As a new delver, two possibilies exist. The first is that you have been trapped in a not quite detrimental contract between yourself and a guild, whether major or minor. While getting out of these contracts is difficult and potentially important, it is also a great risk, as the guild in question may choose to simply blacklist you for refusing to work according to their requirements. The second, much more likely, possiblity is that you are a freelancer with no connections and less money. You are almost certainly living delve to delve, barely able to rent a room, if you even can rent a room consistently.

Obviously, neither of these possibilities is desirable.

But how to move beyond these options? The answer is simple- you need to form a beneficial contract between yourself and a guild. Before we can get into how to form a beneficial contract, however, we need to start with square one- which guild is right for you?

There are numerous factors which will make this decision difficult to summarize in a single chapter, but in short, you need to balance the price they are willing to pay for materials to which you have easy access, the protections they offer you, and the influence they can wield. A contract with one of the major guilds is worth less than nothing if they have no interest in what you can provide them, afterall. In order to better make this decision, this chapter will be devoted to an overview of the major guilds, and a few general guides to minor guilds.

First, the major guilds- plus the church, as an honourable mention. While the definition of major guilds will vary based on where you are and which guild you're asking, in general, any guild capable of affecting international or national politics and laws is considered major, while the remainder are considered minor. As only major guilds have significant presnse in nearly every region, only major guilds will be given specific mention.

The Church

Starting with the guild which is not a guild, the church behaves in very similar manner to most guilds, with two major differences- number one, they do not form contracts as a true guild would, instead collecting tithes from their many parishes, and only exerting true influence through the religious teachings offered to various nobles, and the direct power of their holy priests and priestesses, capable of powerful healing and protection magic, granted to them by god. Unfortunately, no outsider mage has ever been allowed to study their secret rites and rituals, and so only those chosen and raised by the church can weild this magic. If your party is able to find and host one of these powerful spellcasters, you can consider yourselves well and truly blessed, but there is little you can do to allign yourselves with the church short of that rare happenstance.

The Mage's Guild

Typically locally given a specialized name, it is only a seasoned traveler who realizes the many observatories, towers, and acadmies of mages and wizards actually share an emblem and hierarchy, and only through this knowledge that one can truly come to understand the influence the mage's guild wields. Certainly, the mage's guild has not yet succeeded in seeing to it that all magic must be sanctioned through their halls, but despite this, it is rare to find such an unaffiliated mage, and rarer still to find one who is willing to take on a student. The mage's guild, then, like the church, is not so much an organization you choose to associate with for contractual benefits, but one you associate with because you born to it, or, in many cases, because a passing mage saw potential in you as a child, and paid your family for the right to take you in as an apprentice.

Despite this similarity to the church, however, the mage's guild is worth looking to for backing- but not from the guild itself. Instead, look to the local leadership, and find out what they need. They will certainly have some desire, and, if you are able to fulfil it, you will find high ranking mages to have deep pockets indeed. The dungeons which are most likely to be relevent for these contracts include magic dungeons, plant dungeons, fire dungeons, earth dungeons, aquatic dungeons, and electric dungeons, although any dungeon with more than five floors will usually have atleast something of use, though mechanical dungeons are often the exception to this rule.

The Merchant's Guild

Also known by current members by its formal name, "Patrician's Rationally Organized Federation of International Traders", the merchant's guild serves to transport valuable materials from place to place, and make a comfortable profit in the exchange. Depending on your party's preferences, a contract with the merchant's guild will vascilate wildly between the most and least profitable contract available, as those contracted to the merchant's guild will always have access to a buyer, albeit at lower prices than if you found one the normal way, and more crucially, will always have the opportunity to profit off moving from city to city, as their caravans are always willing to hire experienced, powerful guards. Typically, you need to have reached atleast tenth level to contract with the merchant's guild, but that's hardly higher than most alternatives, and most parties are very well served by atleast one member forming a loose, non-binding contract with the merchant guild, a process which the guild itself refers to as verrification, as they require the contracter to complete various tasks to prove their capability prior to the contract's finalization.

The merchant's guild will purchase almost any goods you aquire, and provides a higher price to those within their ranks, but since they intend to sell those goods again themselves, you will always receive a better price from someone who intends to use it themselves. As such, the merchant's guild is not a viable alternative to a long term contract with a local guild, high ranking mage, or noble, if you intend to spend a significant period of time in and around a specific dungeon.

