might not be anything using a feat or prestige class. It might be discounts, and contacts.
However if the guild is one with a stronger philosophy (though then we are getting more into the realm of factions that call themselves guilds) OR if they have a strong contingent of members who are on-going adventurers such as an entertainer's guild or theive's guild, OR if they are a guild that does a lot of training with their members like a militia THEN they would have more feats and even PrCs connected with them.

Also bear in mind a feat and PrC can be connected to a number of guilds. In fact there are a couple PrCs in the standard WOTC repetoir that are this way:
The Assasin requires you to kill someone to JOIN the assasins. (dmg)
From S&S the Royal Explorer and Theif Acrobat both have organizational ties.
Mage of the Arcane Order speaks for itself from T&B, the order being a good model for what guilds might look like. It's just on a prime world not sigil.

There are many others but those are the books I have at hand and can think of off the top of my head. As you can see there are alreayd a lot of fairly good examples to follow.

Remember while guilds might have a philosophy they don't need one and there should be a good reason and history behind how that philosophy developed.

As for general feats, a guild might just open up the possability of taking a few better skill related feats. A jewler's guild might offer characters tutillage under master gem cutters and with some training that might be the requirment for a feat that grants a good +2 or +4 bonus on that skill and perhaps reduce the xp cost by a small percentage for making rings or increase the final value of gems and jewlery made if say the character is taught a secret way of cutting jewels that makes them more shiny.

That Jewler's guild probably wouldn't need a Jewel Mage or other PrCs. It might not need other feats. A PC could be perfectly happy in it for getting discounts on raw matirials, or for getting a place to appraise and fairly sell loot or even freinds to talk to other than the party members.

Finally who says (well now anyways) that a character can't be a factioneer and a guild member? That jeweler's guild probably wouldn't care if one of their members also happened to subscribe to the Guvner's philosophy or was a Sensate or other factioneer. They might just care about the character's skills and membership dues. Not to say they couldn't contact the character with problems to be solved "Hey, We heard you were an adventurer in your spare time...could you help us out?" which gives the DM more stuff to work with.

After faction war, and even before on the Primes and over the planes at large I see the guilds as being a wide array of institutions many of which have good and varied reasons and benefits for PCs to join them for. Information on what the guild does, what it is about and its history are far more important to establish before you go about making feats and PrCs. Though that does NOT mean that feats and PrCs for guilds are wrong. You might even make a PrC that requires a membership in a type of guild before you make a guild of that type.

Fri, 2005-04-22 11:00
(Reply to #7) #8
Nemui
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

"Kaelyn" wrote:
Not to be too argumentative (though I have been, lately)

Weren't the only one, IIRC. Mea culpa...

Quote:
, but even after the Faction War Sigil's still Sigil. Belief is power in the Cage, and the departure of six of the factions doesn't change that by the smallest whim or daydream.

Sure, the guilds could be made more faction-like, but that's not the point - I'm OK with them as "mundane" organizations, and would definitely like to see them all further developed, as Loki is (was?) doing with the Planewalker's Guild, but new game-mechanical additions aren't necessary, IMHO. Especially since even the skills and feats for the factions aren't updated to v3.5... someone should consider doing something about that, rather than making new ones.

Sat, 2005-04-23 11:23
(Reply to #8) #9
Keravin
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Sigil's Guilds and guild-specific skills, feats and PrCs

Given the Factions really aren't gone from Sigil the Guilds don't need to fill any gap left on the Belief side. I'm much more in favour of seeing them as practical entities and for my Post FW campaign I'm already working on developing the Runners, Planewalkers and a couple of the other guilds. One of my players is playing a Free Leaguer Planewalker and there is no need there to give him additional beliefs.

One of the main reasons I'm looking at developing the Guilds is as part of a lead up to a City Council election in Sigil and the amount of backbiting and double dealing I can get from that when you throw in the Golden Lords and The US pushing their own schemes.

I don't see a grand need for Prestige classes for all (Anyone care to sell me on an Innkeeper Prestige class), but for some of the obvious ones then yes? We already have a Tout out there and Planewalker stuff. Costs and benefits are far more useful and help to bring Sigil to life more.

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