The Guardians were a secretive group that served an important role in the Questing Clan of RuneScape's recruitment process: They determined who was allowed to enter the Clan, and who wasn't. They were considered to be the "Gatekeepers", as though it was the responsibility of the Razzers and the Low Council to manage recruitment, the Guardians ultimately determined who was the best fit for the community. Every member who posted an application to the Clan was then evaluated by the Guardians for the next few weeks before they rendered a decision.

Selection Criteria

Any full member of the Clan was elegible to be added to the Guarians, but their specific identities were a closely kept secret. No one was allowed to reveal any information about the members of the group, or they would face immediate removal from Clan Quest. Their identities couldn't event be hinted at. Their secrecy was of utmost importance to the way the Guardians functioned, as they were meant to be akin to "spies". The reasoning behind that policy was that someone could act differently in the presece of Clan leaders, but with the Guardians secrecy they could better determine if someone was a good fit for the Clan without the risk of them putting a false face. There was no application process for the Guardians; their membership was determined exclusively by the High Council, who would reach out to whoever they felt was a good fit for the role. If any member stood out as an extraordinary and trustworthy individual, he or she could be considered to join the Guardians.

History of the Guardians

When the clan was initially formed there was a relatively simple recruitment process. A lot of members were brought over from the "Quest Helpers Clan", which Draziw had previously co-founded then disbanded, and then a push was made to bring in brand new members through an application process on the RuneScape official forums. While this worked for some time, it eventually became clear that under this sytem troublemakers could easily gain access to the Clan, and fighting and drama became fairly common. The Low Council, or "Captains" as they were called at that time, were able to handle situations on a case by case basis, but the conversation on how to better deal with the problems in the chat was had by many.

Only July 14, 2010 an argument broke out between the member CupOfChips and High Councilor ChadMcBadd, which ultimately resulted in the latter kicking the former from the Clan chat. While the legitimacy of the fight or the kick came into question, this fight is what convinced the leadership that they needed to take action on the growing problem of Clan chat arguments and problematic members joining. On August 1, 2010, a "State of the Union" ingame meeting was held to discuss/announce the changes being made to address this problem. It was at this point that the Clan's Honor Council was formed to serve as unbiased mediators between clan members and officers, but this was also when the Guardians were created. The Honor Council would handle disputes between members, while the Guardians would evaluate new members and determine whether or not they were a good fit for the clan. If they determined a member was not, that member would be removed.

As a secretive group, much of their actions for the following year were shrouded in secrecy. It is known that they would meet ingame to discuss their decisions, but none of this was recorded or made available to the public. This continued for a year until August 4, 2011, when the group was suddenly disbanded and all of its members were removed from the group. After that the group was silent for a while, until November 9, 2011, when it was reimplemented with a brand new group of members. While its roster would shift and change over time, the Guardians weren't really spoken of for the next few years. Everyone knew they existed, but they just went about their duty and there was no real issue.

This continued until February, 2014, when a new recruitment system was implemented. The need for sponsors to join the clan was removed, as were the Guardians. As a whole, recruitment was made easier, and the clan had largely grown enough, both in membership and leadership, to handle most any incidents that might occur with new members. The Guardians remained nothing more than a piece of the clans history until January 20, 2016, when the prior removal of sponsors and the Guardians was reversed. A 1-sponsor system was implemented, as opposed to the previous 3-sponsor system, and the Guardians were reformed and put back into active duty with a brand new roster. The new Guardians continues to actively operate until March 12, 2018, when the new Constitution was ratified, at which point the group was disbanded.