Taipii Farmers and Foragers Guild The Taipii Farming and Foragers Guild tasks itself with "feeding the Taipii".

Origin

The Farming and Foragers Guild was among the first guilds to be established by the Taipii shortly after their arrival on Antilia. Following the The Orliian Exodus and The Long Winter where the Taipii huddled inside Zul'Akei Pyramid the Tapii Gods guided the Taipii in the establishment of three guilds - the  Taipii Explorers Guild, the  Masons Guild, and the Farmers and Foragers Guild.

The guild was established with the task of finding new sources of food for the traditionally nomadic Taipii surrounding their new home on the Lantros Peninsula of Antilia. Ancient drawings and maps painted on the interior walls of the pyramid suggested that the region was once blanked with farms, and the Taipii took inspiration from the pyramid to follow a similar plan.

Several varieties of a grassy plant named  Sysal were discovered growing wild in the fields surrounding the pyramid, which the Taipii started growing. The Farming and Foraging Guild led the way in experimenting with farming techniques and establishing the first stable sources of large quantities of food on Antilia.

Ranks and Roles

Like most guilds members of the Farmers and Foragers Guild earn rank across one or more specialty roles in the guild.

Farmers

Farmers specialize in the agricultural growing of plants outside of their natural or wild habitat.

• Garden and Greenhouse Farming - Most new members joining the guild do not yet have access to large areas of land, and so their options are limited to simple indoor or outdoor planters. Early in their training members of this specialization will be trained on the basics of keeping their plants healthy. Many of the Taipii's most popular fruits and vegetables are farmed in this way.
  
• Field Farming - Guild members in ownership of a field tend to specialize in field farming. While the number of plants which can be grown this way are quite limited in comparison to garden farming, managing a large quantity of plants brings its own challenges.
  
• Mushroom Farming - Some farmers choose to specialize in mushroom farming, or pursue it as an extension of garden farming. Some edible species of mushroom grow quite well in the cool, dark cellars beneath some Taipii homes, and can thus be farmed.
  

Foragers

Foragers specialize in gathering food from wild plants. In some regions, such as near the Tangled Lands on the  Isle of Kasau, there are wild fields or forests which naturally provide a large quantity of food for the Taipii. The Farmers and Foragers Guild have been granted stewardship of numerous wild regions on Antilia by the Taiii gods, provided they organize and limit foraging activity to ensuring the natural resources remain plentiful.

The Foragers often end up in competition with other Taipii in these regions, which has frequently led to conflict. The Farmers and Foragers Guild have established rules by which Foragers associated with the guild are allowed to forage in the area, but have no way to enforce the rule on non-members.

Horticulturists

The horticulturists (needs a good Taipii name) specialize in the study of plants, their habitats, and how best to farm or forage them. Most horticulturists start in the guild as farmers, but take a particular interest exploring and documenting the care and cultivating of plants. The goal of the horticulturists is to expand the guild's knowledge of all plants and farming, and most significantly of all to add new plants and mushrooms to the list of plants the Taipii can farm.

Wranglers

For field farmers Jidou are essential to preparing fields and moving large quantities of food around. Guild Halls with a large number of surrounding fields including those in Lantros and Nayr have a role which specializes in teaching how to utilize Jidou effectively in farming. Smaller guilds will rely on a nearby chapter of the  Wranglers Guild to provide basic orientation training with the animals.

Relationships

The Explorers Guild

Maintaining an open relationship with the Explorers Guild was deemed essential in the early days of the guild, as the early explorers could bring back valuable information on newly discovered regions on Antilia and the new plants discovered there. Foragers and horticulturists would sometimes travel with the early explorers to find and collect samples of new plants suitable for food.

In recent times this relationship has cooled as exploration pushes beyond Antilia to the islands and outer rim of the Antilia Plane. A small group of horticulturists try to keep this relationship and the old agreements alive.

See Also:

Taipii Explorers Guild

The Taipii Explorers Guild (or possibly Historical or Archeologist Guild) is an adventurous guild which sets out to explore the world of Forra

The Chefs Guild

The Farming and Foragers Guild tries to maintain a good relationship with the  Chefs Guild, but the relationship is often strained by chefs who employ their own farmers or foragers to reduce their costs by cutting out the guild. This resulted in over-foraging of some resources and a compromise had to be reached between the two groups. The chefs guild agreed to forbid their members from wild foraging in some regions in exchange for the farmers guild being forbidden from establishing itself as the merchant between the chefs guild and individual farmers.

See Also:

Taipii Chefs Guild

The Taipii Chefs guild teaches safe cooking techniques and recipes, and is responsible for catering many Taipii festivals.

The Merchants Guild

As the Taipii expanded across Antilia and established new cities the inns and taverns of those new cities found it difficult to maintain a relationship with the farmers of Lantros. Demand for Sysal in the budding towns of Lynnar and Chalei created room for traveling merchants who would purchase large quantities of seeds and milled flour where they were abundant and deliver them via wagon to the inns and taverns in the new towns.

The traveling merchants would soon form a guild of their own, and the Farmers and Foragers guild was forced to establish and maintain an uneasy partnership with them.

See Also:

Taipii Merchants Guild

The Taipii Merchants guild specializes in trade and maintaining trade routes between Taipii cities and villages. The guild spends a lot of energy tracking and communicating the supply and demand of Taipii goods across Forra

The Tasiiama

The Farmers and Foragers Guild has a long history of conflict with the Tasiiama. The Taipii gods granted the Tasiiama special privilege to hunt and forage freely from the same wild lands which the Farmers and Foragers guild were granted stewardship. While the Farmers and Foragers guild has at times accused the Tasiiama of over harvesting the stewarded lands, the gods did not agree with that assessment and encouraged the guild to nurture a compromise with the Tasiiama.

See Also:

The Tasiiama

The Tasiiama Tribes are Taipii who continue the tradition of a nomadic lifestyle on Antilia. As nomads the Tasiiama value a simple life unburdened by the accumulation of possessions, and shun the use of magic.

Chapter Guild Halls

Lantros Guild Hall

The Lantros chapter is the oldest and largest of the Farmers and Foragers Guild halls. While the guild hall has limited accommodations for novice farmers in training it more than makes up for with numerous greenhouses and storage silos. The chapter is highly respected for its horticultural research, breakthroughs in farming techniques, and greatly expanding the number of plants the Taipii can farm.

In the main hall of the Lantros chapter the guild proudly displays what it claims to be the first jidou-drawn plow developed by the Taipii for farming, surrounded by with numerous other artifacts and inventions from the guild's long history.

Tasii Garden Guild Hall

The guild hall in  Tasii Garden holds stewardship over the Tangled Lands in the Northwest of the  Isle of Kasau. There are only a few farms in the region (mostly in neighboring  Wei Garden). However, the large and dangerous swamp is a source of several wild vegetables and the twisting Faykala Trees produce ample starchy Faykala Root.