Guide Services of Turnbuckle Town

In Turnbuckle Town, a guide is part scout, part instructor, part insurance policy, and part reputation shield. Some guides are sponsor-friendly professionals. Some are desperate locals with good instincts. Some are a problem you hire on purpose.

Most guide rates are priced per day for a single CAd / curated adventure run unless stated otherwise.

Directory

• Gilded Compass — high-end, sponsor-safe, immaculate planning
• Red Banner Wardens — disciplined protection, practical exits, team control
• Lanternline Wayfinders — river routes, fog navigation, quiet logistics on The Dewmist River
• Cobbleknife Escorts — cheap, fast, sketchy, and strangely effective

How Hiring Works (Quick Notes)

• Deposits: Most reputable outfits ask 25–50% upfront (non-refundable if you ignore instructions).
• Scope: A “guide” usually means navigation + decision support, not doing the dungeon for you.
• Add-ons: Porters, extra guards, and paperwork handling are common upsells.
• Reputation: Teams who burn guides get quietly blacklisted across multiple services.

Typical Price Bands

Tier	Typical Rate	What You’re Buying
Low-end / sketchy	5–15 gp/day	Speed, rumors, shortcuts, risk you don’t see
Professional	25–75 gp/day	Reliability, safety habits, clean retreat plans
Elite	100–250 gp/day	High-level problem solving, prestige, limited availability

Complications (d6)

Roll when a party hires a guide, argues with a guide, or when a run “should be safe.”

1. Paperwork Snag: A permit/waiver is “missing” and someone suggests a fee to “find it.” (See Ink & Iron Registry.)
2. Rival Team: Another team hired the same guide for overlapping hours and refuses to yield.
3. Sponsor Demand: A sponsor requests a “hero moment” that increases risk, and the guide resents being directed.
4. Route Is Wrong: A map shows a passage that doesn’t exist, or an entrance that leads somewhere it shouldn’t. (See The Cartographer's Corner.)
5. The Fog Answers: Lantern codes or whistles get a response from the wrong direction. (See Dewmist Lantern Ferries.)
6. The Guide Knows You: The guide recognizes a PC from a past run (or a rumor) and adjusts their behavior accordingly.

Quick Hooks (d6)

1. A guide offers a discount if the party retrieves a lost signet/contract before morning.
2. A client the guide escorted yesterday never returned, but their gear did.
3. The guide insists on a detour to avoid “a corridor that remembers faces.”
4. A guide is being tailed—quietly—and wants the party to notice.
5. The party is asked to guide the guide: someone threatens their family unless they sabotage a run.
6. A “new guide” is too good. No one knows where they came from.