Hi guys and girls i just joined the Wizards community.
I have been playing D&D for about a year now great game. But i have a small issue. A player in my game wants to create his own Magi guild/circle. Intregued by this idea we are starting to think about how to approuch this. But it's hard to find good stuff on how to let someone start up a guild basicly from nothing. Any advise here how to approuch this matter (this is the short version)
Now the long version:
We play in the wonderfull world of Eberron.
The chracter of said player is a wizard which has the goal besides settign up a guild collecting all the spells and knowledge in the world. And sharing his knowledge with others. To accomplish these to goals he is now part of The Esoteric Order of Aureon which is an order that is not so profound of a mage having any infliction with necromancy spells. Neverthe less the character will try to get his hands on these spells because his goal is to obtain all spells. Now he wants to work himself up the ranks to a certain degree but at some point it becomes clear that he has been collecting spells which are not allowed or he focusses to much on schools that are not of intrest to the Esoteric order of Aureon. So an infight will start he will leave the guild and start his own. Now we comeback to the question metioned above, how does one start a guild out of the blue. You cannot just say i buy a house and POOF its a guild tada. Any tips idea's opinions are all welcome!
We are searching through the web for ideas anyway and we are making very small steps. There is more to the whole story but that is for an other time. This mainly regards the feat leadership which might be usefull if you want to build your own guild.
Thanks for reading and any given advice.
Greeting and may fortune be with you on your next adventure,
CZNMadness
You're the DM. Don't look for answers, look for obstacles.
Player's goal is to create a guild - he'll need some kind of HQ, some recruitment, some organization or heirarchy, a purpose, and a compelling reason for people to join.
None of that is up to you to acquire, just to "put" somewhere in the world. Player has to overcome whatever obstacles stand in the way of him and his goal.
So grab a list of names and make 20-100 NPCs (flesh out about 10-15, just have a line or less for the rest). Hide the necromancy spells and relics all over the place, and set up some group that wants to stop him. Silver flame I guess, hunting him down. And the rest is on him.
How does a youtube video garner attention? How does an upstart business attract customers? How does a new religion spread their word? Sometimes looking at similar things you didn't originally think of as similar can help.
The biggest part of it is advertising and word of mouth. Keep spreading the word and he'll eventually find like minded people to help him spread the word. Bawylie hit on some other important points. A meeting place for these people he's spreading his message to is important.
As DM you will have to do some work with this by providing maybe something like a rate of gain(maybe he roleplays a few meetings and out of those few he gets 2-3 people and that starts the ball rolling), how much a base will cost, who might be opposed to his goal, etc.
The hierarchy may not be important in the beginning(or maybe at all depending on how the player wants to structure it), but that falls more on the player to decide. The player also provides the message and how to spread it.
Tahnks for the advises so far,
I geus the Esoteric order of Aureon will be one of the first to chase after him. Hence not abiding to guild rules and being the main law and order company within the boundries of Khorvair/Sharn when it comes down to using magic with in city limits and through out the Khorvair region if I am not mistaken.
Anyways I got a start up from where i can work and things to think about. And the player has a vast roleplaying idea. Any idea or advise is still welcome and much appriciated. 
Downtime activity? Starts out as a small group of like minded mages that he has encountered through out his adventuring.
If he can't be there 24/7 to run it maybe he can just be a founding member and have a vote on a council.
start small then expand. Get sanction from local government to act as a magical odd jobs to help the community.
Another twist is you can have the thieves guild offer him protection from his enemies. So he could choose an added expense(with some possible story hooks in there, especially if you have a rogue/thief type character in the party), or he could take his chances and have setbacks. Also, maybe the thieves guild isn't perfect and a slip up happens. What do you do?
I like the sanction from the government bit.
Well so far the advise has really helped a lot and we decide to go with the following plan:
The wizard will for now till a level about 10 work on doing quests for the Esoteric order of Aureon as follow the main quest. (for anyone that hasnt played the Eberron campaign i'd recommand it lots of fun). And during the time he is working to level 10 he will accuire welth and roleplay to get the necessery things to start up a guild (approve by the goverment that sort of stuff because he is aiming for a public guild).
Anyway during his level up he will take the feat Leadership in order to get an apprentice (instead of a companion). This apprantice will not go out on quests with him due to possibility of OP (basicly he would have his own party in a party he is playing with). Therefor when he is going out he can set the apprentice out to do something else. Or do some guild maintenence stuff later on. Meaning that the player can still do quest and maintain guild in some way. This of course will have impact on his leadership feat. But he can always decide to switch character and let the Wizard roleplay on the sidelines for guild managment. If the Leadership feat has enough plusses he could take on several apprentices and use the same process on them by settin them out on their own missions.
Lastly we have the fame/honor/glory bonus this is obtained for every member in our player party. They perform quest and people talk so they will get known through out the land at some point depending on what they exactly did. This will also help the Wizard player a little bit towards forming a guild because fame/honor/glory attracts antation thus leeding followers/fans but also enemy's.
Still thanks for the advice keep in mind that me and the player have both done research on this item before I created this thread but it surely got us to the decision making .
Feel free to keep posting if you have other ideas maybe somebody else ends up here with a similar issue and the advise here might help him/her out. Who knows
GREETZ!
CZNMadness