"This is very simple. We don't want your lives, your coin or that junk you call technology. We want your world. We want the riches you didn't even realise you had, and that you definitely don't deserve. Leave while you have the chance. Or don't. Either way, we're coming to claim what's ours."
- —Ultimatum delivered by the Cthonian "Gauntlet" Consortium
A Kin miner and his robotic COG assistant hard at work in service to the Trans-Hyperian Alliance's Cthonian Mining Guilds.
The Guilds are the primary economic organisations of the civilian society of the Leagues of Votann, similar in function to Imperial corporations. Employment-based civilian organisations known as Guilds spread through Kin society like veins of ore through bedrock. They are uniting bodies made up of all those Kin who perform a particular occupational role or provide a particular service within a region of Kin space. Whether a Kin makes a living by salvaging broken voidcraft or concocting nutritious liquid rations, there's a Guild for them -- setting standards, providing accreditation, and demanding tithes. Guild membership is always voluntary -- but there's no love lost between Guildkin and freelancers, who regard each other as disreputable and hidebound, respectively.
Every Guild is ruled over by its Guildmasters, who set the standards for Guild accreditation, the expected levels and quality of workmanship and the tithes their members levy. The most prominent Guildmasters also attend their Kindred's governing Hearthspake to give voices to the civilian Kin in their Guilds.
In theory, the Guilds exist apart from any Kindred affiliations. They are meant to be a means by which fair competition is maintained across Kin space without Kindred political loyalties carrying undue weight. In practise, smaller Guilds rarely extend their influence beyond a single hold or Kindred. Moreover, Guild affiliation is a voluntary step that not all Kin take; Guild members look askance at those without a Guild membership who are known as "freelancers," while freelancers in turn despair at those they see as hidebound Guildsmen. Where the larger Guilds do reach across multiple Kindreds, there is no guarantee another enterprising group of Kin won't decide to set up a rival Guild.
Competition can become heated between such bodies. Other starfaring races have been caught in the crossfire as competing Guilds sponsor Oathband expeditions into star systems rich in resources. Anyone who happens to already inhabit these hotly-contested worlds are out of luck -- existing civilisations and ecosystems are a much lower priority than beating rivals to the punch.
Despite their fractious natures, the Guilds are invaluable to Kin society. They smooth trade, commerce and transit between Kindreds. They provide organisational administration and support throughout the Leagues. From star-mining and gravitic fracking to smoothly-functioning military supply chains, voidcraft repair, the provision and preparation of food and drink, the construction of homes and holds and every other aspect of Kin manufacture and distribution, it all functions better thanks to the Guilds' competition and high standards.
Notable Kin Guilds[]
- Cloners' Guilds - The Cloners' Guilds are Kin Guilds that oversee the birth of new Kin in their hold's crucibles. They often encourage the inclusion of particularly useful cloneskeins in the genetic makeup of newborn Kin while they are gestating.
- Cthonian Mining Guilds - The Cthonian Mining Guilds are particularly powerful in the Leagues of Votann. They carry out most of the Kin's mining and resource extraction activities, embodying the belligerence and acquisitiveness of their people. Fearless in the cause of locating, securing and harvesting resources for their race, the Cthonians think nothing of braving environments so extreme that even other Kin would baulk at their hazards.
- Yngvâry Combined Logistics - Yngvâry Combined Logistics is a Guild known to be affiliated with the Greater Thurian League.
- Starstrider Mercantile Confederation - The Starstrider Mercantile Confederation is a mercantile Guild that operates within the Greater Thurian League.
- Cthonian Guild of Kâdokh - The Cthonian Guild of Kâdokh is a Cthonian Mining Guild in service to the Greater Thurian League.
Sources[]
- Codex: Leagues of Votann (9th Edition), pp. 11, 19, 28
- Warhammer Community - Lore of the Leagues – Who Are the Guilds?