Colors: Brown and Black
Current Guild Leader: Felicia Alincor, Order of the Wagon
Requirements to Join: Must join a specific Order
Requirements of Membership: Must take at least 12 assignments per year
Majority Composition: Travelers, Odd-Job Takers, Guards
Minority Composition: Drunks, Lazy Workers
On the Guild Council?: No

Of all of the guilds of Torodan, the Porter’s Guild is the most disjoined. While the Guild was originally simply for those who moved goods from one place to another, the Porter’s Guild has evolved, to include bouncers, guardsmen, transporters of people, transporters of goods, loaders and unloaders of goods, and even those who take general odd jobs. The Porter’s Guild is politically disjoined, with few members ever showing up for the votes that happen on a regular basis, and only a 60% turnout for the major votes for the yearly votes for the leaders of the organization. This is partially due to the large number of members who cannot stay in one place long enough to learn the local issues, and partially due to the fact that many of the members do not care enough about the state of the guild to vote unless they feel that they specifically are being mistreated. The Porter’s Guild has a policy that the worker gets 80% of the wage from the organization that hires them, the guild taking 15% and the order they are a part of taking 5%, with 50% of the guild profit going to the local organization, 25% going to the regional level, and 20% going to the provincial level. While less than 1% of the profit of any single worker makes it to the top levels, large numbers and regular assignments lead to the guild never being short on cash.

The main requirement for membership in the Guild is to take at least 12 assignments per year. While assignments are supposed to average 2-3 weeks, many members specialize in finding and taking “official,” assignments that last all of 2-3 days, sometimes taking on more than one official assignment of this nature at a time. While this is more prevalent in some Orders than in others, the Porter’s Guild has developed a reputation of being filled with lazy, untrustworthy lay-a-bouts who disdain any and all real work.

Despite its reputation, the Porter’s Guild actually has good relations with most of the other guilds. The Merchant’s Guild and Sailor’s Guild work regularly with the shipping aspects of the Porter’s Guild, and the higher-class establishments of the Innkeeper’s Guild rely on the Porters for guards, as do many other organizations that need long-term basic security but do not have either military or church ties.

The Order of the Gate

Symbol: A black gate on a brown field
Current Order Leader: Gerald Helsir, Guildmaster’s Advisor on Defense
Requirements to Join: Must gain employment as a guard
Requirements of Membership: 10 out of 12 assignments taken must be as a guard

The Order of the Gate consists of most of the non-military and adventuring guardsmen of Torodan. Wall guards, bouncers, and even a few deputy sheriffs and constables come from the Order of the Gate, which provides workers on varying levels of security ability. For a bouncer with basic abilities, the order typically hires for about 6 copper/hour, the worker earning 4 copper/hour, with a typical minimum of 5 hours of work/day, 4 days/week. For a sophisticated guard, with high skill and good experience, the Order might charge as much as 1-3 silver/hour, with a few of the better guards in the Order holding positions where they earn 4 silver/hour, the charge being 6 silver/hour. For short term assignments, it is probably better advised to work with the Adventurer’s Guild than the Order of the Gate, but for long-term assignments where many people are necessary to complete the job, their prices are actually quite reasonable. The Order of the Gate charges its patrons time and a half normal pay for overtime work, with the worker gaining 80% of this increase as usual. Those within the Order of the Gate sign up on a month-by-month basis, each month counting as a separate assignment. If a guard for the Order of the Gate works at a single location for more than 6 months, the location counts as 2 assignments for the purposes of fulfilling the Order’s assignment restrictions for all future months, leading some Regionals and Chapterheads to ensure that members are rotated from assignment to assignment when more work is coming in than the local Chapters have guards for.

