Another question

[telophase]

Yeah, it may be all Deadfall all the time here for a bit, at least until it's out of my brain. And it turns out that rambling helps me figure things out, but it requires that I have someone to ramble to because rambling to myself doesn't work. So.

Another word choice question: right now I've got an association of mercenaries known as a 'guild' (yeah, yeah, extruded fantasy product Adventurers' Guild-type stuff, but I do have bits of history and origin for this setup worked out, although just in my brain at the moment). I don't necessarily like the term "guild," it was just the easiest term to drop in. They tend to refer to themselves as a 'brotherhood', but for Reasons* I'm not using that as the primary term.

Possible other terms pulled from the OED's Historical Thesaurus:

confraternity - pro: not very well-known outside of people who read history books, con: generally associated with religious organizations

collegium - pro: almost exactly fits the group, con: easily mixed up with "college"

fellowship - pro: almost exactly what it is, con: I don't love it.

company - pro: almost exactly what it is; con: the organization in question is (sort of) made up of mercenary companies, and that term is so entrenched in military groups that I can't redefine it.

confrairy (version of confraternity) - pro: well, it's not well-known. con: it's goofy

fraternity / frary / fratry - too many modern associations for #1, the other too are a bit goofy

order - a bit religious

brothership - no

sodality - er, no



There's also the question of readers going "Why isn't it just a guild?"

* which boil down to "I don't want to"

Comments

[jenett]

Ones that spring to mind:

League (possibly too city-state relevant)

or

Corpus (from the Latin for body, or riffing on that...)

[movingfinger]

So this is a group-of-groups? Or is it a committee of representatives of the groups?

[telophase]

It’s sort of like a trade association meets a union? Individuals are members, pay a membership fee, in turn get help with medical fees, can get rooms in the guild house,survivor benefits, etc. Merc companies hire seasonally for the bulk of their soldiers, and the campaign season lasts from spring to fall. Mostly local lords having spats with each other than giant wars.

Most other stuff is purposely hazy so the Athiof can have a Better Idea as fits the needs of the story.

[movingfinger]

Ah, like a Friendly Society? I suggest that, or Benevolent Society; these were workingmen's mutual aid societies performed functions like those for members. I associate them with the Industrial Revolution but I believe they were much older than that.

[ellenmillion]

League? Mercenaries Union? Lodge? Society?

[estara]

Dark Ages the korean mmorpg that brought me to LJ in the first place in 2000 had a name for a smaller grouping of friends than a guild, it was "motley" - we were the Unseelie Court Motley then.

In FF14 the player guilds are called "free companies" to contrast them from the three big citystate companies that make up the main army for the continent the game is mostly set on (so far ^^)