[A] Freelancers!

Guild name: Freelancers (level 25, for the perk-hungry of you)
Officers: Siegmund(GM), Therodain, Allonia, Mildrith and Kayden. Some with funny "i"s etc.
Where to find us: Out in the world on various expeditions, as well as the library and war rooms in the Keep.

The Freelancers are now recruiting!
Stormwind wants to involve itself with exploration and its related activities as they are not content to leave it all to the dwarves. Sure, they're still allied with Ironforge, but with the increasing growth of Stormwind, it's silly to put all the pressure on the dwarves. Stormwind needs to be able to satisfy it’s own needs. The Freelancers is a politically sanctioned outfit with a base in Stormwind. As a current hero of the alliance Radke has been commissioned by Stormwind to employ only the best the Alliance has to offer, in this Stormwindian counterpart to the Explorer's league.

The guilds goal is to find and survey mineral deposits, ancient artifacts and areas of interest for Stormwind. The guild will mainly have a main body of humans, but will take in others if their competance can add to areas where competent humans are hard to find. (Such as mining dwarves, gnomish engineers, etc.) Expeditions go to various places of interest to Stormwind (possibly even into Horde territory), aiming to find sites of value.

A few things you should know about us:
- The guild is based fully around the prospect of exploration, navigating and campaigns to foreign lands of the guild to chart these lands.
- We will follow the traditions and path of the in game lore and loosely that of The Explorers League.
- Promotions would be earned via activity and ofcourse exploration campaigns undertaken.
- With promotions being given a clear path there will also be clearly defined ranks with a set hierarchy.
- All levels would be welcome! But during all campaigns and exploration you would without a doubt be required to be in character at all times i.e. No taking off for Stormwind to check your auctions while on a expedition.
- With clearly set ranks and a chance at all times for promotion it may be a breath of fresh air for some to have clearly defined ideals on what they need to do in order to progress in the guild.
- As you wish to progress through the ranks the campaigns would be significantly longer harder and may be solo or group based.
- Also. Don't expect to rise through the ranks in a day! Most of these campaigns would need to be carried out on foot and certainly in game time (Important point to note) so don't expect to even explore all of say, Duskwood in a day.

One of our main aims with this guild is for it to be totally self-sufficient.
By this we mean our main objective for this guild is that we are able to provide ample RP within the guild with varying leadership ranks for there to be enough in-character strife, celebrations and general roleplay. This is in no way saying that we would not encourage interaction with other guilds as an exploration guild will perhaps be best suited to interacting with various other types, but we hope not to be dependant on others to function.

We know that many may scoff at this idea and find it to be wholeheartedly boring. But we know there are many of you role-players out there who really enjoy exploring and appreciate the scenery.
Thank you to anyone and everyone who reads this. Don't hesitate to drop me or Radke an in game mail but if possible reply back here and hopefully we can get the ball rolling soon.

Final notes:
1. We want to be an open RP guild. You do not have to tailor your character to suit our guild, in fact, we would prefer if you didn't, variety is the spice of RP too, you know. We do welcome those new to RP too, and will try to keep all eventual critisism constructive.
2. Yes, we chose to RP in the Keep. This is not saying that we're the King's favourite citizens or anything like that. It simply means one of the guilds' benefactors has managed to gain us access to the royal library and map rooms so that we better can plan our expeditions, and so that Stormwind can benefit more greatly from them.
3. As some might notice, our current members are all former members of the Seal. This is naturally not required for guild membership, we're just a bunch of in-game friends who want another shot of RPing with one another, we'd be overjoyed if you want in on the fun


More on guild ranks incoming.

Guild Ranks:
The guild has paths:

1) The academic path, for those who are interested in history, and archaeology. They appraise and attempt to explain the artifacts found by the second branch, while also representing the guilds interest in relation to liaising and organizing and co-ordination with other guilds. (This path is specifically for roleplayers who would rather engage in political roleplay within Stormwind as they liaise with other guilds and factions to the benefit of The Royal Expedition.)

2) The adventuring path, for those who like to get out there to secure artifacts and record events so that they can be catalogued by academics. Also to protect the academics when they venture into the field. (This path is specifically for roleplayers who wish to engage in world roleplaying through the actual exploration arm of this guild via excursions, camping, world expeditions and so forth. However you will still get a chance to work within Stormwind and offer debriefings to our beneficiaries. However be prepared to spend a proportion of your time outside of Stormwind without returning.)

The two paths are equal, and the ranks corresponding.

Guild leadership
Director - The 'leader'. Present for interviews of possible guards / members, co-ordination of events, excursions and for reports at the end of an expedition.

Officer - The officers of the guild. They can have different responsibilities such as recruitment, relations, research etc. They can take on any kind of role really, and are free to be either an active explorer or to base their roleplay in a more scholarly fashion.

Junior Officer - An officer's assistant or trainee, or just a highly ranked member.

Academic Path.
Researcher – A researcher is the highest rank of the academic path and will have considerable influence with people both of the academic and adventuring path. He or she will be the go-to-guy in all matters of his/her field of expertise.

