Secret guild? Like the other one?

[Caged Maiden]

I sincerely hope not, because it's a major plot line in my WIP. Best wishes Aidan, I hope you find the happy balance that will make your secret guild loads of fun and wholly unique to your story.

[Hans]

In the real world, secret guilds aren't usually so secret. There's always an ex member who's posted their secrets, or a sleuth who's spied on them.

Always?
Rome and ancient Greece had lots of mystery cults which were completely lost after the advent of Christianity. Because, you know, what makes a mystery cult is that they keep their mystery a secret.
There were also well known mystery cults like the Dionysia or Eleusis. But still the mystery about these was never spilled.

So to the original question, secret guilds are perfect available for use. Just put some thought into it why they are secret and what their goals are. And what kind of secret they have. Might be religious or political or anything else.

[The Dark One]

If secret societies are no longer cool, then I'm screwed. My recently published book is all about those who are secretly pulling the strings. In fact it's a parody of the old paranoid belief that there really are such illuminati type organisations (with real as opposed to claimed powers), but the book is by no means just a comedy.

While people continue to intuit that there are things going on that they do not understand, then secret societies will continue to be cool.

[Devor]

Always?
Rome and ancient Greece had lots of mystery cults which were completely lost after the advent of Christianity. Because, you know, what makes a mystery cult is that they keep their mystery a secret.
There were also well known mystery cults like the Dionysia or Eleusis. But still the mystery about these was never spilled.

I think I'm going to stick with there always being an ex-member who spoils those secrets to someone, somewhere, but maybe not to any great effect if those secrets are never circulated or preserved.

But I was just trying to give an idea of how the trope could be used in a more original manner because it has become cliche - that is, it is overused to the point where mentioning a secret society brings to mind several poor or mediocre examples of its use elsewhere. I didn't actually try to say it was unbelievable.

[Aidan of the tavern]

Thanks guys, its great having you around .

I was thinking maybe of a martial guild that broke away long ago from the institutional military, and are now independant. They wouldn't be secret in the sense that no one has heard of them, but they would probably be hidden to avoid political diplomats trying to bring them back and what-not.

[Chilari]

That sounds a bit like Mithraism. Sorta. Mithraism was a religious cult which did tend to remain fairly secret. Quite a lot of worshippers were soldiers. We've found a lot of their temples, which were generally underground. They were all over the empire. There were elements of mystery to them, but everyone knew they existed, just didn't know their secret rituals and stuff.

[ScipioSmith]

Oh you mean in stories. I think as long as there are no secret password exchanges along the lines of "Does the eagle fly at midnight?" "He does not, for in the dark the eagle cannot see, but the silent owl watches over his dominion," or secret signs hidden in the decorative plasterwork or on the spines of books, you're fine.

I think Mithraists are a good example of secret passwords etc working actually. If you've read Bernard Cornwell's Arthur novels (and if you haven't, do so) there's a great scene where Lancelot is taking the pee out of protagonist Derfel, who says "Thrity times goes the black bull" or something like that, and when Lancelot goes WTF Derfel knows that he is not a Mithraist, and proceeds to beat the stuffing out of him.

Yes, it is easy to parody things like that, like in Guards, Guards; but when done appropriately awesomely they're as viable as anything else.

[R.S.Robertson]

I like secret societies!

Heck, both of my current WIPs have them to one extent or another.

In my epic it's more of a loose affiliation than a society and it's only secret because the "members" are considered enemies of the king (which they are), but they don't have meetings or anything. The "members" are called facilitators and, for a price (which is just as often some secret information as it is money), they can get you whatever you need whether it's getting from one place to another, getting into a place, a bit of intelligence or a weapon of some kind.

In my (projected) Mrs. Smith series, the secret society is something akin to a "Dark Masons" and is really, really secret despite being behind most of the bad stuff going on in Aurora, Arizona... but it's still pretty cliche and I did that completely on purpose because quite a bit of Mrs. Smith uses purposeful cliches right next to the reverse of a cliche.