The Alchemists Guild was founded over two hundred years ago when kings were still obsessed with turning lead into gold. This worked until gold was the most abundant material and thus its worth was effectively zero. At its height, taverns were adorned in so much shiny metal that people were purposely going to wooden shacks that served mediocre ale to give their eyes a rest.

The use of Alchemy was soon an afterthought until its uses were discovered on the battlefield. Armies brought such monstrosities to fight that every kingdom fought to outdo the other. Luckily the special skill to produce the fiends was hard to reproduce and even harder to teach.