Guild

A Guild (ギルド) is an organization which is a collection of individuals specializing in a particular field, gathering to advance their skills and the field in general.

Principles
Similar to lodges and salons, the term guild typically refers to a collection of craftsmen or intellectuals with a certain specialty.

On the underside of society, guilds can be gathering points for workers who cannot openly advertise their services, such as an illicit manufacturing guild (skills and services might include procuring materials, manufacturing, shipping products, sales etc) or an assassination guild (skills and services might be include procuring weapons, carrying out a kill, disposing of bodies, making alibis etc). In this case, to avoid detection, guild members are supposed to remain as inconspicuous as possible, using greetings, handshakes, cards or meeting places which only other members would recognize, with the guild's base being the biggest secret. Being nondescript is considered the most notable signature of this type of guild.

Guild is described as being a fairly common term for those steeped in the magic side, a magician's guild being similar to normal ones but focused on magic and with distinct differences from a magic cabal.

The Guild
"The Guild" (ギルド) (actual name currently unknown) is a guild of magicians based in Europe, dating from the time of ancient Greece.

Over the course of its history, the Guild has adapted to match the changing times in Europe and work within a Greek then a Roman then a Christian society. As the Greek age led into the Roman age, Greek lands and culture were absorbed by Rome, resulting in Rome's indigenous mythology being overwritten in the process. The Roman Empire oppressed early Christianity, but once it was accepted, Christians began oppressing all other regions. In order to survive and prosper, the Guild blended in with the masses, freely changing out their religion and culture to match the side which was currently winning, and joined in with them, regardless as to whether that side's actions were in the wrong.

According to Agnese Sanctis when considering their motivations, good and evil mean nothing to the Guild and they have nothing to protect, myths being mere tools to them, culture a battery and the world just a consumable product, and when one is too worn down to be of use, they will move on to the next one, acting when they believe the time has come. Seeing Christian society as having reached its limit, the present-day Guild sought to destroy it as they believed it was Christianity's time to go and it was time to them to move on, as they had done with Greece and Rome before.

The Guild had a base on the Greek island of, had members throughout Europe in a network maintained since antiquity, and was known enough in that "the Guild" would be sufficient for people there to know which group was meant. Given how the Guild managed to recruit Monica without being detected, Agnese deduced that they possessed a means of contacting Roman Catholics in secret. The Guild had a spell book containing records of its members, including wax tapes with individual voice samples (with idiosyncrasies that many magic cabals like to keep track of). It also made use of a for its encryptions.

Given its history, the group and many of its members used Greek, Roman and Christian elements in their magic and methods. During the attack on Thira, the Guild utilized the island's steep terrain with various traps, including barrels of hot oil and quick lime, volleys of arrows, and flash floods from an amphitheater repurposed into a dam. A sniper unit stationed in a watchtower, including an observer, archer and arrow supplier, utilized a bow and arrow, based on the weapon of, goddess of the moon and virgins, which fills those it hits with a deadly disease. Another weapon was an animated stone or metal lion, weighing approximately 200kg and possibly based on the.

The Guild's likely leader is Albert Dying, referred to by codename in the group's records (and the only one to be referred to in this way) as Tu. At the time of the attack on Thira, there were nearly 16,000 members scattered around the world.

Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese's Magic Side Work Experience
"The Guild" were responsible for enabling a number of magical incidents across Europe which Agnese Sanctis, Lucia and Angelene were involved in resolving. After discovering their existence through investigations in Zurich and Turin (in part due to encounter with a former acquaintance, Monica, who had since been recruited by the Guild and was spying on them), the nuns and other Anglicans attacked and seized the Guild's base on the Greek island of, obtaining records needed to hunt down its members across Europe and around the world, though the group's main force was still at large.

After some investigation into a destroyed statue on Thira, a series of museum thefts and the demise of a bloodline investigator, the nuns and the Anglicans were able to learn of Guild leader Tu's identity as Albert Dying and the Sickle of Saturn, but the Guild had already completed their preparations and shortly afterwards, Albert used the sickle in the heart of the Vatican, in order to bring about the destruction of Christian society. Although the sickle's influence immediately engulfed the Italian Peninsula and quickly began to spread through Europe, the Vatican's defenses blocked it from taking over the Vatican itself, leading Albert to attempt to kill the Pope to remove the core of these defenses. However before he could do so, he was confronted and defeated by Agnese, with help from Lucia and Angelene, who subsequently destroyed the sickle.

Coronzon Arc
While observing the final barrier of the England-Londinium Fortress, described as giving physical repulsive force to rules permeating the land and space, and using aspects of national or regional character which work to distance outsiders, Index reckoned that it probably originated with guild membership rules which forced members to protect the group's secrets.