When you have a few farmers tilling the land, you'll get a village with a few basic artisans. As the population increases (and a few other factors are right, notably a lack of competition) the village would grow into a town with more of them. When you get multiple (for example) carpenters together in a single location they'll often work with their fellows on big projects and help each other out. When one is sick they'll cover for them, they'll help train up each other's kids and work together to get the best prices for their work by collective bargaining. Eventually these professional partnerships becomes something more formal and so a charter is written and a guild is born. The first guilds are for common trades: Carpenters, Smiths, Masons, etc. Then as the town grows into a city more specialist guilds arise, such as coopers, saddlemakers, fullers, swordsmiths, armorers, dressmakers and in the case of a few cities Alchemists.





The Alchemists had their start with a handful of modestly wealthy men who believed that somewhere out there was a way of making led into gold or potions of immortality. But while those efforts did fail they did work out by trial and error a few useful processes involving chemicals useful in a variety of fields from dye and paint making to metalworking and medicine. Among the most notable of which was their discovery of a mixture of charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter to create black powder.







This fellow lives in a major city state in which have among the holders of power (along with wealthy landowners) the guilds. Each of the major guilds has a seat on the ruling council of the city and guildmasters have at times become rulers of said city state. However with this power comes obligations, most notable of which is the fact that the ruling powers are required to raise forces for the city's defense. Wealthy Patricians raise companies of soldiers and the guilds each have their regiments. Most of the ranks of Guild Regiments are composed of third and forth sons of the artisans as well as young men who serve for four year terms to be accepted as apprentices to get into the guild, hirelings and the occasional volunteer from the higher ranks. Some guilds raise soldiers which reflect their profession. The Guild of Swordsmiths for example raises swordsmen, the guild of carpenters raises crossbowmen with hammers as a fallback weapon, the guild of teamsters raises light cavalry and the guild of butchers raises soldiers armed with heavy cleaving halberds. The Alchemists experimented with a few such specialist weapons for a few centuries prior, making simple firebombs, exploding pots and even a finnicky pump device which expelled a jet of flaming chemicals and was marred by a tendancy to explode. But their most successful weapons were those wielded by their firespitter troops which have been for the past two centuries armed with handgonnes, which have been refined in the last few decades into matchlocks.







The Alchemist Guild equips it's firespitters with padded shirts, beastplates and helmets with a few buying grieves or gauntlets with their own money. Serviceable armor though hardly anything to write home about. Their basic matchlocks however are as they can punch through most steel plate at 50 meters and fired in volleys they are effective beyond that. Swords are also issued as a backup weapon but many matchlocks have a spike for close quarters combat as well.





While hardly able to win every battle, the Firespitters have been effective enough for their city state to win it several big battles and to let it conquer a couple of it's neighbors in the last few years. Combined with strategic alliances with the Guild of Smiths and the Guild of Founders, this has bolstered the position of the Alchemist Guild. It has also meant that civic money has been given to the Alchemists to expand their force of firespitters from a few hundred to nearly two thousands in the last few years. Any guild that seeks to raise it's own force of firespitters needs to do so buying firearms and powder at considerably marked up prices. Those that attempt to break the Guild's official monopoly on Black Powder production either get fined into bankrupty or have their would be powderwrights die in tragic explosions.

