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View Full Version : Seeking information: Adventuring as a normal job.



Menelik
2018-12-19, 02:36 PM
Hello...

I am interested in finding D&D (any edition) settings and modules in which adventuring is considered a legitimate career path. Sorta like the adventuring guilds that seem to exist in every fantasy anime or manga...

To be more concrete, I'm interested in stuff like:

-The adventurers live in a city in or close to a territory infested with all kinds of dangerous monsters. The adventurers' job is to go out and hunt said monsters for their body parts or even to capture them, often on demand...

-The adventurers live a settlement built close to a mega-dungeon, and regularly dungeon delve in order to reduce the number of monsters, seek treasure and maybe clear the dungeon to exploit minerals or to study ruins...etc. The dungeon is so big that dungeon delving can be considered a stable job, and it doesn't look like it will be cleared soon...

-There is an Adventurers' Guild that manages quests and rewards. Clients request the help of adventurers in exchange for a reward. The adventurers register, and receive quests from the guild.

This kind of stuff...

So I thought of asking the sages around here, who surely know if anything similar does exist...

Thank you very much in advance.

Kami2awa
2018-12-19, 03:29 PM
- RPG characters are the third- or later-born heirs of aristocratic families. They are less on a career path and more amusing themselves, but are on a path to great wealth and fame (maintaining the living standard they are accustomed to) for those who aren't going to inherit the estate.

This would explain the weird economy of D&D - PCs are just naturally richer than everyone else.

Menelik
2018-12-19, 04:20 PM
Actually, I was seeking information about written modules or settings based on the premise I wrote: Adventurers being people that choose a career as such rather than people who gets entangled in weird stuff, and adventuring being a stable, steady job (at least at the beginning).

BWR
2018-12-19, 04:22 PM
Certain countries in Mystara recognize adventuring as a legal (and taxable) profession.
The kingdom of Ierendi, takes this to an almost extreme level, with guilds, adventure safari parks (of varying levels of deadliness), and their heads of state are chosen by combat tournament.
Get a hold of "THe Kingdom of Ierendi" gazetteer for more details.

Menelik
2018-12-19, 04:28 PM
Certain countries in Mystara recognize adventuring as a legal (and taxable) profession.
The kingdom of Ierendi, takes this to an almost extreme level, with guilds, adventure safari parks (of varying levels of deadliness), and their heads of state are chosen by combat tournament.
Get a hold of "THe Kingdom of Ierendi" gazetteer for more details.

Thank you, that sounds interesting!

Anonymouswizard
2018-12-19, 04:56 PM
I believe there have been a couple of settings focused on one location with enough dangerous ruins that raiding them is considered worthwhile. Can't remember any off the top of my head.

More generally, any setting with a frontier will likely have exploring said frontier to find out how to exploit it as a legitimate career option (like how Traveller has it's Scout service, while that might be sci-fi it's the purest example I can think of).

Similarly, any setting with monster-infested historical locations will see the occasional historian hiring bodyguards, and a lot of other adventuring work is fairly close to mercenary work.

Altair_the_Vexed
2018-12-19, 05:46 PM
The Pathfinder Society in -ahem - Pathfinder: they kind of fit the bill.

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Pathfinder_Society

geppetto
2018-12-19, 11:06 PM
If i remember correctly 3rd edition forgotten realms had the kingdom of Cormyr where adventurers were required to register with the government.

I think many places with official registries of mercenaries would probably consider adventurers to be mercenaries as well.

AMFV
2018-12-19, 11:43 PM
I've actually given serious thought to campaign setting with "Union Adventurers" who buy the rights to investigate dungeons in return for some portion of the proceeds going to the actual owners of the land. After all in a world where there are large dungeons full of wealth and magical items, there's likely to be professionals who are retrieving them. My desire to do this definitely increased when I found myself in a union.

