The Adventuring Orders

The Guild of Adventurers-Upon-Return has a long and vaunted history, serving as the conscious of a Kingdom, protectors of the realm, hunters of treasures, slayers of dragons, topplers of tyrants, and general savers of the world type. These brave men and women, of many different races, many different stripes of life, work in a void. They are supported by Orders within the Guild itself. Not every person who joins the guild is a sword and spell slinging hero ready to double down on danger, and stare death in the eye, and these people join the Orders. There is no shame in joining an order, and many of the Orders were themselves founded by Adventurers-Upon-Return, and many such heroes retire but continue to serve the guild by either patronage or membership within one of the orders.

The Order of Squires

The Order of Squires is the On The Job Training for apprentice Adventurers-Upon-Return. The Squires are typically young, and have their own internal structure. For the most part, squires are individually apprenticed to specific members of the greater guild, serving as assistants and valets for guild combatants, especially the sword and shield type.

The Order of Squires was created by a merger of three lesser orders that were started in different parts of the Kingdom. Their goals and ideologies were similar, but each grew out of a different reason. The oldest of the original Orders were the Heralds of Aldebrant. Rather than a noble purpose, the Heralds of Aldebrant were formed to make sure the entourage of the Knight-Lord Aldebrant were precise and disciplined for the hero's ego stroking parades and public demonstrations. The Heralds were a mixture of bully boys and pressgangers, but many who served as a Herald did go on to do well in the various guilds that existed before the modern Guild of Adventurers-Upon-Return. The Heralds have a gold and silver braid they were on their tunics, and be default, the Heralds are all young men. The second proto-order was Esmenet's Emeralds. The Emeralds were all drawn from the ranks of orphan girls, and the daughters of foresters and farmers, who wanted a better life than just breeding the next generation, and being treated a step above livestock. The Emeralds were considered rebels and terrorests like their namesake Esmenet, until they were part of the revolution that toppled Baron Gembert, and his ironfisted misogynist rule.The Emeralds still largely favor women, but there are a small number of non-machismo dripping men in the order. The Emeralds favor archery, deception, and though embracing the use of swords and armor as needed, are more ninja-like in their training. The final proto-order was the youngest, and considered the most important. The Brotherhood of Mansel was born from the congregation of squires, pages, messengers, grooms, and the other sundry young men who served knights in the field. They created their own order during the Heraldry Wars, where knightly orders rose and fell like wheat in the wind.

It was the Brotherhood that drew in the Heralds and the Emeralds and created the Order of Squires within the Guild. By blending their influences, they were able to give young men and women entering the guild a way to rise up through the ranks, without showing up as an already established fighter, archer, or otherwise martially inclined would be hero.

The Order of the Greenleaf

The Order of the Greenleaf has it's roots in the half-elves, and the forest dwellers who would gravitate to the Guild over it's many years. The Order protects the forests and the green lands, and has many common interests with the greater Guild of Adventurers-Upon-Return, but not it's zeal for plumbing dungeons and digging up monsters and prophecies. Greenleaves are archers, hunters, trackers, survivalists, and naturalists, with a strong propensity for rangers and druids.

The Greenleaves were founded by a band within the Guild of Adventurers-Upon-Return. The elves Cazna Bitterblossom, Krenaste Silverheels, and Sabrae Seedsplitter served for three generations as forestals of the Westernesse Swarding, and took others under their tutelage, most came from the Swarding, and went on to be it's protectors, while others, exposed to the greater guild, sought their fortunes elsewhere. In the end, either the Swarding gained a skilled forestal, or the Guild gained an experienced woodsman and stalker. Bitterblossom remains the head of the Order of the Greenleaf is a semi-retired senior member of the Guild of Adventurers-Upon-Return.Silverheels fell, and is remembered once every ten years, on the anniversary of his death. Seedsplitter is the leader of the Swarding Forestals.

Order of the Silver Wand

The Order of the Silver Wand was born from a collection of apprentices who were tired of the danger and poor manner in which they were treated. Mages, long known for their hubris, had treated them as disposable assets, even those white hat wizards were not above being aloof and leaving their charges to run willy-nilly chasing after basilisk tongues, rare jewels from dragon hordes, or sending them as magic artillery pieces to fight as they were obligated to. The Order of the Silver Wand organized under a small guild of aged magi. This order of apprentices shared information, traded spells, and helped each other moreso than their masters had ever helped them. This saw apprentices teaching younger apprentices, and increased the numbers of magic users in the vicinity of the Order. The old way only saw the magi choosing the most promising individuals, where the Order would take in anyone who demonstrated even basic ability with magic.

The Old Magi were jealous, and guarded their secrets, and were loath to take on students. Students took away time from their own studies, and could be a threat if they decided the master's plans were too nefarious, or had wandered too far from basic humanity. By the time these scattered master magi discovered what had happened, they were greatly outnumbered by less competent and powerful magi, and some of their rivals had embraced this new socialist approach to the Great Art. There were a few flare ups, but this quickly turned the hostile mages into enemies of states and the Guild of Adventurers. Those who supported this new guild found that instead of have years devoted to teaching a single student, they could simply lecture, or deliver a spell on irregular intervals, and as long as they didn't offend the gods, they were left alone. Thus, the Silver Wand spawned a few other lesser mage orders (The Brotherhood of the Lamp, pyromancers, or the Fraternitas Necrophagium, the necromancer hunters) and changed the way adventurers fought monsters, and how kingdoms dealt with magi