Colors: Orange and Brown
Current Guild Leader: Lyonna Fields, Order of the Bar
Requirements to Join: You must own or work at an establishment that provides food or lodging to its members.
Requirements of Membership: Maintain standards of good health and prices to all people, businesses under the guild must also give 5% of their profit in fees.
Majority Composition: Bartenders, Tavernkeeps, Restaurant Owners, Cooks, Wait staff
Minority Composition: Bards, ex-adventurers
On the Guild Council?: No

Individual bars and taverns make up the majority of the membership of this guild, with the chapterhouses consisting of combination bar/tavern/restaurants, often of large size and good prices. The Innkeeper’s Guild has very high standards when it comes to quality. While this doesn’t mean that there are no dingy taverns or inns with rats, it does mean that such places are forced to offer a lower price, and cannot ‘price gouge’ in areas where there isn’t much business. In an average inn, by their standards, there should be no disease, beds should be available, and an opportunity for food/drink either in the inn itself or close by during the daylight hours. In such an establishment, sleeping in the common room requires a payment of 1 silver, while sleep in a room averages 2 silver a night, or 1 gold for a week. Good rooms can be higher. An average drink costs 1 copper, a pitcher being 3, and an average meal with drink likewise costs 3 copper.

Members of the Innkeeper’s Guild tend to be better informed than most people, and so about 100 years ago the standard for being in power changed from how many customers were had to a system of voting based on who they thought ran the best business. Meetings of the Innkeeper’s Guild happen once a month, and tend to be Regional events from which each establishment sends a representative. Higher-levels of voting still happen on the regional level, with all votes going up to the main offices for counting. Voting occurs once every five years, with all decisions that affect the guild being made by the executive order of the person in charge of that area of decision-making.

The Innkeeper’s Guild has an on-again, off-again time when it comes to staying on the Guild Council, the records of the humans contradicting our own in a few places I found on this matter. I suspect that my predecessor may have gotten his records through an Innkeeper, and perhaps they were not as accurate as they could have been. On another note, the Innkeeper’s Guild seems to be on neither good nor bad relations with most members, although members of the Adventurer’s Guild and Merchant’s Guild are often thankful for places to go and rest along trails and in foreign cities.

The Order of the Bar

Symbol: A brown mug on an orange field
Current Order Leader: Olinthar Vinson, Head Bartender at The Golden Heart
Requirements to Join: Must work at or own an establishment that serves alcohol
Requirements of Membership: Must give 5% of all profits/tips to the Order of the Bar

Every bar, tavern, brewery, and winery in Torodan is under the control of the Order of the Bar. Originally two separate Orders, the Order of the Tankard (a part of the Farmer’s Guild) and the Order of the Bar, the two merged 42 years ago, and now operate as one and the same. While merchants may sell alcohol as private vendors, private breweries not sanctioned by the Order of the Bar are not allowed to sell their wares, although they may give it away for free. All establishments that serve alcohol in Torodan are a part of the Order of the Bar, with the exception of Trade Houses. Trade Houses operate under the same stipulation as merchants, a fact that was hotly contested prior to the merging of the Order of the Tankard and the Order of the Bar. As the Order of the Bar now makes a profit on the alcohol by selling it to the Trade Houses, everyone is satisfied with the situation. The Order Leader and ex-provincial, Olinthar Vinson, is also the head bartender at the “Golden Heart,” a successful restaurant inside the small town of Palgale. Thanks to this restaurant and its unique and flavorful dishes, sold at fair prices, the town has become more than another stop on the trip for some groups, and has become a common meeting-place for the rich and elite of Torodan. The fact that the three owners and of the restaurant have all been elected to the position of Order Head has done nothing to stifle its busy, hectic schedule, and on some days the three owners sometimes serve customers as they did before their election.

The Order of the Bed

Symbol: A brown bed on an orange field
Current Order Leader: Fiona Bemmer, Owner of the Lazy Wanderer
Requirements to Join: Must work at or own an establishment that provides lodging
Requirements of Membership: Must keep up standards of maintenance

Inns and places of rest all bear the symbol of the Order of the Bed, which controls the non-residential houses of slumber across all of Torodan. Working with the Merchant’s Guild and the Forester’s Guild, the Order of the Bed even works to establish small areas where a person may encamp with little fear of beasts or bandits, or at very least without worrying about mudslides and forest fires, alongside trails where too few travel to make the trip worthwhile. The Order of the Bed also keeps charge of the inns of Torodan, making sure that they meet quality standards of cleanliness and service. If a business does not meet these standards, the Order will sometimes shut them down, but more often, the Order will force the establishment to lower their prices to something that will show their value to the public. These inspections are also opportunities for those truly outstanding inns to get a chance to raise their prices beyond the standard value, with a few establishments that do very well getting no restrictions whatsoever on what they are allowed to charge for a room. These standards of quality and pricing also apply to the hostels of Torodan, the residents that maintain them are required by law to get a license from the Order of the Bed and to pass testing at least once per year, with 5% of their profits going to the Innkeeper’s Guild. While looking at the policies of the order, I noticed that licensed establishments under the control of members of the Order of the Bed do not pay anything to the Order itself. The Order stays in business through rather large stipends from the Merchant’s Guild, Adventurer’s Guild, Sailor’s Guild, and from the main body of the Innkeeper’s Guild, all of whom have an interest in ensuring that the inns are well inspected and priced fairly.

The Order of the Kitchen

Symbol: A grey meat cleaver on a brown-dexter orange field
Current Order Leader: Paula Vinson, Head Chef of the Golden Heart
Requirements to Join: Must work as a cook
Requirements of Membership: Must keep up standards of maintenance

The Order of the Kitchen controls few establishments, but its members, the cooks and chefs of Torodan, work in many establishments. Guildhalls sometimes employ their members as part or full time workers, the Miner’s Guild, Builder’s Guild, Porter’s Guild, and sometimes the Smith’s Guild hire them to provide food service on the job, and the Sailor’s Guild would not be able to make long trips at sea without them. The Order of the Kitchen has also opened several private academies where they teach chefs the art of cooking, with a style somewhat between the colleges of the Mage’s Guild and the artistic universities of the Bard’s Guild. Their Order Leader, Paula Vinson, works at the Golden Heart with her two brothers, and has been regarded as the finest chef in all of Torodan, and been offered several jobs at several different schools, although she currently has rejected these positions in favor of working as Order Head and head chef at the Golden Heart.

The Order of the Plate

Symbol: A silver plate on a brown-dexter orange field
Current Order Leader: Garin Vinson, Owner of the Golden Heart
Requirements to Join: Must work at or own an establishment that provides food service
Requirements of Membership: Must give 5% of all profits/tips to the Order

The Order of the Plate is perhaps the only Order in the Innkeeper’s Guild that is limited mostly to major cities. While the Order of the Kitchen has cooks and chefs everywhere, and inns, taverns and hostels dot the landscape of Torodan, restaurants, places where food is the main concern rather than ale and lodging, have only come up in recent years. The main reason for their appearance is a result of the cooking academies preparing chefs for more advanced work than one typically does at a tavern or cafeteria. The Order of the Plate has responded well, however, and now owns more restaurants than the Order of the Kitchen, a situation that suits both Orders just fine by all appearances. Originally created as an Order for the wait staff at restaurants, the Order of the Plate now controls many of them, such as the Golden Heart, owned by Garin Vinson, Order Leader and eldest son in his family.