The Big Book of Thieves

==Introduction==
The world of the thief is a world of darkness and stealth, hidden from the eyes of respectable folk, yet often under the scrutiny of the zealous enforcers of the law. It is a world of courage and fear, of bravado and cowardice, of violence and treachery.
Yet it is also a world of colour and laughter, lively parties and bustling markets. The thief, more than any other character class, practices his arts among his fellow men (or orcs or elves or whatever). He seeks the gatherings of population, the confluence of wealth and avarice, where treasures are there for the taking.
To be sure, many a thief has proven his worth time and again in the darkest reaches of a forgotten dungeon, among the snowy peaks of the bleakest of wild vistas, or within the halls of a fortress or military camp. Quests into the wild contain as much appeal for the thief as they do for other characters. In fact, should the prospect of treasure appear significant enough, many a thief will lead the way in encouraging his companions to embark on such a mission.
But when the adventurers return to the sheltering walls of their homes, wherever these may be rejoin the population, the thief is best equipped to find adventure there. And when such adventure is discovered, it is thiefly skills that are most often called into play.
===The purpose of this guide===
This guide provides information of use to players of thief characters and to hosts running events including thieves.
None of the information here changes any existing rule. Instead, the idea is to amplify and detail those rules for players who are interested in playing thief characters. Indeed, it is possible and in fact quite easy to play a thief character without the information herein.
However, the player who wishes to develop his player character thief in a unique fashion, or who seeks aid in deepening and broadening the character's personality, goals and motivations, might find helpful suggestions and ideas in here.
===Why thief?===
Even though the game uses the term “rogue”, this guide insists upon calling the class, as a whole, “thief”. The reason for this is simple: as will be explained in a later chapter, rogues are only a subset of thieves. A very distinct and rather unique subset; every rogue is a thief, but not every thief is a rogue.
==Starting the character==
Thieves are perhaps the most fascinating and diverse class of characters in RP - or at least they can be, if played properly.
The thief has a certain innate, charming flair, they are people who feel that the world (and everyone in it) somehow owes them a living. They get by day by day, living in the highest style they can afford and doing as little work as possible.
This is an accurate description of many thieves, but not all; and there are many exceptions. You will find that the character – that is, the personality – of your thief character will be very important, vital to making the thief a living, breathing person. It makes them more fun to play, too.
Personality, then, is the topic of this chapter. It comes before the chapters of information on thief types, abilities and so forth, because I believe that when you are designing a thief character, perhaps even more so than with other classes, personality considerations should come first. Who is this character? Where is he from? Why is he a thief - has he stolen bread crumbs all his life just to survive, or is he an idle fop who moonlights as a burglar just for thrills?
After asking yourself such questions and answering them, you will then be better able to proceed into the technical details. Your character will exist in your mind and the task will then be just a matter of translating that vision into working terms.
There are three basic things to consider when putting together your thief's background and personality: origin, social background and motivations
===Origin===
Where is the character from? This will have an effect on what sorts of skills the thief may have picked up. City, countryside and wilderness are all possible origins; or the thief may have been a wanderer all of his life.
City: Any place where people gather in large numbers, there will be those who live off the sweat and toil of others. Besides politicians, thieves are often among this group. A city background will open many possibilities of specialization for your thief. Because a city is a complicated web of many people, each person tends to have more specialized functions. This is true for thieves as well as normal, respectable citizens.
Note that thieves in cities, especially those who have very specialized skills and abilities, are most likely connected with a thieves’ guild; or, if they are not, they will surely run afoul of one sooner or later. If your thief hails from an urban centre, be sure to figure out what his relationship to the local thieves’ guild (or, in some places, guilds) is.
Countryside: A few thieves are able to make a living in a single populated, rural area. They tend to be quite different from their city-dwelling cousins – pickpocketing, for instance, is probably not going to be practised much without the shelter and anonymity of the urban crowds. Extortion, banditry, burglary and various similar thefts are more typical means of making a living from the peasants and their rulers in the countryside. Fences also may work the countryside, selling wares that may have been stolen in distant cities.
Thieves’ guilds often have an active hand in populated rural regions, though it is not as firm as in the cities.
Wilderness: Thieves are, by definition, those who garner their living from others, so few are to be found making their permanent abode in the wilderness, far from human settlement. Those who do are usually bandits, with a stronghold set up somewhere secure, from which they can make raids on nearby settlements or trade routes.
In Azeroth, there are also innumerable possibilities for thieves who survive by taking liberties in their relationships with the local non-humans.While few thieves’ guilds would claim any wilderness as ”territory,” thieves from these regions are typically affiliated with one or another organized band of miscreants. These bandit groups don’t have the organization or sophistication of the urban guilds, but they are still formidable and their rivalries may run as deep as any among the big city guilds.
Wandering: Finally, some thieves have never called any place ”home.” They travel town and village, city and wilderness, wherever they think fortune might grant them better opportunities.Charlatans, those who make their living by duping others with all sorts of fraud, are often wanderers: They will stay in one place as long as there’s money to be made, but they hope to be long gone, preying on others’ gullibility, before their scams are uncovered.
===Social Background===
After you have chosen a setting for your character, you should decide his social background.At the start this need only be done in a general way: select a poor (or unknown), middle, wealthy or noble class background. This background will have important effects on what resources are available to the character. Also be sure to consider how it relates to the thief‘s motivation (below).
Poor/unknown: Most thieves are from a poor background. Most people would just as well make an honest living, if they can. For some in the lower classes, however, there is simply no such opportunity and so crime becomes a means of survival. The vast majority of such criminals spend their lives as petty thieves, picking pockets, mugging people foolish enough to walk the streets at night alone, perhaps even planning and executing a burglary.
These poverty-born thieves form the backbone of most thieves' guilds. The guild regulates their activities as well as it can and uses it as a pool, from which are drawn the most talented and promising.
Because skill and cunning are the ultimate determining factors, many a famous thief - whether in esteem or power among guild comrades, or outside of the underworld-rose from the most humble beginnings.
An "unknown" background usually fits in with the poorer classes. This means the character was an orphan and does not know his ancestry; his parents may have been criminals, middle-class artisans, or even wealthy merchants or nobles. Dickens' Oliver Twist is a classic example of a thief of unknown ancestry. For all practical purposes, the character is one of the poor people, like everyone with whom he grew up. However, a hook in a campaign may be the search for, or accidental discovery of, a character's ancestry.
Middle: A few thieves may hail from the middle classes, perhaps from families of artisans and petty merchants.
Such characters are less likely to be stealing for survival, though desperate financial straits may bring people to seek illegal solutions, which could tie into a whole net of crime.
Imagine, for instance, a locksmith who needs money to support his ailing mother. The landlord threatens eviction and so forth; in desperation, the locksmith turns to the thieves' guild for a quick, easy, high-interest loan. As the family gets more and more entangled by their debts, the guild decides to accept as partial payment the locksmith's daughter (and apprentice), to become an apprentice thief. But greed is a more typical motivation.
Many swindlers come from the middle class; they decided that there are better profits to be made through dishonesty than hard work.
Wealthy/Noble: Still fewer thieves are from affluent families. This is partly because people with ample funds have little motivation to pick pockets; but even more, it is because thievery is very much socially unacceptable at this level. There are exceptions, of course.
Wealthy privateers, raiding the trade lanes of rival nations for glory and plunder, may enjoy a high and respected profile for a time. And wealthy families of crime lords are a different matter entirely.
In any case, a thief from a wealthy family is expected to distinguish himself in some way or other: flamboyance, daring, audacity, charm – even if he hides his identity during his roguish endeavours. Otherwise, what is the point of risking life and reputation?
This question might be asked of any character, of course. And so we turn to the topic of motivations.
===Motivation===
Why is the thief what he is? You can ask this question even before you know specifically what his area of expertise or technical interest is. A person primarily motivated by greed could be a troubleshooter or a cat burglar, for instance, provided the job pays well.
I suggest six basic motivations: fame (or infamy), greed, justice, loyalty, survival and whim. These are of course generalizations and any particular character probably has motivations more complex than one of these simple descriptions. Also, characters often have more than one motivation and different motivations can apply to different situations.
This may sound so convoluted that you may wonder why we should even approach the issue. It is useful to choose a basic motivation, however, as the basis for role-playing. As you play the character, more motivations will arise – and old ones may vanish. In this way a character may come to life.
