Need help with a cool Thieves Guild

[Sir Robilar]

I´m looking for a Thieves Guild to put into my campaign, be it from an adventure, a setting book, someones homebrew notes, whatever.

The members should have some kinda special shtick that lifts them from being ordinary thieves. Also great would be a map of the stronghold of the theives (guild house? underground complex?).

Our system is Pathfinder, but I don´t mind converting. Would be thankful for any recommendations!

 

[Coldwyn]

You could always use the sicilian mafia as a thieves guild. At the core, a patriarch in charge of a real family, around the extended family members, then the assorted cronies and dirtbags. Add in the ties to the local magistrates and wizards guild, add some legal businesses and avoid it being over the top or cliche.

I think a thieves guild is at its scariest when players recognize it for what it is but seemingly lack the power to do anything against it.

 

[Crothian]

2e D&D had a great product called Den of Thieves that mapped out a Thieves Guild very well. There is also the Canting Crew a 3pp in the 3e era that was also well done.

 

[Gilladian]

Ptolus also has some great TG stuff. If you can get hold of the "big book" it is GREAT, but otherwise you can still buy some or all of the chapters as pdfs.

They have maps of a guild headquarters, etc... in chapter 20 (the undercity).

 

[Barastrondo]

You could always use the sicilian mafia as a thieves guild. At the core, a patriarch in charge of a real family, around the extended family members, then the assorted cronies and dirtbags. Add in the ties to the local magistrates and wizards guild, add some legal businesses and avoid it being over the top or cliche.

I think a thieves guild is at its scariest when players recognize it for what it is but seemingly lack the power to do anything against it.

To take this one step further, you could also base them on something like the yakuza. Throw in some colorful rituals that are really out of what you expect of a "thieves' guild"; think about how tattoos and self-mutilation make the yakuza pop in peoples' minds, and then devise something similar for your group.

Or devise odd methodology: do they have necromancers in the guild? They might have a racket of stealing bodies so that the necromancers can interrogate the corpses about buried wealth or secrets that could be used to blackmail the living.

And of course, "led by a monster" is a fun shtick. Sure, there's the polymorphed dragon. Or the rakshasa. Or the incubus. Or the vampire. How would that influence the rest of the guild?

 

[shadzar]

Where is this guild to be located? City, small town, outside of a town, a forest, on the riverway, under a bridge, in the sewet?

 

[Rel]

My mind is probably in the gutter (as usual) but what about a thieves guild based on the brothels of the city?

The whores could act as an information gathering network allowing for them to set up all kinds of blackmail situations for the city's powerful elite. Furthermore they could gather information about when a patron might be away from home such that an elite team of cat-burglars (dressed in skin-tight leather of course) could break in and steal valuables.

In fact there are all kinds of specific situations that they could engineer based on this concept. They could arrange to meet a patron at a "discreet location" such that they know how long they can be kept away from home, giving the burglar team a window of opportunity. They could arrange for a wife to discover about a husband's infidelity and then have him approached by a jewel merchant who could offer a trinket, suggesting that this might help make amends. The jeweler is of course another part of the thieves guild who sells the jewelry knowing that within a few days the burglars will steal it back.

I did something along these lines in Eberron where the Changeling whores just added layer upon layer of deviousness to their machinations. But I think it could work in almost any setting.

 

[Reynard]

I always had luck with the hlafling-thieves-guild-really-were-rats.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There is an excellent discussion of the topic in the 2e Complete Thief's Handbook, which will certainly help sort out ideas if you have access to it.

EDIT: Over 30 pages thereof, actually. As much space as is given to combat in the Fighter's book!

RC

 

[RangerWickett]

E.N. Publishing released Faction Folio: The Labyrinth back in 3.5. It's a thieves' guild with access to an extradimensional maze that helps them evade police capture.

Faction Folio 1: The Labyrinth - EN Publishing | RPGNow.com