Introduction
And alas, our final interview for the month of March, and probably one of which I've been most interested in on a personal level. For the finale, I'd like to present Sanguis Deos, a heavy RP-PvP guild for Sith Purebloods. While there isn't much in terms of an RP catalog here, showing the story progress of RP guilds such as this (and there should be...new feature in progress?), I really look forward to see how their story unfolds!

Sanguis Deos
Hi Calithlin, we've found your guild on Star Wars: The Old Republic | COMMUNITY and have taken a keen interest in your guild. Let's get started with a few basic questions to formally recognize your guild, and then move to the more in-depth stuff.

Some of us prefer to be the good guy, while others prefer to be on the darker side of things. What alignment are you looking to present this guild as?
Well, as a guild that focuses on Sith Purebloods--whom have a natural connection to the dark side--we will defiantly encourage forays into the darker arts. We don't harp on it, however. The Force is a tool to aid the Empire and promote its children (the Purebloods). If a Sith manages to take a grayer path, so long as they work for the advancement of the Purebloods we have no qualms.

Why did you choose to be part of the Sith Empire?
My friends and I have been role playing as Sith since as long as I can remember. The founders of this guild and myself have always found the ancient Sith lore some of the most interesting content of the Star Wars mythos and we hope to unwravel how they advanced through this period as well.

When looking for a guild as a raw recruit, one of the things I personally look for is a guild that fits my needs in terms of play style. For example, I would prefer a guild that is flashpoint oriented, but also enjoys a lot of heavy PvP outside of scheduled raid times. How would you say your guild functions on a day to day basis in terms of this?
As a Roleplay-oriented guild we will spend most of our time developing our characters and speaking in-universe as we quest along to really put ourselves in the shoes of our characters. Without having played the game itself, I anticipate we will be engaging in PvP occasionally in the warzones for roleplay purposes mostly, settling disputes between us and other roleplaying guilds and/or setting up scenarios with Republic aligned guilds. As I said before, though, roleplaying will dominate our activities.

Some games I've played have had good RP elements, while other suffered in this department. Considering the spectacular back story and following that Star Wars has to offer, I can heavily anticipate a lot of role play servers and guilds out there. What is your guilds take on RP?
Not only will we take it on, but it will be the cornerstone of our activities. I am hopeful that we can properly integrate roleplay into every aspect of our gaming experience. From crafting to questing, I think this game has a lot of potential to foster a truly vibrant roleplaying community.

All types of organizations have to have some form of branding or just a place to...well...organize. Do you have a website that we can look at? Does this website have any function other than guild recruitment?
One of our former members and myself have been looking into web programming to get a really nice user interface in for a custom website for our guild, but due to shortages of time it is still in development. Thanks to the introduction of SWTOR's guild pages, however, we have something we can actually work with now. We're still adding threads to discuss what players will want with their roleplaying experience with the guild, but for now we've got details up and a place for players to introduce themselves. I want to be able to discuss what each of our members wants to see in the guild and get a great plan going so we can hit the ground running on launch day.

Some guilds I've seen have a rather militant structure in terms of their officers and members and how they correlate. What kind of structure does your guild have in effect? What are the terms of promotions?
The exact layout for our guild is a little too lengthy to describe here, but in general it is structured, tiered hierarchy. At the head is the guild's leader, followed by a high council, then a standard council. The leader confers with the high council, and the high council holds more weight within the standard council. Standard council members are each in charge of running specific advanced classes. From there it branches into ladders of ranks for each advanced class eventually all tracing back to 'recruit.'

I've seen restrictions when applying to guilds, and for the most part I agree with them. When looking for recruits, do you have any restrictions such as age, availability, other games played, etcetera?
Age isn’t really that important, as I have seen extremely mature 12 year old as well as impishly inappropriate 40-somethings. The important thing is that potential members must show an ability to roleplay properly and use proper English and good grammar, or at least try. Actual combat ability, MMO experience, et cetera are all secondary. Obviously those who make themselves more available in the guild will advance more quickly, but we are not so strict in that regard--roleplay should never be forced, otherwise you get terrible stories.

I would think that recruiting for a guild effectively in a game that isn't to be released for several months would be difficult. How have you been advertising for recruitment?
We haven't really. At least not until now. For a long time I wanted to wait until we had an awesome website available, but that doesn't seem like it will be ready too soon. Now that we have the SWTOR sponsored guild mini-sites to work with I felt now was a good time to 'go public' as it were. That's not to say we only have a couple members, not at all! We have over a dozen members who have committed to joining SWTOR and many others who may move from our older Second Life group.

Guild policies vary from guild to guild. Could you enlighten us with how strict you would say your guild is and what kind of policies you have in place?
A lot of this will have to do with our roleplaying methods, but in short quite strict. In-universe, our guild will be extremely zealous and fanatical, so our guild structure and policies reflect that. Most of what may get a member removed from the guild would likely occur in-roleplay and depend on their reactions to our group's core values in universe.
Out of universe, however, we're a community of friends. We can work issues out among members that arise because of real-world topics, but we would never abide harassment and repeated assaults on fellow members.

Here at JediTank.com, we encourage guild leaders to be as strong as they can be in terms of leadership skills and offer private forums for the leaders and officers of TOR guilds to be able to discuss interpersonal issues and bounce ideas. Is this the kind of thing you'd be interested in participating in?
I would be very interested in being able to contact other guilds to bounce ideas, as well especially to plan and negotiate roleplay scenarios as well!

Guild Recap
Name: Sanguis Deos
Members: 12+ (some undecided) (8 official signed up on SWTOR guild site here)
Alignment: Sith
Roleplay: Hardcore
PvP/PvE Orientation: Roleplay PvP
Website URL: Sanguis Deos | Star Wars: The Old Republic
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