A character who starts with the greed motivation may, in the course of his adventures, encounter a great deal of injustice wrought by the rulers of the land. He may even trace his own selfishness to the perverted values of the rulers. As he organizes his activities to oppose the rulers, then, his motivation may subtly swing towards justice. It is unlikely, however, that he would be so "converted" as to lose entirely the greed that drove him for so long. New conflicts and roleplaying opportunities may arise within the character between his greed and his new-found sense of justice.
Be sure to keep your character's motivations in mind when you decide upon his alignment. The description below of each general motivation includes a word on appropriate, related alignments. Note also that as the character develops in play and motivation shifts, alignment too may undergo change.
Fame/Infamy: The fabled charm of a thief's life attracts many an adventures in search of glory. In our own world, many thieves have achieved great fame and in literature even more such figures abound. Infamy surely accompanies the career of many a successful thief; for some it may even be their ultimate goal. If this is the case with your character, you must be certain to bring it out while roleplaying. Every action should be considered in terms of how it may increase the worlds knowledge of the thief's amazing exploits.
Greed: The simplest and perhaps most stereotypical motive behind the thief's life is greed. Combining greed with sloth, the thief shuns "real" work and lightens his load by lightening others' purses. Or, the character simply loves wealth, but is unable to get it through acceptable channels.
Characters with greed as their primary motivation surely would not be of good disposition. Although even good thieves may have a certain element of greed, it would not be the biggest factor shaping their lives.
Justice: This is a rare and peculiar motivation, since thieves are generally considered to be anything but good.The classic example of the thief motivated by justice is Robin Hood – at least as popularly portrayed, if not in historical reality. Such a character must arise in a region or nation where injustice rules, though it need not do so officially. For instance, in one town the rulers may be blatantly evil and corrupt; a thief motivated by justice may devote himself to fighting those rulers.
Characters motivated by justice will probably be of good, lawful neutral, or true neutral alignments. Remember that each alignment has its own idea of what constitutes "justice"; to a true neutral thief, for instance, justice means maintaining the balances between good and evil, law and chaos.
Loyalty: Some connection in the character's past has drawn him onto the road of the thief and he follows it faithfully out of loyalty or debt to that past.
For instance, one character might have been born into 'a family of crimelords; he became a thief as a matter of family loyalty. Another thief may have been an orphan, sheltered and raised by a thieves' guild. Even though his moral sensibilities may lead him to question his benefactors' and even his own behaviour, his loyalty and gratitude for the life and opportunity they gave him may (at least for the moment) outweigh his doubts.
Loyalty is most appropriate as the primary motivation of characters of a lawful disposition. The conflict of loyalty versus other moral imperatives may lead to much interesting roleplaying.
Survival: Many thieves from the lower strata of society engage in theft and the like for the simple purpose of survival. High adventurers are prone to garner more wealth than they need for mere survival, so (unless the player works diligently to keep them poor) they might need a new motivation after a few successful adventures. Probably a secondary motivation (such as greed, or even justice) would come to the fore and become primary.
Whim: Some thieves engage in their activities for the sheer thrill of it. They can survive (materially) without it, they don't need or desire the money as such and they are indifferent to fame.They simply desire to steal, to deceive people, to pull off the most impossible heist or scam – this grants them supreme pleasure. Whim-motivated thieves range from the ennui – stricken rich man's son to the compulsive shoplifter whose desire to steal may push him to the very edge of sanity.
==Thief Archetypes==
By combining assorted settings, social backgrounds and motivations, you can create a worldful of distinct thieves. Another way of making a character is to start with a whole concept of what sort of thief he is, rather than building him from the individual blocks we described above.
But where do you get such a concept? History, folklore and literature all provide colorful examples of thieves. From these you can abstract a model, an archetype, on which you base your beginning character. Like the elements we described above, these archetypes are rough and general. Through effective roleplaying you will expand your thief into a more detailed, interesting and believable character.
Below are a number of sample archetypes that you may have encountered in books, movies and so forth. Experienced roleplayers will probably find that thieves they've played in the past are similar to one of these archetypes, or are a fusion of two or more.
Remember that these archetypes, like the background options presented above, are meant to inspire roleplaying, not to limit it. The personality you create should provide the basis of your character, but it would be wrong to define every possible choice beforehand. Part of the pleasure of roleplaying is seeing your characters change and grow; like real people, they should be full of surprises, ready to adapt and change with new situations.The Artist: This thief is searching for "the perfect crime." He chooses jobs for their challenge and aesthetic pleasure, not strictly for their pay-off in wealth. A drunken duke who is stumbling down an alley late at night, heavily laden with jewels and gold, would be of little interest as a target for the Artist. In fact, the Artist would be offended if someone were to suggest that he perform such a ludicrously easy theft, since it would be so far "below" the Artist's calibre.
However, the Artist might take advantage of the situation if it might play into a bigger, grander scheme. For instance, he might play the part of a "Good Samaritan," escorting the foolish noble to his residence and thereby gaining the duke's confidence. This gives the Artist special privileges, not the least of which is the duke's unquestioning trust. (After all, how could the Artist have been a thief if he escorted the duke safely home, rather than mugging him?) From this position, then, the Artist may plan a truly exceptional theft, the sort that would stir up an extraordinary amount of public interest, but could go unsolved for decades.
The Artist is usually found in an urban setting or, less frequently, wandering. His family was surely above the poverty level and probably even wealthy; theft for the Artist is chiefly a past-time, though it may have also become a source of livelihood. He is egotistical, motivated by whim or a desire for fame-if not fame for himself, than for his crimes, since he probably will remain anonymous.
Desperado: For some reason or another, this character is running from the law – or, perhaps even worse, the unwritten law of the underworld. In any case, he is ready and willing to do whatever is necessary, however drastic, to preserve his life – he knows all too well how soon its end may be. Delicacy and rational forethought are not the forte of the Desperado. This is the sort of character who, when discovered pickpocketing, might knife his target, lest his face be identified.
The Desperado character may be any social background, although poor is most likely. His motivation is simple survival and he may be found in any setting. You must be certain that you know what circumstances have led to his desperation. Desperadoes are often short-lived; either whatever chasing them catches up and gets them, or (rarely) they eliminate the threat and are able to shift to a less high-strung lifestyle. The Desperado either dies or changes to something else... though surely his old habits die hard.
Folk Hero: When the system itself is unjust, those labelled "criminals" are sometimes in fact the good guys. The Folk Hero will not sit idly by while tyrants rule. He musters all his charisma and roguish skills and leads the fight to right wrongs and, if he can, topple the evil regime. Robin Hood is a Folk Hero of great fame. According to legend he stole from the wealthy nobles and clergy and gave the money to poor, overtaxed peasants.
Robin Hood was of noble lineage and his band did their work in the countryside, but a Folk Hero could operate in any setting and be of any social background. Imagine, for instance, a thief from the lower classes who lives in a city ruled by a tyrant. He and his compatriots devote themselves to the freeing of maltreated slaves and falsely convicted prisoners, smuggling them to safety beyond the tyrant's reach. The chief motivation of the Folk Hero is, of course, justice (or at least so it must appear to the public eye).
Kleptomaniac: The kleptomaniac is a character with a compulsion, perhaps entirely uncontrollable, to steal. This compulsion might be at odds with the rest of the character’s personality; interesting role-playing may arise as the character has an internal conflict between his driving desire to steal and a conscience that never stops telling him how wrong and evil his actions are. This character may be of any background and setting. His motivation might be classified (very loosely) as whim, since it lacks a rational reason.
Mobster: This character was literally raised in crime. Perhaps he hails from a family of elite criminals, leaders of organised crime. Over the years they developed their own codes of behaviour and a twisted sense of honour.
A mobster is found in the city and may be any background. (Crime families may have considerable wealth, but if their illegal activities are well known, or at least the topic for common rumours, they may have considerably lower esteem in the eyes of good citizens than those of comparable yet honestly-earned wealth.) His primary motivation is usually greed or loyalty. Characters of this sort often make up the backbone of more powerful thieves’ guilds.
The Professional: Thievery is simply a job for this character. He is often aloof from other, “lesser” thieves: He has little tolerance for flamboyant fools like Artist and Trickster; Desperadoes Kleptomaniacs, desperate and obsessed, are sloppy and crude in comparison to his refined talents and balanced temperament; Folk Heroes are just silly. The Vigilante is a dangerous foe for the Professional, in part because he is incomprehensible to him. The Mobster would seem to be the Professional’s kin spirit, but they are too tightly bound (in the Professionals opinion) by honour and family loyalty and such trash. The Professional is bound to no absolute codes, except perhaps a contract and a clean, efficient theft. He has honour and honesty inasmuch as it is necessary to maintain his reputation for dependability.
