DuneMUD is populated with ten guilds, each possessing different powers, have various advantages and downsides. The following list can help you choose the guild you will join. Note that you can leave most of the guilds if you feel their playing style does not fit your view of the world. House Atreides: Noble warriors that come from the watery planet Caladan. They have a variety of Gskills including powerwords, righteous fury and more. Their guild armour is the shieldbelt which protects their entire body, and is quite a formidable armour indeed. It can be used to reflect attacks, or even stun one's opponent. Being an Atreides warrior you become part of a large army and have an entire fleet to assist you. Fremen: They are the masters of the desert and live on the desert planet Arrakis, the home of the spice Melange. They can ride the gigantic Sandworms, and their guild weapon is the crysknife, made from the tooth of ShaiHulud (a sandworm), probably the strongest guild weapon in the MUD. Fremen are built for fighting in groups, and not alone. The more Fremen fight together the higher their Tau (by Fremen definition the unity of the Fremen community) becomes. Fremen are quite powerful, trained in the Weirding Ways taught to them by their Atreides allies. They possess the power to become extremely offensive or defensive in their fighting at will, which allows them to often end a fight with a powerful opponent in one round of combat, or remain in combat for hundreds of rounds without hardly taking damage, wearing their opponents down. They also have many interesting guild skills, and are probably the most newbiefriendly guild there is, competing for that status with Atreides only. Bene Gesserit: Those are mysterious witches who come from the forest planet Wallach IX. Like the Fish Speakers, they are a female only guild and the only male who can join is the Kwisatz Haderach, "shortening of the way", the one who can be in many places at once. They can become rather powerful fighters, but are also welltrained mentally. They can share their supreme knowledge and mental training with players from other guilds by giving them Prana or Bindu trains, more commonly known as Ptrains and Btrains. A Ptrain gives a temporary boost to your strength and dexterity, while a Btrain gives a temporary boost to your wisdom and intelligence. Fish speakers: They are the army of the God Emperor Leto Atreides II, ruler of the known universe. They are a guild of ferocious females, known to enjoy the feeling of crushing an opponent with their bare hands, often covered with claws. They have been rumored to do awful and gruesome things to the corpses of their enemies, and truly enjoy the rush of battle. They have four Subguilds: Medics, Priests, Scouts and Warriors. One of the special things about the guild is that there is no limit to the Fish Speakers' ability to improve a skill, so they can continue training it forever. Sardaukar: To join Sardaukar you have to be over level 25, be a male, powerful, and have plenty of spare solaris. However, once you get accepted to the guild you will be one of the strongest players and have unbelievable gskills. One of the "perks" in being a Sardaukar, is that starting from a certain guild level, one must always remain a playerkiller, but their power usually more than covers for that. Bene Tleilax: They are a secretive guild, and not much is known about them. They come from the planet Tleilax and are mostly assassins, disguise masters and genetic scientists. They can hide themselves, or even take the form of another creature at will. To join the Bene Tleilax, a recruiter must accept you and then you must go through a hard period of training to get into the actual guild. Harkonnen: The Harkonnen shock troopers are the main stay of the Harkonnen army. The sheer rage and devastation they wreak on the battlefield puts fear into the hearts of any enemy; the shock troopers are by no means cannon fodder. With legendary battlerage and survival skills, they can conquer anything. Bene Gesserit Army: The Bene Gesserit Warriors are among the most brave and honorable forces in the known universe. As a member of this elite group, you possess many powers others can but dream of. You control thought processes beyond those of the greatest Tleilaxu thinker. Beyond that, your sheer muscle strength and control creates a fighting machine unparalleled by any other. The Ixian Machine Guild: The Ixian Machine Guild (IMG) was established shortly after the Butlerian Jihad had ended. First it was a secret organization comprised of a few master builder humans who wanted to see a true thinking machine and the old tech robots who inherited the old technology from before the great scattering. The result: a new living machine. A combination of the ultimate in artificial intelligence and human brain imprinting technology. Dermal plating, enhanced reflexes, thermographic optics implants and much more. Be warned that joining this guild may lead to being an outcast among the weak fleshlings; but as always the Machines will wage war against them and show them the true way. Honored Matres: The Honored Matres are an army of savage female warriors, formed by Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserits in the Scattering. They embody the best of both, their viciousness matched only by the most ferocious of Fish Speakers, their control over their bodies surpassed only by the most skilled of Reverend Mothers. They are known for their nearly supernatural speed and reflexes, and their superior physical, as well as mental conditioning. They are masters of martial arts, some Matres specializing in charging their opponents headon, and some more skilled at using their enemies' power against them. Finally, in addition to their combat prowess the Honored Matres possess unique skills of manipulation and seduction, the likes of which even the Bene Gesserits can barely comprehend.