Creating an Alchemy Guild

[Ash]

I'm in the process of writing up a proposal that my character is going to be submitting to form an alchemy guild in my home chapter. I was wondering if anyone had any advice. My main concerns are these:

What would make it worthwhile to join a guild vs. opening your own business?
What would you expect from a guild?
What would you expect them to expect from you?
Anyone have a guild charter (from any type of guild really) that I might be able to look through while I'm writing my own charter?

My strongest concern is this: Since it only takes 3 levels of Alchemy to throw gasses, there are a lot of low level "alchemists" (and I use that term lightly) out there. What benefits could a guild offer that would actually make people want to continue in their alchemical studies, even to the level of Journeyman? Perhaps it's just me, but I'd feel annoyed at an alchemy guild filled with alchemy lowbies. What have others done to combat this issue or what incentives have been offered to advance in the craft?

What are your thoughts guys and gals?

 

[Wraith]

That's the real question. Unless your guild can sell to them at discounts steep enough to make up for whatever dues you're charging, you're going to find it a tough sell compared to just investing in production.

 

[Mobius]

What would make it worthwhile to join a guild vs. opening your own business?

This is going to be your problem. Earth and Celestial guilds have something they can offer members: cheaper/free Spell Book copying, access to all spells for memorization, and Permanent Circle Benefits. Alchemy books are free to copy (and worth nothing because of it) and there are no "higher-end" Alchemies which are unavailable. Alchemist can't even pool their skills the way Formalists can pool theirs.

About the only thing an Alchemists Guild could do is support collective bargaining; it would basically be a union. If you managed buy-in from all the Alchemists in the town you could effectively set Alchemy prices for the province (assuming you could get Plot to go along). If you had a huge number of Journeyman and above crafters, you might be able to offer some benefits from clever use of the Merchant skill - but again, that's something people can do on their own without the benefit of a group.

Your best bet is to get the Queen (or whatever leader of the province) in on the deal by giving her Court a cut of some sort in order to make yours the only game in town. If people must join the Alchemist's guild in order to use Alchemy, that makes being a member of the Guild a benefit. You'd basically be trying to make the Alchemist's Guild into somethign like Actor's Equity or the Teamsters.

 

[Thorador]

What would make it worthwhile to join a guild vs. opening your own business?

This is going to be your problem. Earth and Celestial guilds have something they can offer members: cheaper/free Spell Book copying, access to all spells for memorization, and Permanent Circle Benefits. Alchemy books are free to copy (and worth nothing because of it) and there are no "higher-end" Alchemies which are unavailable. Alchemist can't even pool their skills the way Formalists can pool theirs.

About the only thing an Alchemists Guild could do is support collective bargaining; it would basically be a union. If you managed buy-in from all the Alchemists in the town you could effectively set Alchemy prices for the province (assuming you could get Plot to go along). If you had a huge number of Journeyman and above crafters, you might be able to offer some benefits from clever use of the Merchant skill - but again, that's something people can do on their own without the benefit of a group.

Your best bet is to get the Queen (or whatever leader of the province) in on the deal by giving her Court a cut of some sort in order to make yours the only game in town. If people must join the Alchemist's guild in order to use Alchemy, that makes being a member of the Guild a benefit. You'd basically be trying to make the Alchemist's Guild into somethign like Actor's Equity or the Teamsters.

Which means a lot of work with your plot team, also since "Guild Master" is a title that often is given the same level of respect as a Knight and thus is frequently a hard title to recieve, not impossible by any means, but just mean you will have to spend significant time working with your plot team to get it done. At least typically this is true.