The Professionals motivation is hard to pinpoint. Clearly it is neither justice nor loyalty; and he knows that greed, whim and the lust for fame can cloud judgement and lead to fatal sloppiness. Perhaps then ”survival” would be the best description of the Professionals motive; though any Professional worth his salt does better than merely survive.
Of all the archetypes, he is perhaps most likely to have a businesslike, middle-class background, though any of the others is possible. The Professional is usually based in a city, or wanders and his services are usually for hire. He may be associated with a guild, but would prefer to be as independent as possible-other people’s involvement in his work is more often hindrance than help.
Street Urchin/Victim of Circumstance: This thief grew up in an impoverished, harsh environment. There he learned that if you need something you have to take it, because no one will give it to you. People may tell him that stealing is wrong, but he cannot believe it – to him, stealing has always meant survival. He long ago lost any sense of regret for his actions. He was driven to a life of crime so long ago that it seems to him the only life possible.
This character invariably knows his setting (typically a city) inside and out and probably has many useful connections. His social background is always lower class or unknown. Street Urchins that continue the thief's life may develop into a different archetype as they grow older; the Professional, for instance, may blossom from such a solitary young thief.
Trickster: This is a thrill-seeker, a character who delights in pulling off the most outrageous and amazing scams. Deception is his food and pranks are his drink; flirting with danger grants him an incomparable thrill. Thieves, such as Reynard the Fox, are often portrayed this way in fairy and folk tales.
In role-playing, you may wish to make a Trickster thief more complicated. Why does he seem so light and frivolous? Does he hide something beneath it all? ls he in fact driven, obsessed with proving himself the most clever of all? Such a character could even become dangerous to those around him if his insecurities were brought out and played upon. What if people are impressed by his antics? What if they manage to outwit his pranks, or don’t find them amusing? Does he need attention, or is the thrill alone enough to satisfy him? Might the trickster be cowed into quiet humility, or pushed into rage or frustration?
Vigilante: The Vigilante is a loner, a curious sort of thief whose life is preoccupied with defeating the schemes of criminals. He finds the law too restrictive or unenforced and so he goes outside it to bring about his vision of justice. Ironically, the Vigilante trains himself in the very skills of the thieves he opposes; he comes to know their ways and their minds as though he were one of them.
Though he fights on the side of law, the law does not often appreciate the Vigilante. He is unsupervised, unpredictable-and therefore dangerous. This is especially true in the case of locales where the leadership is a bit on the shady side itself, perhaps riddled with bribery, graft, connections with crime and other such corruption. The Vigilante leads a dangerous life, for he can have many powerful enemies.
On the other hand, the Vigilante may attain a revered status similar to that of a Folk Hero, if his successes become popular knowledge. Popularity might do little to ward off a powerful thieves’ guild, but it can cow the more fearful of public officials into tacit approval of his extralegal exploits.
A Vigilante will, of course, not be part of a thieves’ guild – that is his antithesis. He may, however, be part of some secret society devoted to justice. Such a society may consist entirely of Vigilante-type thieves, or it could include adventurers of many diverse classes.
The Vigilante may be of any social background. He might work in any setting, but the city is most common. His primary motivation is usually justice, but one could imagine it being fame, loyalty (perhaps to comrades or relatives killed or ruined by criminals), or possibly even whim.
Some comic books do a great job of illustrating the complex psychologies found in characters of the Vigilante archetype. They make excellent, inspirational reading.
==Thief Variants==
Are you tired of playing plain, old, pick-a-few-pockets-open-a-few-locks-stab-a-few-backs thieves, even if WoW makes them slightly more interesting than other games? Do you want still more interest, more variety – but don't want to worry about working out all the details yourself? Then the thief variants may be just the thing for you.
Here I will show you how to create and play all sorts of thieves. They are presented as variants. Each variant defines a particular type of thief – his characteristics, abilities and limitations.
Each type of thief described in this chapter is defined by means of a template, which is made up of the following elements:
Variant name
Here the thief type will be explained, describing the typical appearance, manner, cultural background and use of the character in an adventure.
Role: Many of these thief types arise in particular social contexts. A Fence, for instance, exists because other thieves need to market stolen goods. The variant will therefore describe the role of the Fence in his society and may suggest how he might function in relation to the rest of the world.Under "Role" you will also find notes on the personalities or backgrounds typical for thieves of this ilk. This reflects the Introduction where we examined setting, social background and motivations and presented a few thief archetypes.
Weapons: Here you will find information about the weapons of choice of the thief variant.
Secondary skills: Here you will find the information on what skills are required or recommended for that sort of thief. The Bounty Hunter, for instance, is required to be able to track his mark; a number of other proficiencies related to wilderness survival and tracking down people are recommended.
Beginning thieves should have no more than one skill that is not among those recommended or required for their variant.
Thief skills: This section of each thief variant suggests which of the traditional thieves' skills (picking pockets, etc.) are most valuable to that sort of thief. It is recommended that characters rise fastest in those skills, since they are the ones that are likely to get the most practice.
Equipment: Some thief types tend make use of certain forms of equipment, either from preference or need; or they may be limited in what equipment they can carry. I will note such situations. A Beggar, for instance, can't beg very well if he's dressed in resplendent finery, with gilded armour and bejewelled weapons.
These equipment listings aren't really restrictions. Rather, they reflect what time and trial have proven to be most advantageous for a thief of this or that variety. If the character is fulfilling his role, the equipment will make sense; and the player is encouraged to ask others in pointing out the value of the suggested equipment when a character experiments with other things.
Special Benefits: Most thief variants have some special benefits that the others don't. These may be straightforward special abilities. Often, however, they reflect the thief's relationship to his society; they may be defined as respect, special privileges in certain cultures or regions and so forth. A Fence, for instance, is well respected by other thieves (especially if they want him as a business partner) and also has less trouble than other characters in finding thieves willing to hire out their skills.
Special Hindrances: Similarly, each thief type has certain disadvantages which hinder him, such as reactions Beggars get.
===Acrobat===
Acrobats are related to bards, as both ostensibly have the profession of entertaining others. Some would say they do this to avoid "real" work. And both characters are wont to support themselves by unorthodox means when there's a slump in the "regular" business.
Because of the physical demands of their vocation, Acrobats must be both strong and dexterous.
Role: Even Acrobats who are not inclined toward larcenous behaviour are rarely looked up to by the rest of their society. People who become Acrobats or actors often were born into the middle class, though their status actually becomes lower. The middle class delights most in the entertainments. The lower classes are usually too busy strugglimg to survive and may be tied to their land or profession in the manner of serfs. The nobility and wealthy are "above" the crude entertainment of the crowd; and even if they might see a circus on occasion, it would be socially impossible to join it.
Except in unusual circumstances, then, Acrobats will come from the middle class. A player character might ve different, if a player wishes, but he will need a plausible explanation of the situation. Because of the social disgrace, it is likely that any entertainer from wealthy or noble class will be disowned.
But then, many people who seek employment as entertainers didn't leave their previous lives out of choice, anyway. A noble-born Acrobat was probably disowned (or worse) before he took up that profession and might even have assumed a new identity. Acrobats from other backgrounds may have histores, too – things to hide and enemies to fear. One thing they like about the circus is that nobody presumes to remove anyone else's mask or make-up.
The circus may indeed get its own history. Run by a competent swindler, a circus may make piles of money from gullible spectators. It could bring in even more by having its own Cutpurses who are permitted to work the crowds so long as they give a percentage of their take to the circus management.Acrobats are almost always wanderers. A small town quickly tires of its entertainers, so they must move on to the next, where their tricks and displays may be considered new and impressive.
Weapons: Acrobats may use any weapon normally permitted to thieves. Note, however, that they will usually avoid those that are heavy and cumbersome (see "Equipment" below).
Secondary Skills: Required: none. Recommended: Alertness, Disguise, Fast-Talking, Juggling, Musical instrument, Riding, Rope Use, Ventriloquism.
Thief skills: Among the basic thieves' skills, climbing walls is the one most applicable to the Acrobat's overt profession. Their lightness of step leads to excellence in moving silently, so this is likely to improve rapidly. Finally, an Acrobat supplements circus income by picking the pockets of the audience when he is not actually performing.
