AIORA-Adventurers

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On the continent of Terastier, there are many who call themselves "adventurers".

They are a people of freedom, often working with little regard to law and those who uphold it. On the contrary, these "adventurers" believe they can carve out their own destiny through the strength of their sword. For these adventurers, there always seems to be work available for the taking.

Escorting a person of interest, transporting goods through dangerous territory, exterminating a group of Barbarous or clearing ancient ruins; all of these and more are expected out of hardy adventurer-types. Adventurers have even been hired for other menial tasks, such as contracted mining, civil engineering, and even disaster relief.

For those jobs that require a delicate touch, a modicum of discretion, some degree of anonymity, or all of the above, there exists a way to get in touch with someone who can fit your need. This is where the Adventurer's Guild comes in.

The Adventurer's Guild receives a variety of requests for help and posts them for available adventurers to see. In addition, the Guild will also buy and sell many different items of use to adventurers, though familiar faces tend to receive preferential treatment on jobs and purchases compared to adventurers foreign to the area. However, there are those who don't mind whether or not they receive such preferential treatment and continue to wander anyway.

The Origin of Adventuring

The current idea of wandering adventurers in Terastier is a relic in and of itself, a remnant from the era of volunteer soldiers.

After the Great Catastrophe, much of the knowledge and technology from the previous civilizations were lost. Bands of volunteer recruits were established to try and find various literature, relics, and magical texts from razed and ransacked cities in order to maintain some sense of society. Successful as they were, these volunteers thought of themselves as protectors of knowledge and technology, and trained successors in the hopes they would be able to find and protect more lost treasures and ancient magics.

After driving many of the Barbarous back underground from villages scattered across the continent, there was a period of reconstruction and rebuilding. The volunteer soldiers who went on the Barbarous hunts came home to assume the role of protector again, keeping safe and maintaining the Terastieran way of life.

Eventually, the volunteers who went out into ancient ruins, dark caves, and other unsavory places to hunt for the Barbarous and find relics of the past picked up the name “adventurer”. Those with talent, whether it be martial, magical, or mental, were recruited to aid in the effort, and so adventuring became a viable occupation in Terastier.

Becoming an Adventurer

In Raxia, more and more youths are attracted to the adventuring way of life.

Choosing to become an adventurer is easy. Simply saying “I am an adventurer now”, though, doesn't quite cut it. A popular method is to associate with a local Adventurer's Guild (free of charge), and take jobs from prospective patrons. Oftentimes, the guild will give each adventurer an emblem, colloquially referred to as a “venture crest”, as a symbol that the person in question is a member of that particular Guild.

Adventurers themselves can best be described as “armed for war, yet neither a knight or soldier”, and often have a unique air of carefree disregard for laws and unrestrained freedom hanging around them. In a time where ordinary citizens tend to avoid leaving their towns for fear of the Barbarous, the armed adventurer is a welcome sight.

Organizations Affiliated with Adventurers

Adventurer's Guild

The Adventurer's Guild is often seen as a hangout for adventurers, whether local or foreign.

When dealing with jobs, most prospective clients use the Guild as a middleman between themselves and the adventurers they hire. The Guild does take a small amount of money as a commission, but the value of the art, literature and other relics brought to the Guild more than make up for it. A quick way to tell the worth of any particular Guild branch is to see how many relics have been brought back from adventures. Those branches with few relics tend to be fairly new, with few members, while other branches may have a lot of veteran members with the relics to back that up.

The Guild also provides adventurers with a way to purchase a list of items, weapons and armor all at one shop. Sometimes, the Guild will be the lowest price in the area, while other times they will compete with local artisans over one thing or another. Information is also readily exchanged at the Guild, as wandering adventurers will bring in stories of far-away lands. Training, too, is offered, as there are often former adventurers running the Guild. For example, training one's skills as a scout requires a competent teacher, which the Guild will provide (even if they need to have one come in from another branch). The Adventurer's Guild even provides food and rest for an adventurer on a job, without any need for recompense.

If work is slow or a job didn't bring in as much money as needed, the Guild offers interest-free money lending to guild members, up to a maximum of 300 Gamels. This money is typically recouped by docking the adventurer's next job by the amount loaned.

Similar to a give-and-take relationship, the Adventurer's Guild and adventurers are practically inseparable. Additionally, since there are so many different branches of the Guild, there are suits of armor and clothes with each guild branch's venture crest designed right into them. Naturally, it is up to the indiviual adventurer whether to wear such items.

