Round Table Alliance

The Round Table Council (also called the Round Table Alliance) is a coalition of eleven guilds in Elder Tale and the governing body of Akiba.

After the events of volume 12, the Round Table Alliance was restructured as the New Round Table Council.

Overview
The Round Table Alliance was organized by Log Horizon's Guild Master, Shiroe, who wanted to change Akiba for the better. Eleven other guilds were invited to be a part of the Alliance; however, Silver Sword's William rejected the offer, decreasing the number by one.

The Alliance was designed to be the governing body of Akiba. Its ultimate role is to improve the city's vitality and security for the betterment of its citizens. Although originally met with mixed reviews, the Alliance proved to be a success, revitalizing the city by publicizing the knowledge of Real Food Preparation and Magical Engineering.

With Shiroe's purchase of the 'Guild Building' zone, law-breakers can be blacklisted from the zone, thereby disabling them from using their guild hall, bank, and warehouse. This would make living in the city nigh impossible and would force them to leave. Later, in order to ensure future security of the city, the Alliance purchased several other vital buildings within the city so that they would not fall into enemy hands. With that, the upkeep cost ran to up to ten million gold a month, which caused strain on all of the guilds in spite of the tax that had already been levied on Akiban citizens.

As a result, and to forge relations with the elusive Kunie clan, Shiroe formed the Abyssal Shaft Raid Party to obtain access to the Kunie's infinite gold supply, buying out all of Akiba's important structures and any unowned zones in Yamato, then returned all of the newly-purchase land back to the Kunie. With that, the Alliance no longer had to maintain their buildings, but nobody else could buy it either; nor could anyone buy a zone and misuse it—after all, Earthlings were unable to purchase zones, but could be controlled by it.

Purpose
The main purpose of the alliance is to improve the city's vitality and security. This was achieved through governance, regulation, taxation, collaboration, information management, innovation, and economy. In the first meeting, the alliance reached the consensus that: Not long after the first alliance conference, the Eastal League of Free Cities contacted the Round Table Alliance to attend an event at Ancient Palace of Eternal Ice. All alliance members agreed that there would be potential benefits to learn more about unknown elements in Elder Tale since currently there is no accessible quest unlike in the old Elder Tale. As a result, the purposes of the alliance was extended to address political issues between Akiba and the People of the Earth. Alliance members selected as representatives to contact Eastal League of Free Cities included Krusty, Michitaka, and Shiroe, accompanied by Takamiya Misa, Akatsuki, and Henrietta.
 * They are to disclose publicly that out-of-the-game innovations can be created by those with suitable subclasses and levels without using the in-game menu. This boosts innovations which subsequently increases consumption and business and decreases depression and laziness. The increased consumption of goods also leads to rising in demand and jobs across production and battle guilds who in turn need new items to complete their quest driving the economy.
 * They are to collect resources through taxation and job requests which will be used to investigate the Fairy Rings that can be used for exploring zones and mapping routes. When exploration has been completed, they will disseminate information through newspaper and other media channels.
 * They aim to boost cooperation and respect between the many competing guilds in the city in order to increase fair use of the cities resources.
 * Each guild should compromise with each other for grinding spots.
 * They ban PKing in low-level zones around Akiba, since it was agreed that it was pointless to fight players with levels under 50.
 * Each guild must respect human rights of players. Since death is not absolute for Adventurers, there must not be any confinement, kidnapping, and rape, as they are now seen as more serious crimes. Joining and leaving guilds must be a voluntary decision.
 * They aim to build good relationships with the People of the Earth and respect their human rights since the People of the Earth far outnumber the adventurers.
 * With the deactivation of the cities defenses and no kill zone the Round Table now ensures law and order are maintained through regular patrols

Initially, it was intended for the Round Table Alliance to be accepted into the Eastal League of Free Cities as the 25th Noble Family. However, due to conflicting political issues, the absence of the Knights of Izumo and the sudden appearance of the goblin hordes with the Return of the Goblin King event, the nobility began making selfish demands for Adventurers to fight off the threats, without being officially recognized. This in turn would have caused further friction and perhaps even dashing all hopes of a relationship between the two sides, had Princess Rayneshia not interceded and plead with the Adventurers to fight off the goblins. The Round Table Alliance formed an expeditionary force made up of volunteer Adventurers to battle the invading Goblin hordes.

After the incident, Serjiad Corwen decided not to offer the Round Table Alliance membership into the League. After seeing the power of the Adventurers and their ideals of freedom and individuality, he had come to the conclusion that the Round Table Alliance is the equal to the entire League, despite of it being composed of just one city. In the end, the two sides agreed to a non-aggression pact and free-trade agreement. This agreement raised alarm in Westelande, whose Adventurer-Earthling relationship was vastly different from Eastal and Akiba's.

Members
The Round Table Alliance was originally designed to have twelve members, but since Silver Sword declined to join, the number decreased to eleven. One of the criteria for being chosen as a member of the Alliance was the number of members of the guild.

By inviting four major battle guilds and three major production guilds, over two-fifths of Akiba's population was been represented. To compensate for the remaining three-fifths, three other guilds were chosen as representatives of the small guilds. As its organizer, Log Horizon also naturally had a seat in the Alliance despite its paltry four-member showing at the time of the Conference.