The
Worshipful Company of Woodwrights is a venerable guild first established by a charter from
House Ashdowne in the
Autumnvale several centuries before the foundation of the
Empire. Its formation coincided with a period of population growth and the expansion of the petty-kingdom's towns as mercantile and craft centres, which through an increased demand for their services of construction and decoration, brought the need for greater organization of the Autumnvale's woodworkers into light. As such, the original charter represents a compact to ensure that the guild's craftsmen met a set level of skill, quality, and repute while also protecting their interests and livelihoods in a period of economic upturn. These fundamental aims and functions of the Company have endured to the present, and the prestige and skill of its members over the centuries has ensured that its name has become a byword for carpentry, construction, and carving of remarkable and exquisite quality.
Work produced by or under the direction of the guild's Masters often reaches truly unique heights. In keeping with the Autumnvale's tradition of Hyldej (link to religion?), in which the work of the most skilled and venerable of craftsmen yields results of a magical nature, the Worshipful Company's finest creations are known to have unusual qualities, ranging from charming and endearing to genuinely awe-inspiring in larger instances. This can materialize in profoundly expressive and evocative carvings, post-and-beam architecture of considerable size, strength, and longevity, a staggering variety of often visually distinct seasoning, finishing, and preservation techniques, and exquisite tooling. The Company's motto, "As if grown in living wood," reflects both pride in these standards, and a reminder to members to uphold them.
Hierarchy and Organization
As in many such guilds, elected officers carry out the administrative and leadership functions of the Worshipful Company. The chiefest of these is the Alderman, who is generally elected on account of both the mastery of his craft, and ability to liaise effectively with local lords and other town organizations. Other positions exist to, for instance, oversee the admission of new members and their subsequent apprenticeships to suitable masters, organization of feasts and charities, and the provision of pensions and memorials. The Company's ranks encompass many different vocations in addition to the architectural and artistic, with the organization having grown over its history to include turners, bowyers, wheelwrights, coopers, and a myriad of others. These specializations are represented on a given member's badge by what tools or items appear in the centre of the design, which are enclosed by the guild's ubiquitous motif of two stylized beavers swimming equidistantly through a wreath of knotwork.
Entry into the Company occurs via apprenticeship, typically during a prospective craftsman's teenage years, with the rank and badge of journeyman conferred after several years and the completion of an independent "journeyman work," and likewise master after sufficient time and demonstration of capability. An avenue to membership also exists for craftsmen of sufficient skill who have come up outside the guild, who, on a case-by-case basis become journeymen or more rarely masters. Several centuries after its establishment, from which point the Company's fame had continued to wax and the organization had become a prominent social fixture in towns such as
Ardingly and
Stonethistle, honourary admission of prominent individuals via fee or donation began to take place. While certainly helping to fill the coffers, this process also diluted the upper echelons of the guild with men who had limited to no association with or practice in the Company's actual crafts, much to the consternation of those who had earned entry by traditional means.
In due course, the frustration of the artisans with the "purse carpenters" coalesced into efforts to pressure the guild's leading officers, and the Lord Ashdowne, to amend the charter to prohibit admission by purchase. Both of these latter parties, however, were loathe to interfere with the ancient compact, with many such charters and oaths having a semi-sacrosanct quality in the Autumnvale. It was only after several years of impasse, which resulted in the standards of the Company's work slipping, that direct action was resolved upon. To avoid tarnishing the original compact (and to retain the useful practice of donations), the knotwork which held the written charter to the great seal of the Worshipful Company was lengthened, providing space for another piece of parchment which decreed the formation of an associate organization, known as the Fellows of the Worshipful Company of Woodwrights. This body could be joined via donation, and Fellows were granted their own badges and the rights to attend the feasts and social gatherings of the Company, but were barred from holding office and voting in elections.
New Roles
The contemporary Lord Ashdowne, politically canny like many of his line, saw opportunity in the fact that wealthy townsmen and merchants were drawn to associate themselves with the Worshipful Company, while the working "muscle" of the guild was now shielded against their undue influence. Furthermore, he was well-positioned thanks to his role as arbiter and mediator during the preceding dispute. Pursuing further discussion with the Company's officers, he suggested an additional way the guild could grow in renown and skill, while contributing to the prestige of the Autumnvale which, save as a thoroughfare for trade, was sorely lacking in lands abroad. Following a new agreement, the Lords of the Autumnvale could offer the services of the Company's master craftsmen to the courts of neighbouring kingdoms for certain periods of time, neatly combining lucrative contracts with diplomatic usefulness. The rulership of the Autumnvale would thus gain a unique new form of much-needed diplomatic currency, the Company would not want for rewarding work, and the renown of the Autumnvale's craftsmen and their work would spread. Lord Ashdowne and the Company officers even found a use for the Fellows in this scheme which would assuage their sense of usefulness to the guild: while accompanying these missions, these propertied men could act as courtly liaisons, and in pursuing their business interests, help to bring trade through the Autumnvale.
In the centuries following these developments in the Company, its craftsmen have completed numerous works outside of the Autumnvale, mainly in neighbouring kingdoms such as Ulnost and Bergeaux, which are now home to several magnificent hammer-beam roofs, fan-vaulted ceilings, and various other great wooden structures in the Valesmen's style. Smaller items bearing the Company's mark, such as furniture and carvings, have spread much further afield as luxury items due to the skill of the contrivance and unique styles and motifs, although in these respects as in larger architecture, the greatest examples are to be seen in the Autumnvale itself. During the reign of the Wythian Empire, the Company was duly contracted for various projects across the new realm, including some buildings in the port city of Acton. Curiously, the quality of the finished products in projects such as these exhibited some variation, indicative of various guildsmen's opinions on their service to the Empire. Some craftsmen, determined to prove the excellence of the Autumnvale's traditions, produced exceptional work to impress observers from across the continent, while others seem to have tread a careful line which produced work sufficient to uphold the Company's honour, but diminished enough to make it clear that their new masters were only getting a shade of what they might find in the Autumnvale. In the post-imperial period, the business of the company has carried on much as it has throughout the centuries, with the notable exception of many of its members now being involved in production of materiel for the war with Bergeaux or being "loaned" out to various fortifications and army camps where their skills are perpetually in demand.