Frontier villages may also post jobs at the local Guild branch, even if they do not have any money or reward for the adventurers taking the job. If an adventuring party takes a free job like this, that guild branch will give them higher priority on any paying jobs coming in.

Reputation, too, is an important thing in the Guild as well. Higher reputation within the Guild will lead to bigger and better things, as well as having citizens recognize you on sight (sometimes even before, if your reputation is high enough!).

The Adventurer's Guild offers so much to so many people, and many adventurers think of it as a second home.

Synergistic Relationship

Both adventurers and the Adventurer's Guild have a nearly symbiotic relationship with each other, most notably when the Guild uses adventurers as information couriers. Specifically, the Guild has a widespread information network built on the backs of wandering adventurers. If an adventurer has had remarkable success with a job, a massive ruin had been discovered, even if there is a large-scale movement of the Barbarous; all of these and more are shared between guild branches via adventurers.

There is an unwritten law between adventurers that they should help each other to the best of their own ability. However, that is not always the reality of the situation at hand.

Magician's Guild

The Mages Guild exists in most of the major cities on the Terastieran continent. A fairly secretive group, their members include both sorcerers and conjurers, though often both are simply called magicians. Generally, townsfolk tend to keep a safe distance from magicians; while they recognize their power and usefulness, there is still some fear of the unknown yet to be overcome.

The Mages Guild has existed since before the Great Catastrophe, though unsurprisingly kept to itself even then. Similar to the Adventurer's Guild, the Mages Guild has established a network by which they can keep in contact with other branches. However, this network is used more for the collection and preservation of knowledge, understanding, and finding new talent than anything else.

Divine Temples

With the presence of the gods directly felt in Raxia, it is little surprise that temples are to be found nearly everywhere. Temples of Lyphos and Tidan, being the Divine Ancestor and Sun God respectively, are found in most towns. Streets of temples to multiple gods are also not uncommon in most major cities. While there are often rivalries between various temples and priesthoods, it is almost unheard of for even the most devout follower to deny the existence of their rival deity.

Barbarous also worship divine beings, though these Malevolent Gods exploit their followers to their own ends. Unlike the Gods of Light, the Malevolent Gods have a hostile relationship with their followers. Because of this, quite a few temples have been encouraging the extermination of the Barbarous, as a method of weakening the power base of the Malevolent Gods.

Fairy Tamers

Sensitivity and talent are important for those who wish to become Fairy Tamers. Unlike sorcerers and conjurers, Fairy Tamers do not study excessively to learn their art, but simply have a natural ability to speak to and coax favors from fairies. Often, Fairy Tamers are simply self-taught, though there are occasionally those who learned from another tamer.

Due to their closer bond with nature, people from the countryside and frontier towns are far more likely to become Fairy Tamers than those in cities. That is not to say urban Fairy Tamers don't exist, but are far fewer in number than their less civilized counterparts.

Institute of Magitechnology

The Institute of Magitechnology, founded after the Great Catastrophe, works towards the conservation of ancient magitech relics and the revival of magitech construction. Aiming to save the heritage of the old Al Menas period, the Institute hires quite a few adventurers to search through ruins to try and find relics from the past.

Since the Institute works so closely with adventurers and trains many new artificers, there is a branch of the Adventurer's Guild built into the Institute for the benefit of those attending. Currently, the Institute is found in the capitol of the Lukythra Empire, but there are plans to expand throughout the continent.

Typical Jobs of Adventurers

This section describes the typical jobs an adventurer may receive.

Exploring Ancient Ruins

Perhaps the most common job, exploring ruins and dungeons are the bread and butter of any veteran adventurer.

Diving into ruins of a lost civilization in search of relics is often a very lucrative venture, assuming one can sell the relics they find.

When it comes to found treasure, oftentimes the Adventurer's Guild is more than happy to buy most relics. However, magical arms and items tend to be more readily bought by active adventurers than by the Guild.

Treasure hunting as it is currently known is mainly the purview of adventurers, as no one else would risk themselves for undiscovered treasure. Outside of humanoid realms, there is nothing stopping someone from claiming ownership of a particular tract of land, especially if it has unexplored ruins. Such a find is incredible, as the owner's name is associated with that site forever.

Any news of unexplored ruins inevitable attracts adventurers like moths to a flame. Occasionally, the Guild will catch wind of a possible ruin site and give general notice to those who want to take the risk.

