“What’s your guild like?”
“Well, you know, we raid…we do heroics…there’s DKP or something for the high end raiders, but I don’t really raid much with them.”
“But is it militaristic, tribal, religious? You know, what’s the guild like?”
“Oh, it’s just a guild, like any other.”
“I see.”
A Guild Not Like Any Other
I talk a lot about roleplaying with WoW players, and I’ve met all sorts. There are those who are fervent in their hatred of the Horde or Alliance, who will brook no talk of anything other than their eradication. There are those who are more dedicated to their profession, such as a guild of blacksmiths and engineers, who play as metalsmiths and technicians, and treat their guild like a machine shop. A guild can be little more than a high powered LFG channel, or it can be a lot more than that. Here I’ll lay out a template you might find interesting for a guild based in a strong roleplay background. This is not recommended for a non RP server climate.
The Scarlet Crusade
Many of us have visited the Scarlet Monastery now and then. Some of us countless hundreds of times. Really, is there a better place to drag your level 25 friends through for loot and experience? I’ve lost count of the guildmates of mine who dinged 25 a half hour before earning their Scarlet Monastery achievement, but I know it’s at least six. Tauren have limited fingers on which to count, and I’ll thank you not to point out my disability. But I digress. The Scarlet Monastery is home to the Scarlet Crusade, a faction with which we can never become friendly, but which nonetheless is a strong part of the world’s lore and history. Why not, I thought the other day, join the Scarlet Crusade? And since they won’t have us, why not simply insist on it?
What you’ll need is of course an Alliance guild. The Crusade consists chiefly of humans, of course, but you might not want to limit yourself entirely to humans. Perhaps a dwarf or two, if they were appropriate to the feel of the guild, and possibly even the occasional elf? RPing the Scarlet Crusade will be challenging; you might not want to start off limiting yourself to human membership. For flavor and for logistics, you’ll want your leadership to be in the positions of chain wearers at least. Your uniform, in large part, is chainmail. Your officers should be able to wear it. So let us start with a leadership council, using titles appropriate to the Crusade: Grand Crusader, Crusader, Inquisitor, and so forth. Your officers should be well versed in the lore of the Crusade and have a solid idea of where your guild is going to go with this role. Not just now, but into Cataclysm. A themed guild is something that people can become really invested in, if it is a planned guild and not just a gimmick.
Forging the Scarlet Council
No. Just no.
A good template for this would be the existing Scarlet Crusade within the Monastery. A Paladin, a Priestess, a Mage (No undead thank you), and a Warrior, perhaps? There’s certainly room for a Priestess (if she’s got the legs to work that Whitemane/Paletress look), and a brutal Herod warrior wouldn’t be out of place. Priests make great Inquisitors. Here you have to suspend your RP a bit because the only way to get your uniforms is going to be to kill huge numbers of the Scarlet Crusade. Work with me, though, folks; the willing suspension of disbelief is key to all roleplayers, and here moreso. Get your Council outfitted properly. Your cloth wearing leaders won’t be able to wear the chainmail set, but get them a Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade and a white or red gown and they’ll be set. As for the plate or chain wearers, you may want to press for the full chainmail set, or just a few pieces for effect. What you want, though, is a core group of guild leaders who can present themselves credibly as members of the Scarlet Crusade. The Tabard is kind of a rare drop, but Armory can be solo run quite easily with an 80: get your officers to put in the time and get one! With a group of guild leaders dressing the part and acting the part, your work is practically done. Show that you can commit to the role, and your recruitment will be that much easier.
Recruitment…Riiiight
The Scarlet Crusade is notoriously standoffish. Indeed, paranoid. This does not lend itself well to recruiting strangers, but on an RP server you have a tool of great use to us all: the double parentheses. You’ll want to explain to prospective members that while you the player would like them to join, in character the Crusade is hostile and difficult to breach. Be sure that your recruits know the initial recruitment process will reflect this, but that you are in fact roleplaying and don’t really think that they are an undead spy trying to infiltrate your guild. The Crusade is reported to subject its prospective members to thirty days of isolation followed by interrogation, the details of which are not discussed by any member. This is a rich opportunity for roleplay. Not that you should quarantine and torture your members, but it would be an interesting part of each character’s backstory to know how that did progress. Even if never discussed, it would greatly inform the character’s decisions in the future.
Promotion: Getting Redder and Redder
The Scarlet Crusade is a religious military order, and I’ll leave the specifics of how to run a guild up to you. If you’re still reading this article you probably have an idea of how you want things run in that fashion. I would recommend, if you have one, getting a guildmate with military experience to share it. My own time in the Navy has given me a strong sense of military order and the ability to conduct myself with good order and discipline. These skills are useless to me in my guild, but if you have (or are) a servicemember, that experience is invaluable as a tool for building a military guild. If you’re lacking military experience or guildmates, I am always available to share my own.
One thing that you don’t need a military guildmate to explain is that rank has its privileges and uniforms are mandatory. Your guild tabard should of course reflect the Scarlet Crusade’s colors as much as possible with the designer. Your guildmates should be encouraged to obtain their uniforms, perhaps even assisted in some cases. Again: suspend your roleplay. You’re a Scarlet Crusade guild, but there’s just no way around the fact that the only source of your uniforms is murder. Work with it!
I imagine a rank structure which has requirements of certain achievements. To be more than a Page, you’ll need a Tabard. To be promoted further, either the Scarlet Chain set or appropriate cloth/leather armor should be required. You want your guild meetings to look like an assembly of the Scarlet Crusade. Red, White, and Plate. Your guildmates should be sold on this idea, and your guild officers should be willing to enforce it. With the rank progression, as with any guild, you’ll want to offer more privileges, beyond simple bank access. What if your guild members below a certain rank were not authorized to wear civilian clothes in public? Not everyone has a set of roleplay clothing, but if they were not allowed to wear one, they might take pleasure in earning that right. Consider having a tailor in your guild who will produce “uniform” casual wear, so your troops aren’t sitting around in their combat gear all the time, and have something more presentable to wear to guild events. The possibilities abound for what things would need to be done for promotion, and what things might be awarded by promotions.
Faction Interaction: Prepare for the Reaction
Your guild’s presence might not be well known or publicized, depending on the size of both guild and realm which houses it. Done properly, with verve to your roleplay, you could become quite well known. It’s been my experience that people on RP servers are starved for the chance to RP. Give them that, and your guild might rival the original Crusade for numbers.
Just be prepared, as with new recruits, to explain that your disdain and hostility toward outsiders is purely in character. And don’t overdo the disdain/hostility approach, either. It’s possible to be haughty without being offputting. Try to balance the two. The Crusade needs troops, and you ultimately want others to respect you. Try to create that balance such that your Alliance colleagues will be willing to work with you, if keeping you at arm’s length, while you are just as willing…and keep them just as much at arm’s length. Remember, they could be undead!
As for the other faction? I think you can imagine how to encourage your guildmates to react to a Forsaken player. RPPVP players, take note.
Crusading Around
Roleplaying within a theme guild can be challenging. If you start with a core group, people you already know, you can quite easily build a guild with a theme, a role, and a solid membership. Be sure to communicate your guild’s atmosphere to members as you form it, and to new members as well. I recommend maintaining an in character guild chat, as well. I find that if people are given a channel in which to be out of character, they will never use the channel in which they are in character. A theme guild like this, you really want to preserve the immersion as much as possible. Talk to your people and make sure this is a role they would be interested in playing. It’ll take commitment from them; be sure you have the commitment yourself.
