Starting a guild in Dungeons & Dynasties

Charters set the starting position, not the rules

The charter decides where on the pyramid you begin and what you begin with. Nothing about it changes how the simulation behaves afterwards — no multiplier, no ongoing modifier. It is a starting position, so the gap between them closes over a long save rather than widening.

• Backwater

  Longest climb
  Bare bones: raw recruits, a swamp-shack guild, near-empty coffers, and the bottom rung in the Backwater (tier 6).Tier 69 heroes120gHall level 10 renown

• Modest

  Standard
  A fair footing: a capable party, a proper guild, a working purse, and a place in the Frontier (tier 5).Tier 510 heroes300gHall level 215 renown

• Established

  Head start
  A big hall to feed: a deep roster in an expanded guild, the largest purse of the three with a wage bill to match, and a seat in the Free Companies (tier 4) against halls better than yours.Tier 412 heroes1200gHall level 360 renown

Lower tier numbers sit higher in the pyramid, so the Established charter starts you two rungs above the Backwater one with ten times the treasury.

Guildmaster backgrounds

The background is a permanent multiplier on one axis, and one of the four also front-loads coin. Unlike the charter, this choice never stops mattering — a growth or gold multiplier compounds across every delve you ever run.

• The Veteran Delver

  +20% growth from delves
  A famed adventurer who hung up the blade to lead from the front of the guild.Growth from delves +20%

• The Merchant Prince

  +300g war-chest, +10% gold from delves
  You made a fortune in trade long before you raised a banner.Gold earned +10%+300g at the start

• The Old Campaigner

  +40% recovery between delves
  Years on the war-trail taught you to keep your people on their feet.Recovery between delves +40%

• The Silver Tongue

  -20% recruitment fees
  A charmer and a recruiter; heroes follow your word, not your coin.Recruitment cost -20%

Company types

The company covers the same four axes as the backgrounds, at larger sizes, plus one that has no numeric equivalent: the Arcane Circle reveals the whole dungeon path before you commit a party. That is an information advantage rather than a stat one, and it is the only option here that changes how you play rather than how fast you accrue.

• Mercenary Company

  +15% gold from contracts
  The Sellswords — Coin above all, every contract is a transaction.Gold earned +15%

• Hearth-Sworn

  +60% recovery between delves
  The Hearth — We look after our own, no hero left to rot.Recovery between delves +60%

• Free Company

  −25% recruitment fees
  The Open Hand — Open doors, open arms, the tavern is always hiring.Recruitment cost -25%

• Martial Order

  +25% growth from delves
  The Warbound — Train hard, fight easy, discipline forges legends.Growth from delves +25%

• Arcane Circle

  Scry the ENTIRE dungeon path before you set out
  The Scholars — Knowledge is power, we see the dark before we enter it.Dungeon scrying full dungeon path revealed

Which pairs actually compound

Background and company are chosen separately, and the game shows them on separate screens, so it never points out that four of the pairings land on the same multiplier and stack. Those are the combinations below. Everything not listed here spreads across two different axes instead, which is usually the better default — a doubled bonus on one axis is worth less than two solid bonuses on axes you actually use.

• The Veteran Delver + Martial OrderGrowth from delves+50%
• The Merchant Prince + Mercenary CompanyGold earned+26%
• The Old Campaigner + Hearth-SwornRecovery between delves+124%
• The Silver Tongue + Free CompanyRecruitment cost-40%

The recruitment pairing is the sharpest of them, because its two multipliers are both below one and multiply down rather than up. The recovery pairing is the most situational: recovery only pays off if you are running the roster hard enough to be limited by it, which the Backwater charter forces and the Established charter mostly does not.

Your guild's name picks its crest

The name you type is not purely cosmetic. Before choosing a charge for your guild's shield at random, the game tests the name against a short list of patterns, and when one matches it uses that charge instead — roughly half the time. Nothing about the crest affects play, so this is the one starting decision with no wrong answer, but if you want a particular device on your banner these are the words that steer it.

• bookledger · archive · tally · scriv · codex · record
• flameember · cinder · ash · flame · forge · pyre
• towertower · spire · keep · hold · bastion · citadel
• swordblade · sword · sabre · edge · steel · vanguard
• mountainpeak · mount · stone · crag · summit · hill
• crescentmoon · night · dusk · crescent · pale · dark
• starstar · sigil · astral · light · dawn · radiant
• annuletcircle · ring · conclave · covenant · compact · order
• crosscross · sanctum · choir · temple · halo · dirge

Matching is case-insensitive and looks anywhere in the name, so "The Ironhold Clan" is caught by "hold" and leans toward a tower.

How long the runway actually is

Every argument about growth multipliers turns on how many delves a hero survives to bank them, and the game tracks that explicitly: heroes pass through named seniority stages at fixed delve counts. Those thresholds are the honest yardstick for whether a growth pick pays back inside the save you are actually going to play.

• Untried1+ delvesEverything they know about the dark, somebody told them.
• Blooded3+ delvesThey have been down there and come back, and it has taught them something.
• Roadwise7+ delvesThey read a room before they walk into it, and they know when one has turned.
• Grizzled12+ delvesYears of the dark behind them. Very little down there is new any more.
• Unshaken17+ delvesThey have seen worse than this, and they brought everyone home from it.

The top stage sits far enough out that most heroes never reach it — they retire, they are injured out, or they die first. That is the real argument against loading everything onto growth: a multiplier on experience only pays if the hero holding it is still on the roster when the interest comes due, and on the harder charters the attrition is front-loaded exactly where your roster is thinnest.

Recovery and recruitment multipliers pay out immediately instead, and they pay every time a hero is hurt or replaced rather than once per level. On a save you intend to play for a long time the growth picks win; on one where you expect to be scrambling for bodies through the first several seasons, they are the weakest of the four axes.

Picking a combination for starting a guild

If you are starting on the Backwater charter, the binding constraint early is bodies and coin, not growth — you have the fewest heroes and the smallest treasury, and losing one hero costs a larger fraction of the guild. Recruitment cost and recovery are worth more there than growth multipliers that need a long runway to pay back.

On the Established charter the reverse holds. You start with a deep roster and a healthy treasury, so the early constraint is how fast that roster improves rather than whether you can field one. Growth multipliers compound against every delve from turn one, which makes them the strongest long-run pick when you can afford to ignore the first few seasons of attrition.

The Arcane Circle sits outside that trade-off entirely. Seeing the dungeon path before committing lets you match the party to what is down there — which matters most when a delve can roll an environmental condition that punishes half your roster. If you tend to lose runs to bad matchups rather than to slow growth, that is the pick, and the dungeon conditions page covers what you would be scouting for. Class and role coverage for the party you send is on the classes page.