Equipment: In order to make use of their skills, Acrobats favour the least and lightest equipment possible. They may encumber themselves more in special situations (e.g., carrying a wounded comrade to safety, hauling a great hoard of treasure) but they will invariably seek to get rid of the excess weight at the first opportunity.
Special benefits: The abilities of jumping, tumbling and tightrope walking are so crucial to this thief that the Acrobat should be able to approach superhuman skill with them if unencumbered and wearing no armour.
Special Hindrances: None.
===Adventurer===
The Adventurer is the jack-of-all-trades, the prototypical dungeon-delving thief. The Adventurer is not so much a thief as a character who takes advantage of thiefly skills on professional adventures into dungeons and wilderness.
Role: Adventurer-thieves usually serve in parties of brave adventurers of various classes. Their special skills are vital in supporting any successful expedition into wilderness or dungeon. The professional Adventurer is, furthermore, preferred by many adventuring parties because he is much less likely than other thieves to betray or steal from his own companions. The successful Adventurer knows the value of trust and cooperation, while many a "street thief" has been raised on duplicity and (sometimes literal) backstabbing.
Many Adventurers are neutral or lawful. Few are evil and almost none that is chaotic evil can survive for long, let alone prosper in his ways.
Adventurers may be part of a thieves’ guild for easy access to equipment and training. They tend to be independent, however, and dislike guilds that have demands beyond a simple membership fee.
Weapons: Any.
Secondary skills: Required: None. Recommended: Player’s choice; among those that may be selected are Alertness, Boating, Fast-talking, Information Gathering and Looting.
Thief skills: Adventurer thieves tend to spread their skill improvements as evenly as possible, to allow them to deal with the many different challenges the adventuring life presents. If there is any concentration, it is usually on opening locks or finding and removing traps, since these skills are probably used most often.
Equipment: Adventurers are typically very gadget-oriented, delighting in new ways to bypass monsters and raid their lairs. They also may have a good bit of money, from successful ventures, to reinvest in equipment.
Special Benefits: None.
Special Hindrances: None.
===Assassin===
In any reasonably corrupt culture, there are those who wish to eliminate someone whose very existence stands in the way of their plans. To serve them there are Assassins: trained killers whose services are for hire.
Role: Thugs and Bounty Hunters may be seen as close relatives of the Assassin. It is important, then, to understand their differences and what makes their roles distinct. Thugs typically serve as crude muscle, bullying and intimidating. The Assassin, on the other hand, thrives on anonymity, on surprise – on his victim not even realizing that he is a target until it is much too late. A clever Assassin should never be seen by his victim. Here, too, the Assassin differs from the Bounty Hunter, for the hunter often seeks his quarry alive and typically must bring back his prey (or the corpse thereof) as proof of his project’s success.
Most Assassins are of evil disposition. However, it is conceivable that one might be of a neutral (but not good) alignment. Player character Assassins best fit this rare neutral description. A character might be the agent of a monarch, paid to arrange the discreet demise of those who threaten the kingdom's safety. While this certainly is not good (in the moral sense), the character might regard it as a justifiable evil because of the deaths the action prevents by obstructing rebellion, invasion, or whatever.
Many Assassin thieves belong to guilds. The guilds use them to serve their own needs and act as an intermediary for outsiders who wish to take out a contract on someone‘s life.
Weapons: Because of their specialization in the art of killing, Assassins are permitted the use of a wide range of weapons. An Assassin often selects one favoured weapon, such as a garotte or serrated dagger (or even something exotic, such as blowgun darts with an exotic insect poison from a distant jungle), to use for his killings. If the Assassin achieves infamy, the marks of this weapon may become known as a sort of “calling card”.
Secondary Skills: Required: Trailing, Disguise. Recommended: Alertness, Begging, Information Gathering, Herbalism, Land-Based Riding, Observation, Tracking, Voice Mimicry.
Thief Skills: Assassins favour the skills of stealth, hiding, detecting noise and climbing walls. They also occasionally exercise picking pockets – not for lifting purses, but for similarly delicate tasks, such as slipping poison unnoticed into a target’s goblet of wine.
Equipment: Assassins are familiar with and make frequent use of a wide array of deadly devices, such as blade boots, death knives, folding bows and so forth. Equipment to help their preferred skills, such as clawed shoes and gloves and camouflaged clothing, is also popular.
Poison is also available and frequently used by the Assassin. The Assassin may purchase poison (expensive and usually illegal), or attempt to manufacture or extract it himself.
Special Benefits: Because of their training and experience with the use of poisons, Assassins also can identify poisons used by others.
The Assassin may examine the poison or poisoned article by sight. Many poisons have a distinctive appearance, or they may have a corrosive or discolouring effect on metals, foods, etc. Identification by sight is still difficult, though. Its advantage is that the Assassin needn’t worry about poisoning himself in the process.
A poison may also be identified by its odour, which is somewhat less tricky than by sight. Furthermore, if it is an ingested or contact poison, there is a small chance that the Assassin will be affected by the poison, though diminished.
Taste is a fairly reliable, if dangerous, method of identifying a poison. After dabbing a tiny bit on his tongue, the Assassin spits it out. There is still a chance that the poison will affect the Assassin (rarely for injected, often for ingested, always for contact), but it's effects, if any, are diminished.
The most certain way of identifying a poison is by its symptom. The drawback of this method is of course that you need a poisoned character to examine.
An Assassin with the herbalism skill is more likely to succeed because of his knowledge of toxins exacted from plants. An Assassin with doctor and first aid skill is more likely to succeed in any case.
Identification of a poison also means knowledge of its antidote – if one exists. An Assassin with herbalism proficiency may attempt to create an antidote from scratch.
Special Hindrances: Because of the time they spend on weapons and poisons, Assassins advance more slowly in general thieves' skills than other thieves.
Assassins, if known to be such, are generally feared, shunned and disliked.
===Bandit===
Travel is rarely a safe affair in Azeroth, whether one traverses the forbidding wilderness or the pastoral countryside. Beside the dangers of nature and fantastic menaces, such as dragons and giants, there are humans who prey on their journeying kin. Almost every stretch of road near civilization is claimed by one or more bands of highwaymen and even the far wilderness may hide the strongholds of robbers. Bandits must be strong and hardy to withstand the harsh forces of nature, the people who seek their destruction and even each other.
Role: Bandits are often vicious characters, desperate, cunning and cruel. They are prone to fight or even betray each other, but two things keep them bound in pups: the utter necessity of cooperation in order to survive the perils of the wilderness (let alone to be successful robbers) and the strength of whoever has established himself as leader among them by force and cunning.
Bandits do not belong to guilds, as such. A large group of them, or a network of cooperating groups, may be considered analogous to a guild, however – providing some training, intimidating non-members who operate in their "territory" (including humanoids and the like) and so forth. A few Bandit groups may actually have connections to a big city guild, though such ties would probably be very loose (perhaps occasional cooperation, rather than subservience).
Bandits rarely have pleasant reasons for pursuing their lifestyles. Most have a history better left behind and many have a price (or three) on their heads in some place or another. The average Bandit would be better off outside the wilderness, but with enemies and authorities elsewhere, it is the closest available thing to a sanctuary.
Bandits can expect less than mercy at the hands of the law. As if Banditry itself wasn't punishable, most of these thieves already have a few major crimes under their belt. But, like a city guild, Bandits can work out arrangements with local military and civilian authorities. In exchange for bribes and a cut of the take, Bandits may gamer information on rich targets and how best to avoid the punitive expeditions that may periodically be sent against them.
Weapons: Bandits are particularly partial to heavy, brutal, bludgeoning weapons. They often use cudgel-like weapons in addition to those traditionally used by thieves: flails, maces, morningstars and warhammers.
Bandits are also skilled with the common knife. They not only use this for fighting (some among them regard knife-fighting as a spectator sport), but as practical equipment for wilderness survival.
Secondary Skills: Required: Survival. Recommended: Alertness, Animal Handling/Training, Animal Noise, Firebuilding, Intimidation, Looting, Riding, Rope Use, Set Snares, Swimming.
Thief Skills: The skills favoured by Bandits are those useful for scouting and preparing ambushes – specifically, tree-climbing, stealth and hiding. Finding and removing traps also tends to develop with a Bandit's knowledge of snares, pits and so forth, which may be employed on occasion to waylay travellers.
