Our values

What we are
made of.

Blood  ·  Hedonism  ·  Art  ·  Money

Four pillars. Spelled BHAM, because we like that it sounds like something hitting a table.

B

I.

Blood

Bound by ritual, not contract.

Our membership is not a roster. It is a rite. At the Bal Pourpre, in March of MMXXVI, we cut our hands and mixed our blood at midnight. Jeb received it, Nox and Coy received it, and the founding members carried what was left into the years to come.

We do not ask new members to bleed for the trial of it. We ask because there is no other measure that survives. We have been left by friends, by lovers, by guilds. We have left them in return. The vow that holds is the one written in something you cannot withdraw.

H

II.

Hedonism

We came for the wine and the song.

There is no shame in pleasure. We came to the field for the cup, the dance, the third round, the fourth. We came for the kind of night the morning cannot account for. We did not come to be useful.

Hedonism does not mean recklessness. It means we know what we are here for. Joy is the work, not the reward. The guild that forgets this becomes an obligation, and we have all left obligations.

A

III.

Art

We perform, we paint, we play.

Hector plays the flute. Eris reads the cards. Agg drums. Laird sells the impossible. Pin paints. Pike and Leif drill in the morning. Every member of the Dry Vine is making something — and we expect that of you.

We do not separate art from craft, or craft from war. The poem and the strike and the deal are the same gesture practiced in different rooms. We bring our instruments to the duel and our blades to the tavern.

M

IV.

Money

We do not pretend it does not matter.

Most guilds lie about money. They claim it is beneath them or beside the point. We have watched those guilds fail, dragged down by the silent resentment of the people carrying the costs.

We are honest. The trip costs what it costs. Leadership covers what it can. Members pay what they owe, on time, in clean numbers. Wealth is a thing the guild creates together — through what we earn at the field, what we sell, what we invest in each other.

The Dry Vine is not for everyone.
That is the point.