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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galloglaich" data-source="post: 4618939" data-attributes="member: 77019">Back before DnD got kind of homogenized and Politically Correct and changed the Class name, the people in your party who were good at picking locks and stabbing enemies in the back weren't just generic specialist “DPS” strikers, they were called Thieves.  <img src="http://www.automotiveblogger.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/crime-car-thief.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Not just eccentric acrobats... Thieves like Conan was a thief, like Cugel the Clever was a thief. Like Fafhred and the Grey Mouser were thieves. Not just some alternative lifestyle “rogue” who has a pierced nose and can do cartwheels... but a genuinely shady character who stole things for a living that you had to keep your eye on. The Thief was one of the most versatile and interesting archetypes in fantasy literature.   The old DnD thief class was largely based on the criminal underworld of Elizabethan London. If you want to find out more about that, here is a good academic starting place: The Canting Crew: London's Criminal Underworld, 1550-1700 (Crime, law, & deviance series) [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Canting-Crew-Criminal-Underworld-1550-1700/dp/0813510228/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231361403&sr=8-2[/ame] Gary Gygax obviously had done a lot of historical research on the Thief and had even included their secret language or argot into the game: the Thieves Cant. The OE DnD actually had a pretty well developed Thief class, even if the rules were a little broken, and it’s a shame so much of that was stripped out. In fact I suspect I wasn’t the only person who felt that way because no other person than Gary Gygax himself wrote a somewhat flawed (especially the awful artwork) but still highly useful D20 Supplement on this very subject also called  The Canting Crew :[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Canting-Crew-Counter-Pack/dp/1931275084/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231453939&sr=8-1[/ame]..apparently inspired by the academic book of (nearly) the same name. It’s worth getting if you can find it, among other things it includes an entire dictionary of the Thieves Cant and several pages of cool little hobo marks, secret symbols which criminals, gypsies and hobos used historically to tell each other about places they were traveling to, where there were cops, where there easy marks, dangerous animals, free food, etc. etc. great flavor for your game. Plus some cool spells and an entire urban criminal hierarchy if you want to use that. Another real world Medieval criminal organization was the Garduna, a Spanish criminal guild which did a lot of dirty work for the Church in the 15th -16th Century, in fact they became kind of a murder incorporated for the Inquisition. They make a great archetype for an Assassins Guild for any RPG game. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garduna" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garduna</a> <a href="http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Secret-Societies/The-Garduna.html" target="_blank">The Garduna</a> The Spanish Garduna is also supposed to be the direct ancestor of the modern Neoplolitan Comorra (i.e. mafia) and came via the Spanish occupation, the Sicilian Mafia may go even further back, and has at least legendary origins in a resistance movement starting in the "Sicilian Vespers" incident in 1282 against a French King but may have also had some ties to Spain a well.  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camorra#Background" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camorra#Background</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Vespers" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Vespers</a> PiratesIn addition to Thieves Guilds and Assassins Guilds, Medieval Europe also had Pirates, and not just down on the Barbary Coast. One of the more colorful examples were the so called 'Victual Brothers', a semi-criminal Pirates "guild" who operated in the North Sea were they were the arch-nemesis of the Hanseatic League for a good while, depending on who you read they were like Robin Hood or like Attilla the Hun  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers</a>They were replaced by another outfit called the Likedeelers, their name again evocative of a robin hood image they were trying to establish. One persons pirate is another persons freedom fighter and visa versa, from what I've read about the Victual brothers they could have been seen as either depending on who was doing the talking.  This is common behavior of some (but by no means all) pirates bandits through the ages to ingratiate themselves with the local population so they can have a support base, (the same thing is going on in Somalia today in fact). Which does put them in that gray area to some degree especially when the people they are robbing aren't always the most pristine saintly types themselves. Their most famous leader was a remarkable fellow named Klaus Stortebeker, who though a genuine historical character could easily have walked right out of Warhammer FRPG. His name meant he can drink a four pint glass of beer in one gulp. <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Rekonstruierter_Schaedel.jpg/180px-Rekonstruierter_Schaedel.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Apparently this is what a real pirate looks like (storebekers face reconstructed from his skull) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_St%C3%B6rtebeker" target="_blank">Klaus Störtebeker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a>A statue of Stortebecker in Hamburg:<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Stoertebeker.jpg/450px-Stoertebeker.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Though many of the Victual Brothers were captured and Stortebekker was killed, this by no means put an end to the piracy in the North Sea. In the 15th Century their black banner was carried on by a truly remarkable Frisian Bandit named Grotte Peter or Grotte Pier (Great Peter or Long Peter) who is one of the guys from the OP “Dilbert in the Dungeon” list.<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Grutte_Pier_%28Pier_Gerlofs_Donia%29%2C_1622%2C_book_illustration.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Dapperheidgrotepier.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Gerlofs_Donia" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Gerlofs_Donia</a>  This guy made Jack Sparrow look like tweety bird, and rated a more impressive statue than Stortebeker. Among other things he sunk 28 ships and organized a peasant army to fight off the Holy Roman Empire for ten years.  So if you wanted a more realistic basis for your Thief or were ever wondering how a pirate could fit into a typical DnD Medieval fantasy world, now you have a few ideas you can work with… G.</blockquote>

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