When an adventurer asks about the new ruin site, the Adventurer's Guild will refer them to the "Seeking Shop" (as it's colloquially known), who deals exclusively with various forms of information. They make a living by finding information of new, undiscovered ruins and sell that information to the Guild (directions cost extra, and are not always available). Naturally, many of these sites are dangerous, and to go in unassisted would be dangerously foolhardy.

The "Seeking Shop" only provides information with advance payment, though the amount of treasure one brings back tends to cover this advance and then some. While the Shop claims not to sell the same maps and information to multiple adventurers, many believe this to be the case.

For most ruin information, 100G is enough to cover the cost. However, with rarer and more valuable (and more dangerous) ruins comes higher prices. Information on ruins from the Durandal period runs at 1,000G, while any information on the extremely rare Schnell ruin is 10,000G at the minimum (and often much more)!

Driving Off the Barbarous

While a good amount of adventurers make their living off of dungeon exploration, others take it upon themselves to remove the remaining threat of the Barbarous.

The unrelenting efforts of 300 years have driven them off of the majority of the Terastieran continent. However, there are still active settlements, the home of tribes who raid and pillage Terastieran citizens. Discovery and annihilation of these villages, while dangerous, is the job of adventurers.

Lucky villages and cities may have a "Sword of Protection" active, creating a protective barrier to hamper the efforts of the Barbarous. While the more powerful Barbarous tribes are affected by this significantly, lesser Barbarous, such as goblins and boggarts, aren't as strongly affected and can slip through the barrier with some difficulty. Therefore, even with an active "Sword of Protection", there remains the need to have able-bodied fighters.

Powerful Barbarous can also hold Sword Shards, which can be used to power a "Sword of Protection". By defeating these leaders, adventurers can kill two birds with one stone; exterminating the Barbarous and providing Sword Shards to the nearby village or city. Such jobs are far more dangerous than normal extermination jobs, but are proportionally more lucrative as well.

Riders' Guilds

The Riders' Guild is an organization that works alongside the Adventurer's Guild in order to capture, train and outfit mounts for those able to ride.

After the collapse of society across Terastier following the Great Catastrophe, the demand for various trained mounts for transportation and defense greatly increased, and those that rose to meet this need became the Riders' Guild. Taking cues from various horse-riding clubs that had existed during the Al Menas days, the Guild has risen to become one of the most prominent guilds across Raxia. New branches of the Guild are being established all the time, and with newer technology and innovations when it comes to not only the mounts themselves, but their equipment as well.

While it would appear that adventurers are the most common riders among guildmembers, it is actually merchants and caravaneers who are always looking for both pack animals willing to carry their various wares as well as other riders and mounts that may wish to make a quick bit of money doing guard duties.

While it may appear that all Riders' Guilds are all the same, it is actually a conglomerate of independent guilds under the same name. While most guilds typically have some combination of animals and magitech vehicles available for mounts, in especially large cities multiple guilds may be competing against each other, often preferring one particular type of mount over another. However, in more rural areas, the Adventurer's Guild may double as a Riders' Guild outpost, with a small stable of mounts not far from the guildhouse.

Occasionally, there are guild branches operated by the local state, and in such guilds preferential treatment may be given to those willing to go out on adventures that would advance the state's interests. On the other hand, there are guild halls owned by the Institute of Magitechnology, and such guild branches will have significantly more manabikes available to ride, and may even be willing to sell one to the right buyer.

Under normal circumstances, the Riders' Guild deals with a good number of animals that do require some space to roam while in Guild custody, and so many of the guildhalls and warehouses can be found on the outskirts of any given city. In certain cases, the stables are set up outside the city walls themselves.

Mounts

Mounts used by the Riders' Guild will always have a mark denoting ownership unique to that particular guild branch somewhere on the mount itself. For the various animals, a branding iron may be used in order to create a permanent mark, though magical markings passed down from the old horse-riding clubs of the Al Menas are used quite often. These magical markings are also common on the various vehicles, as branding them would almost assuredly damage the vehicle.

The animals used by the Riders' Guild start out as completely wild beasts, and are trained by Guild teachers using specialized methods for each type of beast in order to become proper mounts. Adventurers are involved in these processes as more than just a renter or buyer, but may also be asked to find young animals to train, as well as occasionally recovering an animal that has escaped from its training.

Mount Reduction Tags

These tags contain the power to reduce a mount and their equipment in size, as well as preserve them in stone until the mount is needed. This magic can extend to any drawn carriage as well, making it easy to transport over a large distance.

