G.U.I.L.D.—A Charter for the Flock
The Samarkand Seagulls are landlocked by a thousand miles in every direction. They are named for a sea they have never seen. They have not asked Le Council to explain this. They arrived here too.
So, lately, have their fans.
Le Council has watched a new wave of citizens enroll under Samarkand. It is not a trickle. Le Council has a figure. The figure is not in this notice.
A flock that size does not stay a crowd. It wants to hold things together: a pool of Looneys, a register of shares, one voice at the table. Citizens have always been able to give each other what they own. They have never been able to own it together.
From today, they can.
What a guild is
G.U.I.L.D. is the Grande Union d'Investissement Lié et Délibéré. Le Council has been asked what that means. It means a guild.
A guild is a wallet that a group steers. It holds Looneys and shares. It has a name, three colours, and a roll of members. As far as the Exchange is concerned, it is a citizen. It cannot claim a daily reward.
A guild does not act on its own. Every purchase, every sale, every Series ∞ bid, every S.H.I.F.T. position, every change to its rules, every new name, and its own dissolution is a motion, put to the members.
The charter
A charter costs Ⱡ250,000,000. It is paid by the citizen who files it. The sum covers the cost of the paperwork, across every jurisdiction and every governing body that must be notified. Le Council has not been told how many there are. It has stopped asking.
The fee is Le Council's to set. It may be set differently for the next guild. It will not be set again for yours.
The figures in this notice are today's. Le Council may change the fee, the number of seats, the members a guild needs before it first acts, and how long a motion stays open.
The founder takes the presidency, names the guild, and chooses the three things that shape it: how the guild decides, how it pays a tax bill, and who may walk in. The first two can be changed later by two thirds of the roll, unless the guild is representative: there, the president's motion decides.
To found or join a guild, a citizen needs a confirmed inbox, an account at least three days old, and a wager or a trade on file. It exists so that three members cost three citizens.
A citizen belongs to one guild. A guild seats forty-eight. Until it seats three, a guild is forming: it takes no contributions beyond a buy-in, and files no motions. Once it has acted, it does not go back to forming. If fewer than three members remain, the guild dissolves. The three is not a setting. Le Council does not change it.
Three ways to decide
The founder chooses one. Changing it takes two thirds of the roll, unless the guild is representative, where the president's motion decides it.
| Who decides | It suits | It risks | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Egalitarian | Every member, one vote each | Guilds of equals | The member who paid in least votes as much as the member who paid in most. A majority can spend what a minority paid. |
| Proportional | Every member, weighted by what they paid in | Guilds that follow the money | Whoever paid in most decides. A member who has paid in nothing has no vote. |
| Representative | The officers. There is no vote. | Speed | The treasury is the officers' to spend. A member's only answer is to leave, and leaving returns nothing. |
Looneys paid in count at face. Shares paid in count at what they add to the guild's own holding of that team, if the guild sold it all to the pool, after brokerage. Not at the price on the page, which can be lifted. Not block by block, which would make ten small payments weigh more than one large one. Le Council does not weigh either.
Three doors
| Door | Who may walk in | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Open invitation | Citizens who apply, and citizens who are invited | The officers |
| Open | Any citizen in good standing | Nobody. They join at once. |
| Closed invitation | Citizens who are invited | The officers. Nobody applies. |
The president may set a buy-in. It is paid into the guild when a citizen takes a seat, and it counts as what they paid in. A citizen who applies pays the price they saw, and never more. An officer who wants a higher price declines the application. The citizen may apply again.
Who does what
There is one president. The treasurer and the secretary are privileges, not seats: any number of members may hold either, or both.
| Office | Held by | May |
|---|---|---|
| President | One member | Everything below. Alone appoints, sets the door and the buy-in, and files a change to how the guild decides, or a dissolution. |
| Treasurer | A privilege: any number of members | Files the guild's trades, bids, and S.H.I.F.T. positions. |
| Secretary | A privilege: any number of members | Seats and removes members, keeps the colours and the motto, and files a new name. |
A member is removed only when two officers agree, the president one of them. Le Council removes a member it bans.
What a guild may do
A motion stays open for twenty-four hours, or less when it must act before a Series ∞ lock or a S.H.I.F.T. close. A purchase names the most it may cost, and a sale the least it may fetch. Neither may be nothing. A guild files at most ten motions a day; a motion to dissolve is never turned away. A member who leaves before voting is taken off the roll of every open motion.
| Motion | Carried by | Sunk by |
|---|---|---|
| A purchase, a sale, a Series ∞ bid, a S.H.I.F.T. position, or a new name | A majority of the whole roll, at once. At the close, more yes than no, if more than half of the roll took part. | Half of the roll against, at once. Silence at the close. |
| A change to how the guild decides or is taxed | Two thirds of the roll, whenever they arrive | More than a third against, at once. The close, without two thirds. |
| Dissolution | Every member | One no, at once. The close, without every member. |
In a representative guild, an officer's filing is the decision, a change to how the guild decides or is taxed included. A new name is the exception: a second officer must agree, the president, or a secretary when the president files. Dissolution always needs every member.
