Succession

How the Guild continues without its Founding Guildmaster.

"The Guild exists with perpetual duration. Authority is horizontal, transferable, and distributed. No individual owns it. No lineage inherits it. No ideology captures it." — Living Book § Perpetuity

A nonprofit can be doctrinally immortal and operationally fragile at the same time. The Guild commits to perpetual duration; this document is the operational backing for that commitment.

What this protects

• Continuity if the Founding Guildmaster dies, becomes incapacitated, or steps down
• The Living Book as sole authority even when its first author is no longer present
• Member dignity, Rep capacity, and the Treasury through the transition
• Honest accounting — no surprise charges, no missed deadlines, no lost data

How it works (summary)

1. The Founding Guildmaster designates at least two Trustees — humans who hold emergency continuity authority that activates only on incapacity, death, voluntary stepdown, or 180-day disappearance.
2. A sealed continuity envelope holds the credentials and operational playbook required to keep the Guild running. Either physical (two notarized envelopes at separate locations) or cryptographic split (Shamir's Secret Sharing) so no single Trustee can act alone.
3. On activation, Trustees follow the First 30 Days playbook: confirm trigger, open envelope, rotate credentials, post public notice, convene available Guardians/Reps, draft the Living Book amendment recording the transition.
4. Within 90 days, a Continuity Ratification Vote per § Consensus Practices ratifies the Continuity Amendment: authority passes to the Guild's horizontal structure of Guardians and Representatives under Direct Democracy. Per the Living Book, no new Guildmaster is ever appointed.
5. Trustee authority expires at ratification. Trustees are temporary keyholders, not heirs.

What Trustees CANNOT do

• Amend the Living Book outside the formal § Amendments Process
• Liquidate the Perpetuity Vault (§ Asset Irreversibility — principal is never spent, full stop)
• Transfer Guild assets to themselves or entities they control
• Change the Mission, Core Values, or Motto (these are explicitly unamendable)
• Hold their role beyond ratification of the Continuity Amendment (there is no successor Guildmaster to appoint)

Current status

Drafted 2026-05-16. Currently awaiting Founding Guildmaster's Trustee designations and continuity envelope seal. Full text: docs/SUCCESSION.md (operator-facing; not for public display).

This page exists so any Member, Rep, future Trustee, or auditor can see that the commitment exists and what it commits to — without needing to read the protocol itself.