It is thought that these tags were a form of petrification preservation technology being actively researched in the latter half of the Al Menas era. This technology would put the animal into a state of suspended animation, reducing its size and turning it into stone. The thought behind this process was to reduce both the maintenance and upkeep of such an animal and make it easier to transport that animal from one location to another without using any sort of teleportation, while still being able to call upon the beast should the situation prove it necessary. Once such experiments were proven successful, the magic of these tags were heavily utilized over the following years.

Mount Contract Certificates and Proprietary Mount Certificates

In recent years, the Riders' Guild has been approving the use of both Mount Contract Certificates and Proprietary Mount Certificates among its members. These Certificates have very similar powers as the Reduction Tags when applies to a mount, but are able to be used and reused much more often than the Reduction Tags. Additionally, while the magical interference between multiple Reduction Tags has not been fully resolved, these Certificates do not have such restrictions, and many adventurers have a number of different mounts and Contracts depending upon the purpose.

As adventurers and riders become more trusted within the guild, many of the guild branches are willing to lose out on rental fees, so long as the adventurer purchases one of these Certificates. However, this trust does not come right away, and must not only be earned by the adventurer, but also maintained through their deeds.

Theives' Guild

When in larger cities, there is often a seedy underbelly behind the bright lights and packed markets. Many who lurk in the shadows and engage in illegal activities often band together, offering mutual aid in their illicit dealings. The Thieves' Guild is the resulting organization of criminals, and especially large cities may even have more than one Guild in operation.

The Guild offers jobs to those who would work outside the law, including such types as bandits, drug and human traffickers, and even assassins. Information is readily exchanged, as is offers of mutual aid in both performing jobs and escaping the authorities. While such a gathering would immediately be a valuable resource for the authorities, occasionally a Thieves' Guild is allowed to function as an unofficial state entity, as it's easier to track criminals through the Guild than were they to work individually.

Locations of the Thieves' Guild

For obvious reasons, there's no sign above a door advertising a location as a Thieves' Guild. The Guild is often hidden, usually in a bar, in a small betting parlor, or other such establishments. These guild facilities are often hidden in basements or in storage locations nearby, with the doorkeep being tipped off by a particular pass word or phrase. Some even have a whole small performance, for the benefit of onlookers:

Customer: "Give me a glass of fine wine." Barkeep: "Do you want me to sell my home for some?" Customer: "A cold ale, then."

  • The customer drinks a little, then turns back to the barkeep*

Customer: This tastes like horse piss, do you have anything else?" Barkeep: "Yeah, let's go to the back."

With a certain degree of credibility, the Adventurer's Guild can offer the locations of such Guild establishments, though for a nominal (50~100G) fee.

Relationship between the Adventurer's Guild and Thieves' Guild

While most adventurers aren't members of both guilds, there are some who are, and these people can offer valuable information, for the right price. Some secret treasures and sites can only be found with the help of the Thieves' Guild, so it's wise not to cross anyone who's a known member. Whwile the Adventurer's Guild and Thieves' Guild will rarely cross paths as organizations, there have been some times where one guild has a particular relic or set of relics the other is looking for, so there's no bad blood between the two.

If one is successful in contacting the Thieves' Guild, it is possible to purchase information and join the ranks. Just joining up with the Thieves' Guild, however, costs 1,000 Gamels, and individual information will cost more, sometimes much more. The exact price depends upon how useful the information is, how fresh it is, and how powerful the target of said information gathering is. For example, digging up information on a local thug will only cost around 100G or so, while finding out who the lover of the local noble can run at least 500G. Of course, there's the rare bit of information, juicy info that can lead to something like state secrets, or involves wealth to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Gamels. The information alone for such top-end jobs will itself run 1,000G, if not more, though such intel is incredibly rare to come across.

Whether an adventurer is a member of the Thieves' Guild or not is up to the player (though they should also consult with the GM beforehand).

Famous Thieves' Guilds

In Lukythra, the guild known as the Dark Night's Falcons claims to be the largest Thieves' Guild in the Zalts region, counting hundreds of members in its ranks. However, the guild Deathcrimson, hailing from the Marquis of Corderia's lands, has a reputation for the most vile murderers, drug traders, and human traffickers in the region. There are some who claim that Deathcrimson has Barbarous in their numbers, but for obvious reasons it is impossible to say whether these rumors are true.

Airships

One of the most valuable, and rarest, magical items in the entirety of Raxian history is the airship.

