Colors: Red and Gold
Current Guild Leader: Mithos Edener, The Order of the Stage
Requirements to Join: 1 gold registration fee
Requirements of Membership: None
Majority Composition: Bards, Poets, Artists
Minority Composition: Dilettantes, Fops
On the Guild Council?: No

The Order of the Bard was originally a branch of the Adventurer’s Guild. Over time, bards from the Order started performing more and more in inns and taverns, providing more entertainment to the people of Torodan and less tactical support to the Adventurer’s of Torodan. Eventually, this split became so major that the Order of the Bard became its own Guild. These days, the Bard’s Guild now provides more than simple support to the Adventurer’s of Torodan, it also provides entertainment to the common people of Torodan, a task that makes many members of this Guild far happier. While many of the bards in the guild do focus on the ability to help allies with their music, a good portion are also simply entertainers, some not even learning how to use their abilities in a mystical fashion.

Joining the Guild itself only involves registration, and the Bard’s Guild does not require that you join an Order in order to maintain membership. For those who do join an Order, the result is usually an increase in employment, but not always, and many bards that go into more than one field of performance forgo joining a specific Order. While many Guilds use voting, the Bard's Guild has an entirely different method of selection. Every 2 years, the Bard's Guild holds a weeklong contest of performers, judging a variety of art forms and styles, with performers or teams sponsored by their elects, or whomever it is that they want to be voted into office. The current Guild Leader, provincials, regionals, and Order Leaders act as judges, and cannot be voted back into office. Most judges select a team of judges to assist them, and no one from these teams can be brought into office, regardless of whom they vote for. The contest starts with the Chapter rounds, where individuals within a chapter compete and the chapterhead is chosen. Afterwards, the 2 top performers from each chapter travel to the capital of the region, where whomever is ranked best in the region is allowed to choose the regional. After this event, the 3 top performers from each region travel to the province's capital, competing to decide who will be the next Provincial. After the provincials have been decided, the 4 top performers from each province travel to the capital, where they compete to see who will be the Guild Leader. Those who score highest within an Order, typically on the level of provincial, can choose the Order Leader. If it is a tie, a final contest ensues, which is often the case for those Orders that do not win Guild Leader that year. These contests are quite popular, and those businesses not related to providing food, drink, or lodging at them often give people the week off, so they may travel and see the best performers in Torodan in acts of music, drama, art, and more.

The Bard's Guild gets along very well with the Adventurer's Guild, and many members of the Bard's Guild apply for honorarium membership in the Adventurer's Guild as well. The Innkeeper's Guild relies on the Bard's Guild for entertainment, and recently shanty men, those who sing work songs at sea, have started to join the Bard's Guild, building relations between it and the Sailor's Guild. Other Guilds do not get along especially well or poorly with the Bard's Guild, although a good number of charmers have ensured that the Bard's Guild will keep good relations with all of Torodan for years to come.

The Order of the Voice

Symbol: Red lips on a gold field
Current Order Leader: Harlin Cranbear
Requirements to Join: Must pass a review of skill
Requirements of Membership: 1 gold/year membership fee

Dedicated to the perfection of the art of song, the Order of the Voice is one of several orders of the Bard's Guild that requires that its potential members pass a review of skill before joining. Before 42 years ago, there were no requirements for joining the Order of the Voice other than paying the membership fee. This lead to disaster as a group of bandits joined the Bard's Guild. Under the auspice of being members of the Order of the Voice, the men were able to travel from town to town, committing larceny on a scale that has rarely been duplicated. Eventually, this group was caught, but it turned out that not one of the members could even perform; they were simply using the Order to give their travels the air of legitimacy. Since then, the Bard's Guild has begun more extensive background checks on its members, and the Order of the Voice has required a test of skill of all of its members, a practice that has extended to many of the other Orders within the Guild.

The Order of the Stage

Symbol: A brown base stage on a gold-dexter red field
Current Order Leader: Olga Mintaros
Requirements to Join: None
Requirements of Membership: Must be in at least 3 plays/year or be involved with at least 9 months of productions/year

Unlike the other Orders of the Bard's Guild, the Order of the Stage does not require a test of skill of its members, but rather has its members prove their skill by being continuously involved with plays produced by the Guild, more in the style of the trade guilds than those of the Bards. The reasoning behind this difference is that it is difficult to tell if someone's style of acting is truly bad, or if he is simply an expert of another style. A method actor who specializes in drama might not do well in a comedic review, and an actor of comedies might do poorly in a review of drama. So instead, the Order of the Stage approves plays submitted by writers, and actors in this Order must join up with at least 3 plays/year, or be involved with more long-term productions, as long as they are employed for up to 9 months total. Unfortunately, the lack of review process makes some people think of the problem with bandits that the Order of the Voice had decades ago, and many therefore view actors as untrustworthy, an image the Order of the Stage has done little against as the years have gone by.

The Order of the Lute

Symbol: A gold lute on a red field
Current Order Leader: Isingard Calidus
Requirements to Join: Must pass a review of skill
Requirements of Membership: 1 gold/year membership fee

Having been its own Order since the founding of the Bard's Guild, the Order of the Lute is dedicated to the study of musical instruments in Torodan. With the splitting of the Orchestral Order, many within the Order of the Lute have begun discussing merging with the Order of the Voice, and forming a new Order more concentrated on the study of musical performance in general, as many members of the Order of the Voice play instruments and many members of the Order of the Lute sing. Unfortunately, long-standing ties to various chapters keep these Orders separate, but talks of their merger grow louder with each passing year, and it is probably only a matter of time until it happens officially.

The Orchestral Order

Symbol: A black quarter note on a gold field with red trim
Current Order Leader: Zalina Herani
Requirements to Join: Must pass a review of skill
Requirements of Membership: Must maintain employ with an orchestra at least 9 months out of the year

Having broken off from the Order of the Lute 35 years ago, the Orchestral Order has quickly gained a very dignified reputation in Torodan. Orchestras, large bands of musicians who play pieces on a grander scale than that of single players, keep a much more dignified image than the average bard of Torodan, and few focus greatly on the mystical aspect of music, viewing it more rigidly, with each person as one part of a larger performance, not as individual performers working their craft. Since breaking off, more and more stages, originally for the Order of the Stage, have been retrofitted to incorporate the needs of the Orchestral Order as well, the Order also maintaining a few Opera Houses where the best performers come to play the finest concerts in all of Torodan, and perhaps in most of the rest of the world as well.

The Order of the Brush

Symbol: A black brush on a gold field with a red streak
Current Order Leader: Thelma Tarins
Requirements to Join: Must prepare a gallery showing for the Order’s review
Requirements of Membership: 1 gold/year membership fee

An Order apart from all of its sister Orders, the Order of the Brush focuses not on the performing arts, but on the creation of works of art. Originally three Orders, the Order of the Brush, the Order of Charcoal, and the Order of Clay, the Orders merged as artists started moving more freely between mediums in Torodan, art being a much less rigid thing than it once was in Torodan. Currently, the trend in the Order of the Brush is toward realism, with members trying to form the most realistic pictures they can. Many artists within the Order of the Brush travel, some to the far corners of the world, seeking sights to base their art around that are far from ordinary. Many travel to our own forests, seeking the tales of the fairy folk, although I should warn that while good intentioned, many in the Order of the Brush do not have experience in nature, and should be watched after while in our forests.