Scholar - A Scholar work in the guild headquarters or at the city libraries and gather the necessary information for the guild operations. This rank can be hard to pull off properly as our expeditions till now have been quite unfriendly to characters who cannot hold their own in combat, but enhances the expedition setting when done properly nevertheless.

Adventuring Path.
Explorer - The highest rank of the adventuring path. The explorers go to the far off regions of the world and will be the first persons of the guild to reach a future outpost. It is therefore required of them to have a broad knowledge of world culture and geography. The explorers can gather their own squads from the lines of the guides when venturing into unknown or hostile territory. Players with this rank are the leaders of the expeditions and would have probably spent some time as a guide before attaining this rank. This could be seen as a "veteran" type rank.

Guide - The Guides are the sword and shield of the guild. They guard the Scholars and accompany the Explorerers in their exploration. Their role is to make sure people stay alive - they know where to camp, what to eat, where water is etc. Possibly not required to be a guild member, as they may be hired for just one trip.

Newly recruited:
Trainee - Most people know very little about exploring the world, hold few of the higher secrets of magic, life and the universe, and cannot even find their own position on a map properly. The Trainee is most likely to be one of them. The Trainee is the freshly recruited member, he has yet to prove himself in any of the skills required by either arm of the Freelancers, and will remain this rank until such time.

Handling PVP/ganking

Saw the shitstorm about A Bunch of Campers at the realm forum again, and figured, if we are out in the world, we might get in touch with them. Here are some ideas as to how to deal with situations where we're outnumbered/outmanned and end up on the recieving end of corpse-camping.

When shit hits the fan:
When all are dead, the highest ranking officer on site, and/or the creator of the event asks the rest to wait. He/she will go through the following options:

1. Are we completely sure we're unable to fight back? (Most likely we'll be short on pvpers, but fair fights could happen)
2. Do we handle this attack as IC or OOC?

If IC:
Fall back to graveyard, HS to a safe location from there. One or more members may be required to act as decoy at kill site. This may require several attempts.
Pros: Immersive. What happened, happened IC too. Our unit was beaten back, possibly injured, and had to put off further activity due to the danger.
Cons: Whatever we were doing is no longer on. We'd have to figure out how to translate PvP deaths to IC injuries. (could be fun, but frustrating to those not good at pvp)

If OOC:
Stay in ghost, finish event in ghost form. RP in /raid *emotes written like this* ((OOC in /guild))
Pros: Simple. We get to finished what we planned.
Cons: Creates an artificial barrier between what's going on on the screen, and what we treat as real. Or increases it, at any rate.

General rules to lessen the impact of stuff:
1. Plan ahead.

2. All members on an expedition sets their HS to the same spot. Should be somewhat close to the zone, but preferably a sanctuary/booty-bay-style. The retreat can be RPed out in the outskirts of this place, after injuries etc. are settled. (Intial attack treated as over, now pulling back to avoid a clean-up)

3. Always have a raid group up when RPing in a contested zone, to see dead/alive and have the possiblity for /raid-RP.

4. Know our members. Who here knows how to pvp? Who's got pvp-gear under their transmogs? What can the rest do in case of pvp?

5. NEVER WHINE ON THE FORUMS. We should be above that. All our members should be taught that lesson. We suck it up. We keep our anger inside. Ganking that happens in the Freelancers, stays in the Freelancers. End of story. The world does not symphatize, they will see us as weak, and worse yet, get even more fun out of it. Labeling ourselves as victims, will cause even more victimizing behaviour from gankers.



Rules for PVP --> IC injury:
Counting deaths.
The 25% of the group that died the most, were injured in the IC horde attack. Whether this is due to heroism, bad luck, or bad fighting skills is up to the players.
The injured players will do a /roll in raid to determine their injury.

0-70: Non-critical injury. (Broken legs, wounds that stop bleeding after some first aid, unconsciousness from head trauma, etc.)
70-90: Critical injury. (Bleeding arteries, punctured lungs etc. Stuff that makes breath/circulation insufficient to sustain oneself over time. If untended organs will fail one by one and die)
90-100: Verge of death. (Multiple injuries, at least one critical. Poisoning, that kind of things)

Very interesting concept. I wish you the best of luck.

I will of course have to be offended that you choose "Keeper" as the title for lowly guards... but if you don't tell me ICly, I won't react ICly :p

I'd suggest to make your Suggestion for PvP -> IC Injury into a Rule for PvP -> IC Injury. We use something similar in Natures Grasp and it works great. We use it for any situations that involves the risk of damage (putting out fires in Astranaar, avalanche in Winterspring, Arcane explosions from some Demon we're hunting, emote brawls - so not only PvP).

Just out of curiosity, how much did you pay for it?

Thanks Jondalar, editing done

And Frost, Radke bought the guild with his personal funds, I can't recall exactly how much he spent, he should know, however.

Hey that's the RBG guild of Jahi and me XD

Good to see such type of guild around. I have been thinking of something somewhat similar to this , but on smaller scale (non-guild).

A question regarding:

But during all campaigns and exploration you would without a doubt be required to be in character at all times i.e. No taking off for Stormwind to check your auctions while on a expedition.