The Artisan's Guild

The only true competition to the merchant guild's dominance is the artisans guild. While not quite as powerful as the merchant guild, they are often able to subvert their power, as the merchant's guild ultimately relies on the artisan's guild to make much of their profit. The two guilds exist in a constant state of quiet, hidden economic and occassionally violent warfare, as each attempts to get the better of their mutually beneficial arrangement. Artisan guild contracts share elements of the merchant's guild and the mage's guild, providing both long term contracts to prove general capability to a variety of potential contacts, and individual contracts with specific powerful or influential artisans with specific needs.

Artisan guild contacts most frequently require materials from mechanical dungeons, rock dungeons, beast dungeons, stealth dungeons, plant dungeons, and bird dungeons. While artisan guild contracts are rarely as directly lucrative as mage guild contracts, and lack the reliability of merchant guild contracts, they also uniquely provide the opportunity to receive entry into the guild, should you show yourself capable of passing their tests, and those with artistic or mechanical skill should consider this path, as artisan guild members may purchase goods from one another without paying the guild's taxes.

With the major guilds covered, it's time to discuss the archetypes of local guilds you may encounter. These vary wildly, and so only the most basic information will be given, and you should always personally investigate before entering a contract with any minor guild.

Scout Guilds

These guilds pop up and disappear regularly, being near universally recognized as thieves guilds who have attempted to become legitimate. While they often struggle to find contracts with the other guilds, they just as often form close bonds with local nobles, and can become a key element of many armies. Despite this, their most valuable aspect to a delver isn't forming contracts- they have little personal use for any dungeon based goods- but access to their markets and training. Scout guilds are often led by a small, well respected core of incredibly skilled thieves and blackguards, who know more about moving undetected, picking locks, and disarming alarms and traps than most delvers will ever have opportunity to learn, and they're more than willing to teach you, for a price. In addition, they often host incredibly lucrative black markets, which can provide opportunity to aquire rare and valuable goods with questionable histories. For this reason, they often make themselves enemies of the merchant's guild, who lose money when purchases are made through the scout's guild. Rarely outlasting their founders, scout guilds also tend to fall into disaray if local law enforcers decide to look into them, as the more wary members scatter to the wind.

Thieve's Guilds

See scout guilds, but with the addition of membership being inherently illegal. This will kill your ability to take contracts with the merchant's guild, local nobles, and, in some cases, the mercenary guild. Local artisans often have strong connections to thieve's guilds, however, and mages are above such petty concerns. While risky, all the benefits of a scout's guild apply here, and careful consideration should be taken before joining- if you can even find them, and pass their intiations. While you might be tempted to betray them for bounties offered by their enemies, this is rarely worth the cost. Many young delvers have been found with their tongues cut out for exactly this crime.

Mercenary Guilds

Mercenary guilds take many forms, but most typically are formed from bands of powerful fighters, knights, and, rarely, paladins. These last guilds are also known as Holy Orders by the church, but the only functional difference is that they owe allegience to the church and hold strong moral and legalistic standards towards their members. While they don't provide contracts, any trained combatant can join and gain a guaranteed income, in exchange for being available for deployment if the guild itself is hired by a noble or king for warfare. Nearly every town will have some form of mercenary guild, and, in some cases, multiple competing guilds. Be warned- if there is more than one mercenary guild, they will typically have strong rivalries, and joining one means picking a side in their internecine conflicts.

Noblity

While nobles are part of no guild, they are also a common source of contracts. Nobles have variable desires, and fulfilling them is often the most profitable path for a delver with the skill to back up the boasts necessary to meet with a local noble in the first place, but they may ask you to travel half way across the world to fulfil a single desire. Almost no trends in what they want exist, but they will often ask for things which are rare, dangerous to obtain, and generally useless. Veteren delvers who have not made a contract with a local noble are shooting themselves in the foot.

Lawkeepers

Going by a different name in nearly every city, the local heads of law enforcement will always have work for a delver willing to work outside a dungeon, tracking down a bounty or backing them up on a raid. The most profitable bounties are on escaped convicts who have ratted out their colleagues, as by killing them and turning in their head, you can collect from both the legal officials and the local thieves guild. Often in conflict with scout guilds, they are ultimately controlled by nobility, and so are powerless once the scouts have brought the nobles on side via expensive gifts and exclusive access to their most private and coveted of auctions.

Farmer's Guilds

A strange case, many farmer's guilds will have interest in materials retrieved from undead dungeons, as the high mana density in the bones makes for ideal fertilizer. In addition, they will pay well for seeds from plant dungeons, in order to enable them to cultivate unique crops. They also frequently put contracts on monsters which settle too closely to the city, and can serve as an important source of income for novice delvers, but eventually even the most loyal of delvers will have to get out of any binding contracts with the farmer's guild.

-Gerald Ironhide, Dungeons for Delvers, A Novice Adventurer's Guide