The Order of the Ship

Symbol: A brown ship on a black field
Current Order Leader: Selene Carter
Requirements to Join: Must gain employment in the loading and unloading of ships
Requirements of Membership: 9 out of 12 assignments taken must be unloading or loading ships

The Order of the Ship is the portion of the Porter’s Guild that specializes in the loading and unloading of ships, typically bringing goods from the Sailor’s Guild to the Merchant’s Guild and vice versa. For the right price, some members of this Order will forget about jobs they have taken, although because of the need to officially register assignments, the fee is pretty high. Thanks to the many ships that need items removed and the large crews hired to move the items efficiently and affectively, the Order of the Ship is able to maintain a substantial profit without charging exorbitant prices. The average price for a single worker is about 5 silver for a day of labor, with a team of 12 costing 4 gold for a day of their labor. Huge teams, such as an entire chapter in a large port city, may include up to 120 people and can cost over 60 gold, as the Order has to suspend other projects to get a single job done. In extremely profitable merchant ventures, this is sometimes the case, but one of their teams of 12 can usually unload a full ship of goods in a single day, often unloading several hundred or thousand gold worth of goods and moving them to merchant caravans and shops, a profitable venture for merchants bringing goods in overseas.

The Order of the Carriage

Symbol: A black carriage on a brown field
Current Order Leader: Karl Cabers
Requirements to Join: Must receive training in the proper manning of a carriage
Requirements of Membership: 11 out of 12 assignments taken must be as the operator of a carriage

For several centuries, the Order of the Carriage was a part of the Servant’s Guild. As profits increased, however, the Order of the Carriage started trying to open up its business on other fronts, allowing it to provide service coaches to the people of Torodan. The Servant’s Guild resisted the change, having been against the idea of freelance servants, which it saw this as a move toward, and the Order of the Carriage moved to the Porter’s Guild in an attempt to work on both fronts. Many members of this Order are still employed among the staff of the more wealthy houses of the Order and Guild Leaders of Torodan, and the Order of the Carriage still bears much of the dignity that it held in the Servant’s Guild. While the price of a professional, permanent carriage varies depending on the driver and the carriage, many drivers will transport people around the larger cities for one silver piece per trip. The prices are based on place-to-place, not how many people are in the carriage, although an average carriage cannot seat more than six, or more than four comfortably. Still, this service has proven useful in many of the larger cities, allowing people to travel from place to place without walking, and giving foreign visitors such as myself a way to navigate in unfamiliar cities.

The Order of the Wagon

Symbol: A brown wagon on a black field
Current Order Leader: Carrie Tolidas
Requirements to Join: Must gain employment in transporting goods
Requirements of Membership: 7 out of 12 assignments taken must be in transporting goods

An off-shoot of the Order of the Ship, the Order of the Cart was originally proposed and funded by the Merchant’s Guild, who asked the Porter’s Guild to give its members tasks in this area. The Order of the Cart transports goods on-land, driving carts and shipping goods from town to town. While normally the Order of the Travel handles what goods are to be purchased and actually does the buying and selling of the goods, since its creation the Order of the Cart actually moves the goods, and many merchants have found their jobs five times as easy in hiring a few members of the Order on a more-or-less permanent basis. Unlike the Order of the Ship or the Order of the Gate, there are no specific pricing regulations within the Order, although members are required to report what they earn and send the required 20% back to the home base.

The Order of the Hand

Symbol: A brown hand on a black field
Current Order Leader: Dennis Throns
Requirements to Join: None
Requirements of Membership: No special requirements

The Order of the Hand is one of the few guilds in Torodan with no special requirements to join it, and as long as members are able to get one dozen various employers to sign off that a member took a job with the Order, membership is still considered valid. Known to house the occasional vagabond or thief among their ranks, the Order of the Hand denies these criticisms, saying that they provide a service that is much needed for the world, as its members engage in various odd jobs for people of other Orders. From roof-thatchers and fence builders to layabouts and drunks, the Order of the Hand contains hard working but relatively unskilled workers as well as vagabonds, thieves, and the just lazy. The scapegoat for many who will be “provided for” as long as they maintain work, the Order of the Hand is also useful for those who wish to obtain a service that they cannot find amidst the other local guildhouses of the area.