Equipment: A Bandit should be well-equipped for wilderness survival. Vital items include provisions, backpack and pouches, flint and steel (which are more reliable than a magnifying glass for starting fires-especially at night), tinder, a blanket and a knife.
Less vital, but often of use, are climbing equipment (crampons, pitons, etc.), fishing gear (hooks, line, net), light sources (candle, lantern, torch), rope, sewing needle and thread, sacks for loot, a signal whistle, spyglass, small tent, thieves' picks and a whetstone (so you can sharpen your knife when there's nothing else to do).
Some Bandits, finally, like to have trained animals (dogs, falcons, pigeons) for hunting or message-carrying.
Special Benefits: Bandits are extremely adept at ambushing the unsuspecting.
Special Hindrances: Bandits are generally despised by other characters: Normal people hate and fear highwaymen and other types of thieves tend to look at them with scorn, as outcasts and crude robbers.
===Beggar===
Circumstances have reduced some unfortunates to such a level of poverty and helplessness that the only possible way that they can survive is by imploring their fellow beings to give them whatever meagre scraps can be spared. At least, so the Beggar would wish it to appear.
For a great many Beggars this is the truth; misfortune or disability have dealt them sore blows and they must rely on the charity of individuals and a few institutions, such as beneficent churches, for subsistence.
But there is another class of Beggar, which is really a particularly insidious variety of swindler or con artist. This character is usually perfectly able-bodied, but has taken up begging as a career, supplemented by minor theft (pickpocketing and the like) and the gathering and selling of information to interested parties. It is with this sort of Beggar that this kit is chiefly concerned.
Role: Professional Beggars, were usually raised into their role. This of course means a lower (indeed, lowest in many places!) class background and meagre financial resources at best. The Beggar has other resources, however: connections, street smarts, a sharp eye and diverse skills for cajoling passers-by out of their spare cash.
Effective begging requires consummate skills of acting and disguise, so that the Beggar can present himself in the manner most likely to gamer the sympathy and cash of the people he accosts.
As a matter of survival, the Beggar needs diverse sources of income. Few can avoid starvation solely by the charity of strangers in the street. They are also dealers in gossip and information (such as the movement and activities of wealthy personages), with ears ever open for any titbit of knowledge that may help fill their stomachs with food. Beggars will also gladly hire themselves out as messengers or spies.
Beggars also are known to cooperate with other varieties of thieves, especially Cutpurses. A favourite ruse is for one or more Beggars to accost a wealthy-looking person. While they distract him with their pitiful (and more often than not, futile) pleas for assistance, a slick Cutpurse relieves the victim of his purse. Shares of the score are divided among Beggars and Cutpurse.
Many Beggars are affiliates of the local thieves' guild, surprisingly enough. The guild makes use of them as messengers and informants. It also may have a sort of protection racket going with them: Beggars must share their score with the local guild in exchange for protection from thieves of the guild itself, as well as "freelancers" and rival guildsmen. Guild-affiliated Beggars also may gain some measure of protection from the local constabulary – a useful thing if local law prohibits pan-handling.
Weapons: Beggars begin with familiarity only with simple, inexpensive weapons. The knife is a favourite, being inexpensive, easy to use and easy to conceal.
Secondary Skills: Required: Begging, Disguise, Information Gathering, Observation. Recommended: Alertness, Singing, Trailing. Beggars with marketable professions (e.g. crafts or trades) should have some reason why they are no longer able to support themselves.
Thief Skills: Beggars become most proficient in pickpocketing (to supplement their begging income), stealth, hiding and detecting noise (useful for gathering information and tailing people). They tend to be the worst at opening locks and finding or removing traps, since these skills require technical training that is not easily available.
Equipment: The basic equipment of a Beggar is a wooden bowl or cup in which passers-by may place alms. More sophisticated Beggars have false crutches, make-up and the like to make themselves as desperate and poverty-stricken as possible.
Some Beggars have children with them (rented from true parents or borrowed in return for a share of the day's income, if not Beggar's own) to arouse still more sympathy.
A more sophisticated sort of Beggar offers a service of some kind – singing a song or playing a simple instrument – in exchange for food, drink and a few coins.
Few Beggars can afford to purchase armour; even if they could, they would not wear it since it would suggest that they are more well-off than they appear. If they rise above their circumstances, they may of course equip themselves as they see fit, but they will no longer be accepted by other Beggars as one of their own.
Special Benefits: The most valuable benefits of being a Beggar are the large number of skills they develop.
Special Hindrances: Beggars are scorned by most of society. Even characters who share their wealth with Beggars tend to feel a sort of disgust or condescension, though they may try to hide it. Other thieves, however, recognize the talents and value of Beggars.
===Bounty Hunter===
The Bounty Hunter is a ruthless mercenary, worshipping little besides the price on his target's head, recognizing few laws save the contractual distinction between "kill" and "capture. He may be found serving the state, capturing criminals and bringing them to justice; or he may serve the shadowy lords of the underworld, avenging the twisted honour found among thieves and criminals. Pursuit of his quarry may take him through a thousand hostile environments, to foreign lands, even to alien planes. He is a hunter of men.
The Bounty Hunter's vocation is rigorous and demanding at every level: physical, psychological, even moral. It requires a sure hand and a stable mind.
A further requirement is that the Bounty Hunter must worry little about laws. The reasons for this are discussed below.
Role: It is important to draw a distinction between the Bounty Hunter and the Assassin, for their vocations are similar.
The Assassin is most often part of a larger network or organization-either a society of Assassins for hire, or a guild or crime family, or even a government. The Assassin is retained by that organisation to discreetly eliminate its enemies; he is strictly a killer. The Assassin also is a predominantly urban figure, though his missions may take him out of that setting on occasion. Most organizations that have Assassins would deny their existence, because of the highly illegal and unpopular nature of their activities.
The Bounty Hunter, by contrast, is a loner. He may be solicited directly by an employer, but more often he simply learns of a price offered for the body (living or dead) of some person and goes after him.
While the Assassin requires secrecy and anonymity, the Bounty Hunter thrives on infamy. Fear leads his prey to make mistakes and each such mistake brings the Bounty Hunter one step closer to success. While an Assassin is often hired to kill relatively normal, often unsuspecting people, the Bounty Hunter is tracking fugitives – people who know who's after them and are therefore exceptionally desperate and dangerous.Pursuit of such people may lead the Bounty Hunter to literally any place, even to other planes of existence (if the prospective reward will make the venture worthwhile) and so the Bounty Hunter becomes adept at survival and tracking in all manner of hostile environments.
Bounty Hunters do not track only fugitives. They may be hired to perform such tasks as kidnapping, freeing kidnapped persons, or (especially when they are still developing their skills) recovering stolen property.The law and authorities do not always look kindly upon Bounty Hunters, though they will permit their existence so that they, too, may benefit from the manhunters' expertise. For the same reason, thieves' guilds tolerate the Bounty Hunters, despite the fact that almost no Hunter would ever join their ranks.
Weapons: A Bounty Hunter may use any weapon. As part of his persona and fearsome public image, a Bounty Hunter will often gain proficiency in a rare or bizarre weapon, such as the khopesh sword or man-catcher.
Secondary Skills: Required: Tracking. Recommended: Alertness, Animal Handling/Training, Animal Noise, Boating, Direction Sense, Firebuilding, Information Gathering, Herbalism, Hunting, Intimidation, Observation, Riding, Set Snares, Survival, Trailing.
Thief Skills: Bounty Hunters make frequent use of almost all thief skills, except perhaps picking pockets.Note that "picking pockets" could mean all sorts of delicate feats of manual dexterity, such as slipping poison or a "mickey" into a drink. Deadly poisoning is more frequently the province of the Assassin, but a carefully placed, powerful sedative may save a Bounty Hunter a great deal of trouble. (To have access to sedatives or understand their use, a Bounty Hunter must know herbalism lore.)
Equipment: Besides the usual range of thiefly equipment, Bounty Hunters take interest in items for killing and capturing their prey. Special items from the equipment chapter, such as blade boots, death knives, folding bows and the like, are sometimes taken as favourite weapons. A rope for holding live prisoners is, of course, vital, and it may also be used for setting snares. Blinding powder and incapacitating poisons (paralytic ones or those that make their victim ill and helpless) may also have value.