Does this mean that when noone is online yet and i'm bored to hell i wouln't be allowed to do some dailies, check AH, sit on the roof the Chatedral of Light, etc during a, let's say, four-day-long campaign?

Anyway, best of luck. Might poke you once i'm back.

Jem, in those situations, you'd go to SW/queue for instances or bgs/what makes you tick until you have company. As you've synced your HS to some set point not too far away from the expedition getting back should be fast.

However, when others are around RP>Auctions etc.
IC should be the default state when on expeditions, not the opposite way around, and expedition sites should be treated as RP hubs, not as events that depend on event creators or officers for RP to happen.

These are only my interpretations of Radke's words however, he might be able to elaborate

Argh, I'm mighty tempted to apply, I just need to work out if I have any characters that would have a place in the guild.

Great concept btw!

However, when others are around RP>Auctions etc.

Naturally.

I hoped it to be as you elaborated, i just had understood it differently that previously quoted part.

Tonight's masterfully planned RP event:
Look through old maps in the royal library, and do preparations.
Do attend, it'll be lovely, unscripted, and in essence just an excuse for random RP in the Keep. Have fun!

(Yeah, no officers are able to attend, but hey, it's not like we're super1337 RP masters anyway)

The Freelancer Recruitment Poster as may be seen around Stormwind and various other Alliance cities.

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Freelancers Upcoming Expedition:

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Dates:
27th - 30th June.

Guilds Participating:
Freelancers, The Three Hammers, Blades For Hire.

Location:

- 27th.
Leaving from our residence in The Keep (Royal Gardens and Library) at approximately 8pm. Will arrive in Ironforge that night and continue to our base in Kharanos.

- 27th - 30th.
Will remain in Kharanos until the 30th while answering a call to arms from The Three Hammers PVP event at the Gates of Ironforge on the 29th.

-30th.
Return to Stormwind for a debriefing to our Commission.

- Motive of the Expedition.
With the current political situation in Ironforge, our expedition has been commissioned to keep a closer eye on our dwarven allies. We will set out from The Keep and locate our expedition in Kharanos. This expedition will hopefully allow us to also further enhance our relationship with The Three Hammers as they share their ways in traversing and surveying the land.
Due to security concerns with the current situation with The Ironforge Council, The Freelancers commission has hired several Blades For Hire to accompany The Freelancers into the dwarven lands.
We shall also partake in the defense of The Gates of Ironforge on the 29th from a Horde attack.

Love it, joining, done.

Helmfrid wrote:Love it, joining, done.

Looking forward to having you on board!
Feel free to drop us a line whenever you want to meet up in character.

Status Update:

We are currently on a recruitment drive for both academics and explorers alike across a variety of positions.

We're looking for various new members across a variety of events in the next week as we gear up for our expedition through Stranglethorn Vale and The Barrens.

I hope to see some new recruits in the coming days!
Radke.

I like the concept and would like to join with my mage. Probably as an adventurer. It's nice to see you're doing events with other guilds, like the three hammers, as well.

Anyway, I guess I'll contact one of the officers when I spot them online.

In game character name is also Aesculus

Update:

We are currently on a recruitment drive as we continue to run events in preparation for our expedition south beginning Wednesday!

We continue to preach tolerance and welcome any race to aid Stormwind and The Alliance at large.

The expedition is currently scheduled for the 18th - 23rd, so it is an excellent time to join us and jump straight into large scale events and role-play!

You can find me or one of us online at any time if you wish to be recruited.

Freelancers upcoming expedition:

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Dates:

23rd - 26th.

Guilds Participating:

Freelancers, Blades for Hire, The Three Hammers, Natures Grasp and various cultist affiliates.

Location and Motive:

The finale event will be an incursion launched upon Blackfathom Depths.

-23rd.
The expedition will move out from Stormwind, commissioning several ships and perhaps portals to bring us swiftly to Darnassus, the expedition will remain in the vicinity of Darnassus for the night as we run correspondence with the local people (Natures Grasp and other Night Elven role-players) before commissioning a ship across to Darkshore.

-24th.
The expedition shall upon hearing how much disarray has been caused in Darkshore, shall continue to move south and set up camp on the fringes of the region. The expedition will receive word that most of what has occurred in Darkshore originates in Blackfathom Depths. The expedition will then make a judgement call to launch an incursion upon the bastion and temple of The Twilights Hammer and Old Gods, ridding the land of this evil once more.

-25th.
The expedition shall launch several groups at once to ride out towards Blackfathom, from scouting groups to those who will conduct the assault themselves while others secure the surrounding area. Several groups who enter the dungeon will succeed / fail based on their progression.

-26th.
The commission will return to Darnassus and thus Stormwind, having hoped to create strong ties with our Night Elven allies and rid the land of evil once more.

Now counting 75 members! Join today!

Such a great consept. Sadly I don't have time to roleplay another character at the moment, but I might join up sometime in the future.. Could be a few interesting expedtitions in the upcoming Pandaria lands..

And there someone finally busted our motives

Officers updated as Radke is leaving the game in favour of having a life.