A guild is one wallet under the same ceiling as a citizen. One team may be its own. Everywhere else, the ceiling is ten percent. It does not use Le Marché Gelé.
The quiet period. While a guild has a motion open on a team, and for twenty-four hours after it trades that team, its members may not trade it, bid on it in Series ∞, or move it on Le Marché Gelé, on their own account. A guild's Series ∞ bid holds them until the round resolves, and for twenty-four hours after. An offer a member filed on Le Marché Gelé before the motion may still settle; they file no new one while it holds. A member who leaves while the motion is open is held to it as if they had stayed. Le Council knows what advance notice is worth.
The risks
Le Council lists them in the order a citizen is likely to meet them.
Nothing paid in comes back. Looneys, shares, and the buy-in stay with the guild. Leave, and they stay. Be removed, and they stay. Le Council does not refund from a wallet it does not hold.
A citizen who owes tax pays nothing in. Not a contribution, not a buy-in, until the bill is settled. A member pays in at most ten times a day.
A guild is taxed like a citizen. It is assessed on everything it holds, on the same bands, and it pays from its own Looneys first. What it cannot pay is garnished from its members' Looneys, in equal shares or by net worth, as the guild chose. A member's own bill is paid before the guild's is taken from them. What the members cannot cover stands, and S.L.U.S.H. raises it on Taxes Tuesday by selling the guild's shares. No member's own shares are sold for a guild's bill. A member can still be billed for a guild they belong to.
A representative guild has no brake. The president and the treasurers may spend the treasury in a single filing. Nobody votes. Nobody is asked.
A proportional guild follows the money. A citizen who has paid in more than half of the roll's weight carries any ordinary motion alone.
A buy moves a pool. A guild trades against the same pools as everyone. A large purchase lifts the price, and a large sale lowers it, for every holder. A Series ∞ bid holds the guild's Looneys until Sunday, and its filing fee burns.
The quiet period is a lock. A member of a guild that is deciding on a team cannot trade that team, on the Exchange, in Series ∞, or on Le Marché Gelé, for as long as the motion is open and the day after. Leaving does not lift it.
One member can hold a guild. Dissolving needs every member. A citizen who will not say yes keeps the guild standing, and everything in it. If the motion does carry, the guild's shares return to open ice, its Looneys burn, and nothing returns to anyone.
A guild can fall. Once it has acted, the departure that leaves fewer than three members dissolves it, at once, on the word of the member who leaves. Its shares return to open ice, its Looneys burn, and every member is released. Officers may not remove a member if the removal would do it. A member who leaves while officers are removing them is removed all the same.
A citizen who leaves, declines, or is refused cannot ask the same guild again for twelve hours.
An invitation is once a day. A guild invites any one citizen once in twenty-four hours, and sends no more than twenty invitations a day. An invitation nobody answers lapses after seven days. The officers may withdraw one before then.
What Le Council does not do
Le Council does not recommend a guild. On the charter form it marks the settings it would choose for a first guild, and no more. It does not vouch for a guild's president, settle a guild's disputes, or return what a guild keeps. It files the charter, spends the fee on the paperwork, and keeps the roll.
Le Council keeps three powers. It may rename a guild whose name it cannot file; the name it takes away is not filed again, by that guild or any other. It may name a new president for a guild that cannot: one whose president is banned, gone, or holding it still. It may suspend a guild it cannot leave alone. A suspended guild keeps its wallet and its roll, does nothing else, and is taxed as before. Nobody may leave it while it is suspended, so it cannot be emptied before Le Council decides. Le Council tells the members why. It does not say how long.
Where to find it
The door is Organize, first in the Community menu. The directory lists every guild, forming and active. Each has a public page: its name, its colours, its motto, its door, its buy-in, and what it has done. Each has a members' page, which is private, with its motions, its treasury, its register, and a thread space of its own. Guild notices reach members in the L.A.M.P., marked GUILD—. The stats boards rank the Richest Guilds and the Largest.
Closing
The Seagulls are named for a sea they have never seen. Their new fans are not yet named for anything. A guild is a name, and the first thing a flock asks for.
Le Council has filed the paperwork. It declines to say who will be first.
They arrived here too.