Bounty Hunters make little use of deadly poisons – that is more the province of the stealthy Assassin. If a Bounty Hunter is out to kill a fugitive, he probably won't be worrying about how messy it will be.
Special Benefits: None.
Special Hindrances: None.
===Burglar===
The consummate Burglar is an expert at breaking and entering most difficult buildings, bypassing walls, locks, traps and guardians, grabbing the best loot and escaping unnoticed as stealthily as he arrived.
Role: In many ways, the cat Burglar is the stereotypical professional thief. He probably uses more of the traditional thief skills, and more frequently, than any other kit.
Even within the ranks of Burglars, thieves often specialize even further. Some specialize by skills. A "box-man," for instance, is an expert at opening locks, especially safes and well-protected chests. A cat Burglar or second-story thief specializes in climbing walls (which can be a remarkably effective protection, especially if ground-level entrances have people around them). Teams of Burglars who specialize by skill often find the most success.
Other Burglars specialize by target. Jewel thieves in particular are the elite among Burglars; the protection found around the objects of their attention demands that their skills and cleverness be honed to perfection.Burglars of any background may be found. Even thrill-seekers of the privileged classes may take up jewel Burglary as a challenging, profitable and exciting pastime.
Almost all successful Burglars have some sort of guild affiliation. In order to get rid of the loot they take, they need a fence (especially if their score is distinctive – e.g. fabulous, valuable artwork). Guilds provide the Burglar with innumerable benefits: fencing of even the most distinctive items, connections with potential "business" partners, access to specialized equipment and, not least of all, protection. A guild can arrange the fix (to free an imprisoned Burglar) and provide deterrence, protecting its Burglars from other guilds and powerful criminals – people who don't take kindly to being robbed themselves and are more likely to make hasty decisions about a suspect character's guilt or innocence.
Weapons: Better Burglars do not bring weapons with them on a job; it only means more serious penalties if they are caught-either legal penalties, or more immediate ones like a jumpy victim panicking and attacking them. On some jobs, however (e.g. stealing from dangerous criminals) a Burglar is wise to have means of self-defence. Small, quiet, concealable weapons are naturally favoured, though a Burglar may use any weapon among those normally permitted to thieves.
Secondary skills: Required: Alertness, Looting. Recommended: Begging, Information Gathering, Jumping, Observation, Rope Use, Tightrope Walking, Tumbling.
Thief Skills: The vital skills of a Burglar are lock-picking, finding and removing traps, stealth, hiding, listening and climbing. As mentioned before, a Burglar may concentrate particularly on one of these, but he would probably then want to be as evenly excellent as possible in the others.
Equipment: Burglars love to use specialized hardware to increase their chances of success. For a thorough examination of some specialty items, consult the equipment chapter later in this guide.
Special Benefits: None.
Special Hindrances: None.
====The Specialist Burglar====
A broad, general range of skills is often what adventurers choose, but for he urban Burglar, specialization is the ray to go. There are a number of reasons for this.
A specialized thief is simply more marketable. People in the underworld want someone excellent for a job. That may mean a high-class generalized thief, one who has been in the business long enough to be good at everything. But it's not easy for a thief to reach that level. Therefore, by concentrating on one skill, a relatively low-class thief nay compete with a thief many leagues higher for jobs of a certain type.
Suppose, for instance, we have a “box-man” - actually a woman – named Annelise. By concentrating on her lockpicking skill, she can become very proficient at it very early on. She would neglect things like pickpocketing and forgery, however, since they usually are not useful to a Burglar.
Compare this to a "generalist" thief, which adventurers tend to be: with little focus, mastery comes much later in their career.
Now imagine that a mob of jewel thieves is preparing for a job. They have diverse skills – except that they are lousy at lock-picking. They need to bring a box-man into their mob. Who would they choose? Well, first off – master thieves are pretty bloody rare. And even if one were available and willing to work with less-experienced thieves, he would probably demand a larger share of the take. Otherwise it would not be worth his time: He has uniformly good skills and could probably commit this robbery on his own.
A job with which he would need assistance is probably well out of the range of these thieves. Annelise, then, is a pretty attractive option. She might be able to climb little better than a fish, but that's the cat Burglar's expertise; after he's mounted the building, he can lower a rope for the less sure-footed. By offering Annelise a reasonable share of the loot, the other Burglars are almost assured that their difficult lock will be opened.
===Cutpurse===
This is probably the most common sort of thief – the pickpocket or shoplifter who engages in small-time larceny, usually at a level of meagre subsistence. He often supplements his income by working as an informant for the powerful figures of the underworld (or anyone else who's willing to pay).
Role: The Cutpurse is near the bottom the underworld hierarchy. His activities are not as risky as those of other thieves, but are they are not as profitable either.
Many Cutpurses are "freelancers," not associated with any thieves' guild. Guilds, normally harsh on non-member thieves who operate in their territory, pay little attention to Cutpurses. The profit and benefits that would accrue from their membership would not outweigh the trouble of trying to bring them into line. For this reason many chaotic thieves, who may dislike the structure and limitations of guild membership, become Cutpurses.
Cutpurses are not always uncooperative, however. Some do join guilds, which they serve primarily as informants and tipsters, ears on the streets, catching gossip and scoping out prospective targets that can then be assigned to other thieves.
Cutpurses who don't belong to a guild often form their own little mob. Such a small mob usually develops a standard modus operandi (way of operating) and they use the same scam on every target. They may also design special, elaborate plans for lifting a particularly heavy purse. Cutpurses also may enlist the assistance of thieves of other specialities in their operations (see the Beggar above, for an example).
Suppose, for instance, that one thief has the job of accosting an affluent-looking stranger, whom the Cutpurses nave guessed to be an out-of-town merchant. This first thief presents himself as a street-vendor. Wile he tries to sell the merchant a hot pastry, a second thief comes by carrying a large load (perhaps a basket full of dirty sheets), which he "accidentally" drops on or around the merchant. In the chaos that ensues, the first two thieves appear to help the merchant, picking up the fallen items and apologizing profusely; while a third Cutpurse does the actual job of relieving the merchant of his cash.
Like beggars, most Cutpurses are of lower-class background and are born into their station.
Weapons: Small, concealable weapons are ideal for Cutpurses, though they are not formally restricted any more than thieves in general.
Secondary skills: Required: Observation, Trailing, Recommended: Alertness, Begging, Information Gathering, Trailing.
Thief Skills: Cutpurses naturally specialize in picking pockets. Beyond this, they typically cavort moving silently and hiding in shadows, as these may increase their pickpocketing talents.
Equipment: A few special items to aid in picking pockets are noted in the equipment chapter. If thieves have connections, they may be able to purchase such items.
Special Benefits: The effective pickpocket is one who can choose his target carefully. He must learn to ascertain the nature of a prospective victim. How dangerous will the attempt be? What could the target do in response? And does the chance of financial reward out weigh the risks involved.
In roleplay terms, this means that the Cutpurse has the ability to guess the class and power of another character.
Special Hindrances: The main hindrance to Cutpurses is that thieves of other kits look down on them, considering them small-time thieves, just half a step above Beggars. This is somethi the player should bring out in roleplaying – Cutpurse thieves will have difficulty commanding a lot of respect in the underworld.
===Fence===
The Fence is a black marketeer, a seller of stolen or otherwise illegal goods. He is almost always found in a city setting, where there are large numbers of people to serve as customers as well as prey for the thieves who supply him.
A good Fence needs a sharp mind to appraise people as well as goods and to stay ahead of the law.
Role: The Fence is the lynch-pin in the complicated web of the black market. Thieves sell their illicit acquisitions to the Fence, for some amount of money below their actual value. The Fence then resells the "hot" goods on the black market. If the city in which he operates is large and the goods are minor enough (not the crown jewels of the local royalty). They may be sold directly to local buyers. If the Fence thinks they're "too hot," though, he will probably arrange to have them smuggled and sold elsewhere.
Power for Fences is rarely measured in terms of character level or gear. Instead, it is a matter of the breadth of the Fence's network and the reliability of his contacts.
The most powerful Fences keep their identities secret and may never see their clients, neither thieves nor buyers. they coordinate things from behind the scenes and have minor Fences to serve as intermediaries. Even a close contact may never have seen the face of a great Fence – at least, not knowingly. A Fence may secretly play the role of an underling in his own network – or even that of a rival or freelancer!
