The Rise of the Adventurers' Guild

[Anonymoose]

A man can try!

1557 [20 Years Ago] Ala Mhigo falls
1561 [16 Years Ago] The Alliance forms
1562 [15 Years Ago] 1.0 Echoes (at least Thancreds, presumed to be all three)
1563 [14 Years Ago] The Garleans hole up in Ala Mhigo, the Alliance breaks

If we force known facts to stick, between 20 and 16 years ago, the cities militarize their city guard (assuming this refers to the Knights of the Barracuda, the Brass Blades, and the Wood Wailers + Gods' Quiver). This puts sellswords out of business, problems ensue, and the guilds are created to solve them. Adventuring emerges from the guild life, and with it comes the Adventurers' Guild...

If the Drowning Wench was founded "about 20 years ago" as well, I just can't factor in any way for Baderon to both be the founder of that branch of the guild and have spurned joining the guild to be a sellsword for a while. That must be the specific part I can't make work.

If there is a discrepancy, my primary suspect is the "20 years ago" for the opening of the Wench. That makes the most sense to me. ~1557 seems like a pretty rapid rise for the AG and predates the true Age of Calm. Provided that Baderon is truly the founder, it also forces him to have become a sellsword, bonded with a mentor figure, rose to become a great in the business, and retired famous across a lustrous career of a few months to a year or two, maximum. If we push the date to around 15 years, instead, Baderon's father has time to make the guild spread while his son is off doing his thing, Baderon gets in a solid five years of ass-kicking (a rough average military enlistment even today), and he's back slinging swill in time to be a fresh faced pubkeep in the 1.0 Echoes (provided that they do take place in 1562. I once pegged Lominsa for 1567, but then that makes several occasions on which a massive starshower has appeared over Eorzea outside of Echo visions, which I find less likely than a 15 mistaken for 20, so far. Something like that happens more than once, and a few years apart, people tend to make a bigger deal out of it).