Some loose ideas:
1. Skills.
Definitely need more of them, here are some suggestions with explanations:
climb - have you ever seen how tall the masts on the ships are? And how hard it is to climb the rigging?
Apparently anyone can do that...
acrobat - same reason as above, but this time try doing this in the open sea, when everything is wobbling...
Adding this skills to superior journeyman level wouldn't cost much tax and would immediately improve the guild.
2. Special features (you know, like stuff that can actually be used outside of Bloodsea).
I believe that people who reach the highest rank in Mariners (Sea Captain of Genesis or something like that) should be rewarded with the following:
a) The ship captains in the Realms recognize you as their comerade and let you ride for free (note however, that only you would be able to get the free ship rides, not your teammates or animals).
b) You can now build your own ship (there's a shipwright in Kabal) which would be a form of end-game activity for people who have too much time and money on their hands. You could build a wide variety of ships, from a simple longboat to a freaking 1st Rate Ship of the Line.
Some features of this "crafting quest":
- ships can be built in parts (so you don't need to gather all the materials at once)
- parts take months (in real time) to complete (depending on the ship type and materials used)
- you need to gather various materials (different types of wood for decks and masts, stones for ballast, different metals for metal parts - including silver and gold if you want some extravagant stuff, gems to adorn the statue etc.) which Wizards would conveniently hide all other the world. You would of course have to gather this materials in gazillions.
- you need to pay the shipwright's fee
What you get for it?
- your very own, unique ship with the unique name, which you can sail to various parts of the world
- perhaps you could even rent a pier in Sparkle or somewhere else, where you could keep your ship and sail it to other parts, not relying on the pre-set ShipLines
- the ship could also act as your private guildhall, for which you could additionally construct (money and materials, remember?) cargo holds to store your equipment, luxurious bedroom to sleep (seduce) in or other things that might come to your mind. Hell, maybe you could even hire some crew to guard your things while you sleep and make your ship travel faster? (I think that for larger ships, you would be forced to hire the crew in order to even leave port with it)
Any comments on the above ideas? Any more ideas?
I dont think Craft guilds should have that much more than they currently do. I think mariners give as much as the others more or less... You get access to a whole area with some quests and equipment after all. Thats not so bad?