Terrorvein
2018-12-20, 05:58 AM
Not an official setting, but my own campaign world works under this assumption. (3.5 for those who care)

Adventurers are considered something between mercenaries and privateers.

They are required to pay 10% of their loot as taxes (I made it clear to my players that I'd be increasing the loot they'd get by about this amount because it's mostly a flavor thing), have to do most cashing in of items (sale of looted weapon, armor, magic items,...) through a guild, need to help town guards if they're asked, and are required to wear heraldry to identify them as adventurers.

In return they get a hefty discount on spellcasting services at Temples (healing spells can even be free of charge when they become famous enough), a free spot to stay at the guild quarters (cheap rooms, if you want anything fancy you have to pay for a room in an inn), a easy way in to the nobility (as in they can arrange a meeting with a noble if they need to without being forced to wait for months), the right to own weapons and cast spells, and most importantly the right go into ruins and dungeons and claim all valuable stuff as theirs.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-12-20, 08:53 AM
Like @Terrorvein, my setting has organized adventurers and an Adventurers Guild (although the name is more vestigial than functional).

Here, the AG is the paramilitary arm of the Federated Nations Council, a UN-like body that coordinates trade and defense for a group of nations. The AG used to be part of a guild-dominated country (and be a dumping ground for death-row convicts with useful skills--they get a measure of freedom in return for risking their lives to protect outlying areas and explore for artifacts), hence the name. Now it's an elite body that trains those with potential and grants them status as Sanctioned Adventurers.

Anyone can "adventure", but only Sanctioned Adventurers have special social status. They can go into any of the nations, ignore the caste or status laws (so they don't get arrested for carrying weapons or wearing blue clothes), and can be relied on to be neutral in internal disputes (so they get used as arbiters and investigators as needed). They get to keep what they find, but the AG promises to buy items at fixed prices (explaining why the prices in the PHB aren't variable) from affiliated merchants and agents. The AG itself makes most of its revenue on a monopoly on transit through the ancient portal network (think Stargate, but local), for which it charges obscene prices. Locals respect the power and appreciate the utility but fear/distrust/dislike the SAs as being weird outsiders who don't know the "right" way of doing things.

Out of game, it's my excuse to have a party (who all have potential by definition) of people who
a) come from all over, since many races are only found in one or two of the nations
b) can go anywhere
c) have training in adventuring, so I can assume they just know a lot of common things (like trolls and fire)
d) have an excuse to get involved in all sorts of strange affairs.
e) won't get lynched by the first superstitious villagers they run across for being weird (I have a group that has an air genasi fighter, a warforged-esque metal man wizard, a tiefling warlock, a dragonborn cleric (the most normal one), and a male halfling paladin. None of those are common in that area. Male halflings in that culture don't leave home--they're rare and inevitably married to a clan of women and handle the babies and the household).

The FNC and the transfer of the AG were actually the result of player actions (as I run a living campaign world). I had designed it as just the one nation, thinking it's all alone after a cataclysm, but they went out and found other nations and bullied them into forming a council, discovering the portals on the way. Two of those characters, now retired, serve as the heads of the Guild and one of the major figures in the FNC respectively. The other two are the head of an allied druid grove (much more progressive and forward-thinking than most) and a national hero in one nation who leads a monastery (more like a dojo as it's open to all).

Kardwill
2018-12-20, 10:04 AM
If i remember correctly 3rd edition forgotten realms had the kingdom of Cormyr where adventurers were required to register with the government.



