Need help with a cool Thieves Guild

[jasper]

before my game ended. My local guild had 2 factions. the head had died of old age and the 2 sides were having a turf war. One side was all halflings, the other mixed races. Meeting places were the moneychanger (own and operated by one member), a bar who silent partners were the guild, an inn own by a retired palading used mainly as message drop, and high scale restuarant.
The guild was refereed to in public as a home shopping network/club.
In one of my old judges guild cities, the guilds used a special hand wave blessing to id members. It was one of the local gods but members would stick out their thumbs at the end of gesture where regular followers would keep the thumb tucked in.

 

[Mallus]

I entertained myself --and possibly my players-- to no end with three color-coded thieves guilds competing for the same territory in my previous 3e campaign.

The first was the Room Rouge Players. Their shtick was they were also actors, and their guild HQ doubled as a dinner theater venue in a rapidly-gentrifying section of their city. They were led by a dapper, flamboyant killer named Jack Fancy, Esq.

The second was the Yellow Lotus Association, who operated a quasi-legal import/export business down on the docks. They were your typical ethnic immigrant mafia, except they came from a volcanic island they worshiped as a god until it exploded, instead of, say, Italy, and were this comical Hawaiian/Viking hybrid instead of Italian.

The last called themselves Troupe Blue d'Homme. They were led by a kind, motherly woman who knew a bit of magic named Midnight and a hulking bruiser called Fleur de Mais. They were mainly just an excuse for me to make puns, some of which were in pidgin French.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

You could try the Family of the First Sun from my Iron DM adventure Hell's Close.

They're an Aztec-themed mafia of cloud giants trapped in an extradimensional world.

 

[Firebeetle]

I have a thieves guild called the "Red Hoods", designed for a thief PC so he could explore the structure as he progressed/infiltrated the organization. They are incredibly secretive, operating in cells so if part if uncovered the rest are not. There are multiple levels to the hierarchy, with low level cells of thugs, muggers, and highway bandits. Higher levels had more specialized talents and bigger responsibilities. The cells never see each other's faces, as they always wear red hoods if they cooperate.

The handlers of the guild are monstrous, although they conceal this from the lower-level cells. The leader is a medusa. I use 0one's medusa lair for her map. There is no central guild location, individual cells have their individual locations.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Another good reference is the Fahfard and Gray Mouser series by Fritz Lieber.
It's where Gary got his original ideas for a guild of thieves. Not much for set-up, but great ideas for traps, tricks, ploys and characters. I also second almost every book mentioned before. Den of Thieves is still on my DMs shelf and used as much as any up-to-date book, The Canting Crew gives Gary's always insightful eye on the subject, The Complete Thieves' Handbook as well as Song and Silence , The Complete Adventurer and The Complete Scoundrel all have some good information. Ptolus is great and there are so many Dragon articles that relate to thieves' guilds it boggles the mind.

It's out there, just look for it.

 

[Herobizkit]

How about having a Thieves' Guild in the air?

Sky Pirates ftw.
Or qv Setzer's airship design circa Final Fantasy 6/3. It's a flying casino/hotel.

'Nuff said.

 

[CuRoi]

You can't have just one, cause they're always going to have competition...

Anyway, I recently went with a very "traditional" Thieve's Guild - Wererats. Yeah, I know, overdone. But it just fit the feel at the moment (they were at war with a different Thieve's guild run by a very slippery little kobold that was sort of like the "yoda" of rogue's, heh.)

At any rate, the wererat gang was separated into different groups, each with it's own leadership and all organized under one ruthless "boss". Each group had different functions for the clan as a whole and members were tattooed with unique markings as per their role with the gang.

The Empty Purse (Pick Pockets - a cutpurse emptying into a fat rat's mouth)
The Plague (Extortion - black rat with hapless humanoid by the err...privates)
Tunnel Rats (Burglary - rat dragging goods into a hole)
"Cheese" Brokers (Illicit Drugs - rat reclining with large water pipe in front)
The Swarm (Eyes and ears - street scene with hidden rats)
Bodyguards generally had a tatt of a Muscled rat with a severed cat's head in its mouth

Not every member was a wererat. In fact, most weren't, however some aspired to be wererats and the leadership was made exclusively of the creatures.

They would generally attack only if they had superior numbers, utilized swarms and hordes of rats readily available in the sewers as fodder (through spells and other abilities), and were generally ruthless and highly territorial.

General combat methods included lots of mobility (spring attack and the like) and use of their hybrid forms where in the sewers they could use their Climb speed to attack from nearly any angle. A swarm of these guys charging down a narrow sewer tunnel along every available plane (top, bottom, sides) was generally unsettling for the players.

The main leader was a rogue / sorcerer who was fond of fear spells, summoning swarms of rats, and paralyzing his foes while feeding them to said swarm of rats (this was inspired by an actual mafia hit man who seriously did that to people with paralytic drugs and a video camera to record the event - yeah the above note about looking into real world stuff is spot on...and more creepy than DnD ever thought to be...) All of his spells centered not so much around damage but just messing with his opponents ability to well, do anything (fear, blindness, paralyzation, etc.) .

One of their bases was an abandonded elven monastery on a hill in the poorer part of town. The rapidly expanding city and the subsequent attempts to create a sanitation system for the growing population had led to an enormous sinkhole near the monastery (which of course fed into the sewers.) The site had thus been abandoned (well, and the "foreigners" were all sort of forced into one Ward of the city as well...long story). The bell tower of the monastery and the fact it was siutated on a hill, gave for a great lookout post for the Rats.

They had a "pet" monstrous centipede in the basement which they kept at bay with "food". The monastery itself was largely run down and they held busines meetings in the "Chapel" area. A well in the courtyard provided yet another access to the subteranean world.

I don't have any of the notes and such in front of me and my lower powered games might not provide you with the type of stats you are looking for, so they might be of limited use. For the monastery base I mentioned I used a modified version of this map:
Medieval Monastery Map

Hope that gets your creative ideas flowing!

 

[Hungry Like The Wolf]

I don't know what sort of game you like to run but I enjoy tough decisions. You could have the guild's membership exclusive to children or at least pre-teens. Urchins who have either banded together in desperation to rise in fame, brutality and effectiveness (nobody wants to get rid of the opposition when the opposition are children) or you could have them be mooks of a manipulative old man/woman like in Oliver Twist.

The players can't simply just kick down the door and start killing their way up the chain of command, well they could but at what cost...

You could stat them by modifying the Gnome template. Gnomes and children are similar enough if you take away their racial abilities.

Anyway, just a thought.