Thieves' Guild

[Cheiromancer]

A couple of the characters in my campaign are looking to re-establish a thieves' guild that was wiped out by wererats and a nasty sorceress and her followers. Any resources for fleshing such things out?

 

[Crothian]

Second edition Den of Thieves is one of te best Thieves Guild resources I've ever read

 

[drnuncheon]

Quintessential Rogue by Mike Mearls has some decent guild-running rules. I've used them in my Freeport game and they seem to work well.

J

 

[widderslainte]

Are there any historical precedents for thieves' guilds? Where did the idea originate? Going back to "the source" may provide some different ideas than the evolutionaty rehash of game supplements.

 

[grodog]

A couple of the characters in my campaign are looking to re-establish a thieves' guild that was wiped out by wererats and a nasty sorceress and her followers. Any resources for fleshing such things out?

Cheiromancer, if you're looking for some good fiction to give you a sense of thieves, check out Michael Crichton's "The Great Train Robbery" which was quite excellent. It'll have you speaking cant in no time For more fantasty-oriented serieses to check out, read Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar short stories (in particular the story "Thieves' House") and the first five Thieves World novels, set in Sanctuary.

Within the gaming realm, I'm quite partial to Gamelords' "Thieves Guild" series of books (published 1980-85 or so), as well as the various materials on thieves from TSR's Lankhmar books (the main 1e or 2e Lankhmar City of Adventure book, as well as module LNA1 Thieves of Lankhmar, written by the still-missed Nigel Findley). Thieves' World from Chaosium was an excellent box set set in Sanctuary, while City Book III Deadly Nightside was good too.

 

[shilsen]

For a very idiosyncratic take on a Thieves Guild, check out Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series.

Here are a few salient aspects: Not only does everyone in the city of Ankh-Morpork know where the Thieves Guild is, the leader of the guild serves on the council of guildmasters. The reason it is tolerated is because they guild thieves keep non-guild thieving down more efficiently than a police force ever could. They even sell licenses to people for a small fee, giving them immunity to being robbed for the period of time they pay for. Individuals who are robbed or mugged are provided with a card to show that they've already been robbed that month.

The Assassin's Guild is incredibly well-done too.

 

[Wraith Form]

Second edition Den of Thieves is one of te best Thieves Guild resources I've ever read

Yep. I support this statement 100%. Written by "Uncle" Wes Nichols. Even the art is evocative and inspiring..!

Mongoose's Quint. Rogue (or Rouge, to get it over with quickly) as mentioned is good, as is Traps & Treachery 1 & 2 and Path of Shadow, both by Fantasy Flight Games. (Traps & Treachery 1 has a guild break-down according to the "occupations" needed in a standard, medium to large sized city.)

 

[Tonguez]

Oliver Twist has a pretty good 'theives guild' set up implied in the relationship between Fagan and Bill Sykes which is probably a more accurate depiction of early thieves guild operate. Of course if you want to get big time then you have the historic 'Mafia' and/or 'Yakuza' precedents

 

[jester47]

To answer Widderslainte's question:

There is a great article here on the D&D/Fantasy Thief at rpg.net. I have not finished reading it yet, but I am just about to get to the art where the author talks about where the idea of the thieves guild comes from.

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/archetypology13jul01.html

Aaron.

 

[Greyhawk_DM]

A couple of the characters in my campaign are looking to re-establish a thieves' guild that was wiped out by wererats and a nasty sorceress and her followers. Any resources for fleshing such things out?

Thieves World back in the 80's...Awesome series.

http://www.geocities.com/jillari1/menu.htm