Korea’s major guilds were massive entities. Founded by powerful players, each guild was the embodiment of its founder’s vision, with its guild members’ cohesion being as solid and unified as any aristocratic family’s… At least, that was how they began. The guilds—as any sufficiently old and bloated organization—had largely grown fat and festering.0

Good hearts changed with wind and rain, new members entered, old alliances split, and new factions formed… 0

Unknowingly, the guilds changed.0

The Guardian Guild was one example. The Guardian Guild had become so large that it represented South Korea, but internally, it was more divided and splintered than ever.0

This result was all but inevitable for any guild because, unlike aristocratic families or religious sects—which bound their members through either loyalty or faith to a single person—guilds were held together by shared interests alone. Thus, guild politics were the most chaotic. Some guilds dissolved overnight, while most “restructured” their leadership frequently.7

For example, Gale, one of the five major guilds, no longer had a single founding...0