Guilds

Overview

While a Hand’s magical powers come from their Rings, all that ambient magic leads to most Hands developing the capacity for special skills on their own. These abilities are taught by Guilds and only Guilds. Some Guilds are highly organized and regimented, while others barely seem aware they’re an organization. All are useful, however, and tend to focus on different types of Anomalies.

Joining a Guild

This can be as simple as saying you’ll join or require some sort of test.
ALL STARTING HANDS ARE FULL MEMBERS OF THEIR CURRENT GUILD IN GOOD STANDING.

Leaving a Guild

Tell them you’re joining a different Guild. It really is that easy.

You can only change Guilds at LEVEL UP and most will require an additional test or chat with your previous Guild to make sure you left instead of getting kicked out. There’s no shame in trying out more than one Guild during your tenure as a Hand, and it takes some adventurers years to figure out where they want to belong.

Once the new Guild accepts you, you gain all powers that you would have developed normally. You lose access to the previous Guild’s powers.

So these are classes, right?

Guilds are the closest thing RINGS has to character classes, but each Guild contains a broad range of personality types and specializations. There are combat-focused Crafters and academic Hoppers. How you decide to use your abilities determines what you are.

Reality philosophy

Organizations either develop goals or have ones thrust upon them through their actions (the point of a system is what it does), and the perspective required to join a specific Guild often leads to solving reality-based problems along a specific philosophical bent. While a player doesn’t necessarily have to agree with their Guild when it comes to how Anomalies should be approached, most members of that Guild will. You may face social pressure or find it more difficult to procure resources and assistance should you not toe the party line.

NONE OF THESE PERSPECTIVES ARE EVIL OR INCORRECT and all of them have their place. You cannot UNIFY with a Road of Light or GROW a Canker if you want reality to survive. It is up to the team to decide how they want to solve particular Anomalies and your Guilds have no problem with what the team chooses as long as it can be argued is the appropriate solution.

So what does this do?

When your team resolves an Anomaly (or approaches resolving one), you may collectively decide which philosophy your solution falls under. Your actions have an impact on the environment around you and while this impact may be small in specific instances, they accrue over time. Your GM will note what philosophies your team tends to follow when you have a choice which can lead to larger changes in the Worlds you visit. No player “wins” if their philosophy is followed more often. Like mentioned above, there is no scenario where one specific philosophy is always correct.

Example

The BAND OF IRON, a team focused on diplomacy and outreach missions, believes that the Collapse, while catastrophic, is an opportunity to change things for the better. When possible, they choose to encourage benign Anomalies, such as Legends and Resonance, in order to EVOLVE current reality into stronger and more interesting forms.