The Pirate Guild formed almost as soon as humans took to the sea. Unlike most other Guilds, which regulate activity for collective stability, the Pirate Guild emerged around individual reward, not shared responsibility. It maintains few rules, little hierarchy, and only the loosest coordination between its members. Profit, survival, and opportunity drive its actions, and loyalty lasts only as long as advantage does.
The Guild’s activity centers on lawlessness against shipping and coastal communities. Raiding, smuggling, and extortion define its reputation. Most pirate crews operate independently or in small, shifting alliances, forming temporary clusters that dissolve as quickly as they arise. In this fragmented state, the Pirate Guild remains dangerous but vulnerable. The fleets of the Seven Kingdoms hunt these ships relentlessly and offer little quarter when they catch them.
Only once did the Pirate Guild approach something resembling unity. When Mushkinek pulled the scattered fleets together, he forged them into a single force. Under that consolidation, pirate vessels moved with coordination and purpose. At its height, the fleet could challenge the naval forces of all Seven Kingdoms at once. That moment revealed what the Guild could become when ambition overcame self-interest. It also ensured that such unity would never again be tolerated.
In the centuries since, the Pirate Guild has learned to survive without announcing itself. It maintains chapter houses in all Seven Kingdoms, operating quietly through intermediaries, dockside brokers, and unmarked warehouses. Officially, these houses do not exist. Only in Maadigan does the Guild operate openly, a tolerated presence within a city that understands the value of information, leverage, and controlled disorder.
The Pirate Guild endures not because it is organized, but because it is adaptable. It thrives in the gaps between law and enforcement, between necessity and morality. It is strongest when ignored, weakest when united, and most dangerous when someone once again convinces it to act as one.