Guilds Galore!

[Captain Kablam]

Hey there, decided I'd start up a list of weird or awesome guild ideas and stories.
Starting with my contribution

#1 The Gourmands
It started with a lizardman with an appetite, and an elf with a dream. The Gourmands are bound by the most peculiar of creeds, to seek out the largest and most powerful beasts throughout the land and feast upon them. Some do in in order to gain the strength of their prey, others in order to master their culinary arts, the guildhouses for these stout adventurers double many times as restaurants of the highest caliber, with the toughest waitstaff through out the land. They are always tipped.

[Crake]

In a megacity campaign I ran once, it was a low magic world where many things had been replaced with primitive technology, and magic was still being rediscovered (and was hence using the words of power subsystem from pathfinder, with a modified class that didn't gain spells upon levelup, you had to hunt for them, either from other mages, or by delving into the city's long abandoned undercity), I had a group of clandestine mages who called themselves the Words of Intrigue. They had a heirarchy of positions, ranked based on the highest level spell you could cast, and magical sensors hidden all over town watching for any magical activity. If you weren't a registered member of the organization, and used magic in the city, you were given two options, join them, or forever leave the city.

To join the organization, or to rank up, there were 2 ways it could go about: If there was an open position, you merely ranked up and didn't need to worry at all. But, if there were no positions available at a given rank, you were pitted into a one on one duel that spanned the entire city. First one to kill or disable their opponent won, and got the position at that rank. If the opponent was disabled, then they were banished, never to return.

The number of available positions doubled at each consecutive spell level, starting with a single epic caster, 2 9th level casters, 4 8th level and so on, ending at 1st level casters, with a total number of positions available across all levels being 1023. Higher level positions could be made available for lower level casters if there was an excess of lower casters and a deficit of higher casters, and until that deficit is filled by members advancing, they can advance without having to duel anyone.

It was a highly elitist organization, and was eventually torn apart from within by one of the players, allowing more freedom for magic to grow within the setting, at least in that region.

[Jack_McSnatch]

The Six Regions Thieves Guild.

I know not all that weird but hear me out. These were legally licenced and recognized thieves, spies, and othe rogues. Six kingdoms recognized them, and authorized their activities. Rather than hide their profession, they publically advertised. You could rent their services for B&E, pickpocketing, grifting, spying, testing security, and nearly every other thief job you could think of, aside from assassination. That was a different guild.

Upon hiring a thief, you would recieve an enchanted card. Base prices for each job were marked, and you had to enter an additional amount based on difficulty, as well as any additional tasks you may want done. In addition, there were four marks. Black mark was a failed job, red mark meant job successful, but the thief was "caught" by local guards, white mark meant job successful, no issues, and a gold mark meant that the job exceeded expectations. The magic on the card simply alerted the guild in real time.

If you were one of the thieves, you'd have an enchanted business card, showing your photo, your area of expertise, and how many of each of those marks you had. To join you had to operate as "independant," meaning if you got caught, you faced the usual penalties for thievery. The guild would watch freelancers, and if they had what it took, they would be apprenticed to a guild member. If the apprentice was good, the teacher would reccomend them for membership. If they were bad, they were usually let go. New members were watched for a little longer, with the teachers being held accountable for screw ups. They started in only one city, but my players ended up getting them spread out.