The Mercenary Guild — Licenses, Ranks & Bounty Work
The Mercenary Guild is the contract backbone of the system: one license, one ladder, three kinds of work — missions off the general board, deep delve contracts, and bounties. Everything dangerous is priced by rank, not by level. Your stats decide what you can do; your rank decides what you're allowed to sign.
The license
Sign the book at a Central desk and you carry a Guild License. You start at Copper — zero reputation, zero completed contracts, general-board work only. The license tracks your rank, your reputation, your completed contracts, and your standing. Update it after every closed job: promotion is a steward review, not a surprise.
The ladder
The Guild publishes the ladder; it is the same ladder stamped on every quest, bounty, and delve contract:
| Rank | Promotion review | What opens |
|---|---|---|
| Copper | starting rank | General board — gathering, mining, delivery, Copper-rated work |
| Iron | 3 contracts · 10 rep | Bounty desk. Alive-capture authority (jail-wing booking). Lead Copper crews |
| Bronze | 5 more contracts · 25 rep | Bronze-rated work, delve contracts into the entry bands |
| Silver | 8 more contracts · 45 rep | Delve contracts to depth 3. Post bounties with desk approval |
| Gold | 12 more contracts · 70 rep | Deep-band delve clearance. Deputize unlicensed crews. +10% desk-rate pay |
| Platinum | 18 more contracts · 100 rep | Command-level contracts. Stake salvage claims on dive sites |
| Mithril | 25 more contracts · 140 rep | Charter a dedicated delve crew with standing claims |
| Orichalcum | 35 more contracts · 190 rep | Register new dive sites — delve chartering |
| Omega | 50 more contracts · 250 rep + command vote | Story-scale authority. The Guild bends around this rung |
"More contracts" means closed while at the rank you're leaving. Reputation comes from completed jobs (+2 for a delivery, up to +15 for a Calamity-band delve) and drains on failures and upheld collateral complaints.
Below-rank work
A member below a contract's rankRequired may join only alongside someone of rank or higher — the ranked lead signs, the crew shares the pay, and the lead is accountable for everyone's conduct. This is how a Copper crew gets its first delve: ride with a Bronze lead, learn the site, close your own three contracts.
Becoming a bounty hunter
Bounty work is the Iron-rank career. The path is concrete:
- Copper: close general-board contracts. Three of them, plus ten reputation — routine work, done reliably, is the whole gate.
- Iron: the bounty desk opens. Your first authority is the desk's most contested: alive-capture — live targets book through the jail wing only, non-lethal loadout required, and kill-proof on an alive-terms bounty pays nothing.
- Learn the terms.
Alivepays for the body breathing.Dead-or-alivepays either way.Proof-of-deathpays on trophy, tag, or verified remains — no body hauling. Live-recovery rates beat kill rates on almost every posting; the desk prices mercy on purpose. - Work stale leads. Bounties list where the target was last reliably reported — and that report is already old when you read it. The eyepiece is the marker; the photo is four years stale. Tracking is the craft.
- Stay clean. Rough work draws heat, and heat draws desk fines. Damaged goods negotiate down. A revoked license is public and permanent — bounty-rigging and selling targets back to their faction end careers.
Standing
Probation (two failed contracts in a month), suspension (crimes while licensed), revocation (working unlicensed, rigging proof). Discipline rides your standing, not your rank — but a suspended license takes desk access with it, and desk access is the whole career.
What rank means
Rank is not power. It is trust, priced. A Gold-rank license in the room changes how a steward talks to you, how a salvage claimholder negotiates, and what the desk lets you near. Stats grow through use and training; the ladder grows through closed contracts and kept promises. The Guild pays for both.