During the heyday of the Al Menas, airships swarmed the sky, providing trade and passage across the world with ease. While modern thought is that such airship rides were only for the rich and wealthy, truth is the average person could afford to take an airship ride to the next country over.

As it stands now, however, the means of making airships is mostly lost to the ravages of time. The technology to create the magicore needed to create flight has been lost, so most of the airships that still exist have been cobbled together from remnants of older airships, as well as relics and other articles from excavated Al Menas ruins. Essentially, current airships are made by taking an existing magicore and placing it into a ship modified for such a purpose. Once attached correctly, the new airship can take flight, though it does need a steady supply of mako stones as fuel for propulsion.

There are a few different types of magicores, though they all work in the same way, by turning the air that comes into contact with the ship's hull into a more buoyant gas that lifts the ship and propels it forward. Most modern airships use a balloon-shape for their hull, which does allow for lower fuel consumption, though it makes up for this by having a smaller carrying capacity and slower speed than a more traditional ship.

Medium-sized airships will tend to be the most common, holding around 50 occupants (not including crew). Smaller ships, with a capacity of 10 occupants, as well as larger ships able to hold around 100 people have also been sighted over recent years. Some nations do still travel and trade via airships, though prices can get expensive even for small flights. Tickets tend to start at 500 Gamels for short flights, and can increase to 5,000 Gamels or more depending upon the distance and quality of the airship.

Another benefit of having a large fleet of airships is the threat of aerial retaliation. Not only can countries with a number of airships have thriving trade, but it becomes easy enough to outfit an airship with weapons of war if necessary. As such, there are few privately owned airships, and those tend to belong to wealthy merchants. At the same time, adventurers who find a magicore buried in an old ruin are able to ask for incredible amounts of money on the open market, and there have been tales of a couple adventuring parties who have become independently wealthy and retired just from finding one.

Veteran Adventurers

Adventurers of 5th level or higher should have enough of a reputation to be recognized in most major cities, while those of 7th level or higher are referred to as "veterans". The following is a quick description of the role of veteran adventurers in Raxia.

More Difficult Adventures

Most of the work given to fledgling adventurers often involves exploring urban ruins and exterminating low-level Barbarous who've moved in to abandoned places. However, veterans are given more dangerous missions, often involving explorations into uncharted areas, or assassinations of much more powerful enemies. Even in the Terastieran continent the areas where humanoids can safely live is limited, and so incursions into Barbarous lands and attacks on high-ranking leaders helps to drive the Barbarous back, opening up more land to settle on.

Sometimes, veteran adventurers will find unexplored ruins, and will sell this information back to the Adventurer's Guild and thus to lower-level adventurers, keeping the cycle going. And as the new ranks of low-level adventurers explore these newfound ruins and become veterans themselves, the current group of veterans is advancing yet further into the unknown.

Powerful Connections

Adventurers of the 7th level and higher may be sponsored by powerful aristocrats, merchants, temples, or even the state itself, in the hopes of preferential treatment when trying to acquire relics from the past.

Depending upon the reputation of the adventurers, there is a possibility to earn titles, power, and property. However, in gaining these material benefits, the adventurers do give up a bit of their freedom and their priority becomes that of their sponsor. There are stories of adventurers whose sponsors overestimated their abilities, and led them into attempting impossible tasks (such as attempting to slay a dragon, or map out the continent of Razeldawn) and were slain in the effort. At the same time, though, there have also been adventurers who knew their limits, and were able to successfully leverage their reputation and power into taking over important positions in their home country.

Found Your Own Country

Becoming an adventurer of 10th level, 15th level or even higher is an amazing task, and at that level of power and privilege it becomes possible to think about starting one's own country in areas that the Barbarous have been driven from.

Founding one's own country is no trivial task, but once it is known that a high-level adventurer is seeking to do so, other powerful adventurers and servitors will often follow them looking to become subordinates and court members in their new country. People will also flock to charismatic leaders, those who can win over the hearts of the masses, and by keeping the will of the people strong, their following will continue to grow.

Of course, such new countries are prime targets for Barbarous invasion, as the remaining Barbarous seek to take back the land they consider theirs. If there is a considerable threat of Barbarous in the area, the Adventurer's Guild will quite often set up a location in the new kingdom, providing newer adventurers with jobs to help out the new country.

Additionally, there may be a neighboring country or kingdom that doesn't appreciate young blood coming in and setting up. Such neighbors will keep the new country on their toes as much as a Barbarous incursion would, if not more so. Just because one founds their own country doesn't mean they can sit on their laurels and rest.