This may all start to sound familiar to those who know something about thieves' guilds. The networks of a powerful Fence look increasingly like the structure of a thieves' guild. This is no coincidence. Those who are knowledgeable in these matters speculate that the thieves' guild was originally, and in many respects still is, a black market network made into a formal entity.
Fences may be of any social background, though wealthy and noble Fences are rare. Certainly those that do exist diligently keep their identities well-hidden, for obvious reasons. The stakes must be high to claim the attention of the socially and financially elevated.
For example, a rich merchant may deal with stolen jewellery on the side. Or a baron may be the secret mastermind behind a network of thieves smuggling and selling contraband. The real world offers other examples – such as petty dictators who do not only accept bribes and turn a blind eye to drug smugglers but are in fact a drug lord themselves!
The black market network transfers information as well as goods. Fences are probably the best-informed figures of the underworld.
Weapons: Any.
Secondary skills: Required: Appraising, Information Gathering. Recommended: Alertness, Fast-talking, Forgery, Gem Cutting, Local History, Observation.
Thief skills: Less powerful Fences (that is, those lower in the network hierarchy, with fewer contacts) may need to make use of thiefly skills. Picking pockets may provide a little income when business is slow; its use for sleight-of-hand may also have value (though it is dangerous to cheat clients). Opening locks and finding and removing traps are useful skills for inspecting merchandise. It is not unknown for Burglars, unable to open a strongbox, to simply cart off the whole thing and hope their Fence can get it open. Linguistics is also sometimes useful in examining merchandise. Stealth skills have some value on the street: Fences who have direct contact with their clients may put some time into cultivating them, but more powerful Fences often neglect them.
Equipment: Most Fences own equipment for examining merchandise, to determine if the goods are counterfeit or what their value might be. A magnifying lens, for instance, may be of use here.
Special Benefits: Because of his contacts, a Fence is probably the best person for locating and hiring thieves and smugglers, especially in territory not claimed by a guild.
Also, Fences generally command a lot of respect from the underworld in their home territory. Unless a thief has a serious vendetta, he will probably court a Fence's favour for business reasons.
Special Hindrances: Fences are relatively prominent in the underworld. And, unlike freelance burglars and smugglers who can move from place to place, the Fences' black market network requires a stable home locale, so that they can stay in touch with their contacts. (The players may wish to keep their characters from being active Fences because of this: the Fence's life is much more business than adventure.) This also means that the local authorities may be aware of a Fence's identity and activities. These authorities may periodically harass a minor Fence, or demand bribes, or may shake him up for information every once in a while.
===Investigator===
Though Investigators are listed as thieves, they are usually in fact the antithesis of criminals. Investigators are enforcers of law and order, the people who know the skills of the thief intimately so that they can combat him.
Role: Investigators can play a number of roles. They may be private, their services for sale. Or they may be employed by a government or organization. In each case their skills and activities are similar, but their roles and attitudes may be divergent.
An Investigator may be a vigilante, obsessed with uncovering crime wherever it may be hiding and stopping it. Or he may be the “private eye” a mercenary sort, or retained by an individual or organization and may be willing to sidestep laws to better serve his client. Some Investigators are of course in the employ of some government. This does not necessarily identify them as good, however. An Investigator may be portrayed as a sort of “good guy cop” if it suits the campaign. But if the players are running thieves (especially folk hero types), the Investigator would be sinister and evil, a perfect foil to the characters' capers.
The relationship between Investigator thieves and guilds is not usually that of allies. An Investigator might be employed by a guild, however: though usually a Spy, or perhaps a Troubleshooter, would do the guilds "investigating.
In fact, an Investigator might not even realize that he is employed by a guild, if his ostensible employer is a "front" business. Interesting cloak-and-dagger style adventures could be built around an Investigator discovering, in the course of his work, that the shadow he is following actually lurks behind his own employer.
And of course, Investigators ostensibly employed by the government, like other magistrates and officials, sometimes “go bad” and are bought off by a guild, either for information, or in exchange for a blind eye turned toward guild activities.
Weapons: Investigators use the normal range of weapons open to thieves. They will normally carry two weapons, at least one of them concealed (knife, dagger, or something similarly small, perhaps in a wrist sheath).
Secondary Skills: Required: Information Gathering, Observation. Recommended: Alertness, Appraising, Disguise, Fast-Talking, Heraldry, Intimidation, Local History, Modem Languages, Reading Lips, Religion, Trailing.
Thief Skills: A balance of generalized skills serves Investigators well. Picking pockets is less important, of course, although you must remember that it may be useful for sleight of hand, which may serve an Investigator. Linguistic skills are a must for deciphering clues: some criminals write important information in obscure languages or secret codes and being able to decipher it may mean success or failure for the Investigator. Other skills (lockpicking, trap detection and disarmament and so on) are useful for penetrating and examining the hideouts and houses of suspects.
Equipment: A lot of the technological devices available to the modern Investigator (such as fingerprinting techniques, searches of computer databases for information and so forth)would of course not be available in Azeroth. Still, it may be possible to duplicate some of the effects of such devices with magical items; or the player can make liberal use of anachronism. Suppose Investigators are able to dust for fingerprints, for example. A magical device that identifies fingerprints might also exist, allowing the Investigator to learn whose prints he has dusted.
Special Benefits: None.
Special Hindrances: None.
===Rogue===
Part acrobat, part swordsman, part wit and entirely charming – this is the Rogue. He is a sophisticated city-dweller, the epitome of charm and grace. He is unique among his brethren because he has the ability and obligation to steal – and make others love him for it.
Role: This is a happy-go-lucky thief with ready wit and flashing rapier. His home is the city, where he can shine amidst the squalor. He is generally less interested in poking people with his rapier and more involved and concerned with his wild theatrics and amazing displays of acrobatic skills. More often than not he also finds himself, justly or not, on the wrong side of the law.
The Rogue is almost never aligned with thieves’ guilds; he prefer to be “freelance.” Rogues who journey outside the cities may align themselves with bandits or pirates, however, and with their charisma and skill, they frequently assume leadership. Such responsibility ill suits the Rogue, however; the details of organizing and leading a large group will invariably set him packing in short order.
Most Rogues come from a wealthy or aristocratic background. Their skills of stealth and acrobatics came not from survival needs, but whim. This motivation typically re mains the driving force behind the Rogue's career. Most of these young rakes retire when they get older and must assume responsibilities in the communities (family, noble title, business and so forth). Many a Rogue has kept up his activities, however, in secret; his moonlighting may even be developed (usually purposely) to a point of distinguishable alter-egos. The daytime character may be a foppish dandy, gruff businessman, or air-headed noblewoman. At night the Rogue emerges: a cunning, dashing, adventurous character.
What are the goals of the Rogue? For the young ones, it is usually just thrills: a chance to break into the impenetrable castle, to replace the King's sword with a fake, to outwit the guildmaster of thieves.. A few have more serious goals (and the are the ones who tend to keep up their habit). A Rogue may be a vigilante, charming and witty, but driven by an obsession for justice. His enemies may be criminals or, in an unjust society (where the aristocratic Rogue's alter-ego may be an unwilling part of the apparatus of oppression), the authorities themselves.
Weapons: The Rogue's weapons of choice are fencing blades, including the following: stiletto, main-gauche, rapier and sabre. With those, the thief is able to fight with the skill of a warrior. Throughout his career, he must devote himself to these weapons, until he has mastered the use of every one.
Secondary skills: Required: Etiquette, Tumbling. Recommended: Alertness, Blind-fighting, Disguise, Fast-talking, Intimidation, Jumping, Navigation (if seaborne), Riding, Tightrope walking, Trailing.
Thief skills: Rogues would tend to have fairly balanced thief skills. This includes pickpocketing, though that talent is more often utilized in the form of sleight of hand.
Equipment: The Rogue must buy his weapon of choice, but other than that may spend his gold however he pleases.
Special Benefits: The Rogue loves to perform a special combat manoeuvre when using his weapon of choice: disarmament. If this attack is successful, it will (normally) cause his enemy's weapon to go flying out of the enemy's hand. Besides weapons, disarmament can be attempted against magic wands or other such devices held in one hand. Items worn (like jewellery) or held in two hands (including two-handed weapons) may not be affected by a Rogue with this manoeuvre.
Finally, being such a romantic figure, the Rogue is, as an additional special benefit, well-regarded by members of the opposite sex.