Yeah, Cormyr was described as "adventurers need to register and pay taxes", which frustrated my players to no end

In the same vein, in Laelith (https://www.aidedd.org/univers/laelith/) (French fantasy city setting for which many AD&D adventures were published in the 90'), the titular city's administration heavily regulated any adventuring activity in the local sewer system/megadungeon, as well as in the "punishment Terrace", the closed Pariah neighborhood/open air prison. Adventurers had to ask for a licence, state the goal of their expedition, and agree to have their loot searched by the God-King's civil servants for taxes and seizure of illegal artefacts.
In the same vein, wizards had to register in the local guild, and were forbidden to own a house in the city (they were given living quarters in 3 mage towers just outside the walls)
Again, my players LOVED it, as you can imagine ^^

Clistenes
2018-12-20, 04:30 PM
Yeah, Cormyr was described as "adventurers need to register and pay taxes", which frustrated my players to no end

In the same vein, in Laelith (https://www.aidedd.org/univers/laelith/) (French fantasy city setting for which many AD&D adventures were published in the 90'), the titular city's administration heavily regulated any adventuring activity in the local sewer system/megadungeon, as well as in the "punishment Terrace", the closed Pariah neighborhood/open air prison. Adventurers had to ask for a licence, state the goal of their expedition, and agree to have their loot searched by the God-King's civil servants for taxes and seizure of illegal artefacts.
In the same vein, wizards had to register in the local guild, and were forbidden to own a house in the city (they were given living quarters in 3 mage towers just outside the walls)
Again, my players LOVED it, as you can imagine ^^

That page mentions Forgotten Realms... is Laelith in Abeir-Toril, the same way Kara-Tur and Zakhara are supposed to?

Arbane
2018-12-20, 04:38 PM
Doomed Slayers (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/necro-doomed-slayers-justifying-the-tropes-of-adventurers.571602/). Their thing is monster-killing more than exploring, but they're a distinct social class of sorts that gets to ignore a lot of normal laws and customs at the expense of being landless perpetual wanderers who are expected to fight nighmareish monsters.

Kardwill
2018-12-21, 09:49 AM
That page mentions Forgotten Realms... is Laelith in Abeir-Toril, the same way Kara-Tur and Zakhara are supposed to?

The mention is here because that page is a general unofficial D&D webpage that references a buch of stuff published in the past.

Laelith was a "setting neutral" city that could be inserted in any mid-to-high-fantasy campaign. It grew as a background for the AD&D adventures published in Casus Belli, the biggest french RPG magazine at the time, then got its own book (a third edition has been crowdfunded and should be published soon). The book only described the city (a major pilgrimage and trade nexus), and its closest neighbors and allies, the Twin Lakes Provinces, huddled together in an otherwise pretty desolate region.

That setting is my go-to reference for urban fantasy campaigns. That city just oozes style and adventure opportunities. Just looking at those maps, I want to grab my players for a new game in the God-King city's twisting ladders (stairway streets) :)

Beleriphon
2018-12-22, 06:24 PM
Eberron has adventuring seeing as a legitimate profession. Several of the modules for Eberron stipulate the PCs are hired because they are adventures to go do adventurery things. The setting has Morgrave University which might well have classes titled How to be Indiana Jones 101, and Tomb Raiding 204.

Son of A Lich!
2018-12-22, 09:49 PM
In my Homebrew world, Triune uses adventurers as a punitive status. It's almost like parole, and usually involves a Gaes of sorts, but ruffians who start a few too many bar fights or ruffle the feathers of the wrong noble may end up staring down a new green cloak and be told to do their due duties in cleaning out the goblin infestations in the forest to the west.

Jokes on them, though. You shouldn't expect criminals to honestly report their findings in a dungeon.

Menelik
2018-12-26, 06:44 AM
Thank you for your answers, guys.

Khedrac
2018-12-26, 08:38 AM
If i remember correctly 3rd edition forgotten realms had the kingdom of Cormyr where adventurers were required to register with the government.

I think many places with official registries of mercenaries would probably consider adventurers to be mercenaries as well.

Thinking about it this wasn't just 3rd Ed - the need for Adventurers to register their adventuing company was in the 1st Ed time novels (I didn't have the campaign setting so I cannot speak for it).

I think a lot more fantasy settings support adventurers as a recognised occupation than have guilds to manage it - I think adventurers' guilds are very much a minority side-case.