Special Hindrances: Trouble seeks out the Rogue. This is something that the player will have to act out very carefully if the Rogue is to be balanced with the other thieves. When there's a Rogue around intent on proving that he is the finest swordsman in the world, it's an another Rogue he seeks out and challenges (often in the middle of some illicit activities). When there is a lovely lady (or handsome young man, as appropriate) in distress, she or he will naturally cross the Rogue's path and pull him into the tangle. When the thief is practising burglary on his uncle's mansion, the old man decides to return early from his journey. Life conspires to make things difficult for the Rogue and an event host should always throw just a little more good-natured bad luck at this thief type than at any other.
===Scout===
A Scout is a thief, usually solitary, who operates in a wilderness setting. Besides working as a guide, spy, or saboteur for hire in the wilderness, many Scouts are involved in such illicit activities as poaching.
Role: One might say that Scouts are to thieves as rangers are to fighters, but they avoid the strict "silly ethics" of rangers. Scouts are not prohibited from being good – and in fact they are, on the whole, a good deal more dependable than thieves in general – but they have a cut-throat streak that can be dangerous and unpredictable. However, their rugged individualism and harsh practical judgement often endears them to adventurers; and many are found among such steadfast, daring companions.
Unlike Bandits (who also operate chiefly in the wilderness), the Scout usually shuns the company of other thieves, including guilds. The guilds, in turn, care little about Scouts. Their poaching and small-time thievery is seen as insignificant in the eyes of the great crime figures, especially when compared to the trouble and expense that would be required to identify and to track down the elusive Scouts, to punish them or force them to join guild ranks. If a Scout is a guild member, either it is a voluntary arrangement (whereby the Scout benefits from access to special equipment and training) or he has spent enough "professional time" in the city or other explicitly guild-controlled territory that he was "persuaded” to join.
Of the many Scouts not belonging to a guild, some have a single, consistent employer. The rest are freelance or mercenary, serving themselves or whatever employers may come along, taking the best pay they can find. Or, if there's nothing else, they steal and poach to support themselves.
Several organizations employ Scouts regularly, sometimes on a permanent basis. The military, in particular, does so; reliable Scouts, trained for reconnaissance and sabotage, are vital to any successful military operation. And the key to having reliable Scouts is to have well-trained and (most of all) happy Scouts. A common grunt soldier can be bullied into line and, if need be, forced out into battle by the spearheads of the rank behind him – but the Scout's modus operandi is to explore alone. Maltreated Scouts have more opportunities to desert or, worse yet, betray vital information to the enemy than anyone else in an army.
Military Scouts are carefully nurtured and well-nourished. They get decent pay, excellent equipment and the best training available for their special and important activities. The training of military Scouts is at least as intense and comprehensive as that of a thieves' guild. (Sometimes, after retiring from the army, military Scouts go on to be come me most illustrious burglars and assassins of the underworld.)
A few other groups that may employ Scouts are secret societies and paramilitary groups, thieves' guilds that have operations across the wilderness (Scouts may bolster the ranks of a smuggling party, for example) and agencies that are set up to connect clients with guides. Such agencies are normally found on the edge of vast wilderness areas that are being colonised; such areas, with frequent exploration by people unfamiliar with the region, have enough demand for guides that an agency can prosper on its percentage of the guides' fee.
As mentioned before, poaching is also an activity typical of the Scout. Animals may be protected by royal decree, written law, or the monopoly of a hunters' or furriers' guild. In medieval times, for instance, hunting was typically reserved for the noble classes. A commoner caught slaying one of "the king's deer" could be punished by death.
But when demand exceeds supply, there may be great incentive for the criminal killing and capture of animals. They may be sought for their meat, valuable pelts, ivory, feathers, magical purposes (eye of newt) or other esoteric ends. Thousands of animals in out world have been killed because some body part was believed to be an aphrodisiac. In Azeroth, there are real magical qualities and the hunter or poacher's quarry may be magical. The horn of unicorns, for example, may be ground into powder and used as infallible antidote.
Weapons: Scouts have the normal range of weapon proficiencies permitted to thieves.Secondary Skills: Required: Direction Sense, Tracking. Recommended: Alertness, Animal Handling/Training, Animal Lore, Animal Noise, Boating, Firebuilding, Fishing, Heraldry, Herbalism, Hunting, Mountaineering, Observation, Riding, Rope Use, Set Snares, Survival, Swimming, Weather Sense.
Thief Skills: Stealth skills are those favoured most by the Scout and members of this kit have highly trained senses. Therefore it would make sense for these skills to improve most rapidly: stealth, hiding and detecting noise. Climbing also may see considerable use (though not from climbing walls, per se, but trees, cliffs and so forth).
Equipment: No self-respecting Scout will permit himself to go without a basic assortment of wilderness survival gear: adequate clothing, rations, fire-starting materials, etc. Special gear to assist climbing, hiding and moving undetected are also favoured, as well as devices for hindering or diverting pursuers. (What worth is a Scout's knowledge if he never reports back to his employer?) For a full array of items, refer to the chapter on equipment.
Special Benefits: Due to their extensive wilderness experience and expertise, Scouts are much better at stealth and hiding while in the wilderness.
Scouts also have an increased chance to ambush opponents in the wilderness, because of their stealthiness and careful attunement with their environment.Special Hindrances: While Scouts are intimately familiar with the wilderness, they are not so comfortable in urban settings.
===Smuggler===
A Smuggler is a specialist in the illicit movement of goods, either goods that are themselves illegal (stolen) or whose movement is legal (in some countries, for example, may be illegal to move gold bullion or a Smuggler might secretly move cargo to avoid paying taxes on it). The Smuggler needs a host of practical skills to evade authorities, as well as connections in diverse places to acquire and unload his merchandise on the black market.
Role: The Smuggler plays a vital role in the underworld, moving goods fro place to place. Without the Smuggler, Fences could only sell to local buyers, which would mean they couldn't in exceptionally valuable goods. would greatly cut the profitability of theft. Guilds themselves might not be able to function, at least not large scale.
There are two general methods of protecting contraband from discovery: Either you hide the goods within the transportation, or you hide the means of transportation itself. An example of the former would be a wagon or boat built with a false floor, beneath which the cargo is hidden. Hidden transportation would include sneaking oneself over the city wall late at night, with a pack full of stolen loot to be taken to a distant Fence; or, perhaps, a simple boat travelling late at night.
Plans for hidden transportation may become elaborate. The trick is to be small and fast. Small makes it more difficult to find you; fast makes it likely that you can get through or, at least, get away, even if you are discovered. Sometimes the best smuggling routes go through treacherous territory or difficult terrain. This means that a Smuggler must be flexible. For instance, he may arrange to bring a canoe or even smaller craft to traverse an area of many small lakes and streams, portaging when necessary and leaving the canoe behind (and hidden, of course) when he has passed the natural obstacles.
If the Smugglers will pass through dangerous territory (plagued by bandits, humanoids or monsters, for instance), it is best to work out some means of protection: Either bring along a couple of thugs or mercenaries for the difficult parts, or pay "protection money" to the dangerous parties. Most bandits or humanoids, and even intelligent monsters, would be perfectly happy to let Smugglers through in return for a cut of their merchandise.
Or they may tell the Smugglers that they can pass safely through and then renege on the deal.
For such a situation, it is best for the Smuggler to have some powerful muscle behind him – like a guild. A great many Smugglers are part of guilds. Guilds that operate in more than one urban centre, or in the countryside, usually employ a number of Smugglers just to move people and items within their own networks. They may also have Smugglers who specialize in dealing with other guilds; such Smugglers should be charismatic, because they must serve as diplomats as well as businessmen. Finally, there are freelance Smugglers. They may operate between guilds, between guilds and freelance fences, or, on rare occasion, solely among freelance fences.
Remember that a Smuggler operates between fences; he rarely, if ever, deals directly with thieves or non-"wholesale" customers. The fence or guild works out deals with prospective buyer fences and then hires the Smuggler to make the delivery.
Weapons: Smugglers have the normal range of weapons open to thieves and are not required to use any particular.
Secondary skills: Required: None. Recommended: Alertness, Animal Handling/Training, Animal Noise, Appraising, Boating, Direction Sense, Disguise, Fast-talking, Forgery, Information Gathering, Navigation, Observation, Rope Use, Seamanship, Swimming.
Thief Skills: Detecting noise is probably the most useful of the traditional thieves' skills for the Smuggler. After that, hiding in shadows and silent movement probably see a lot of use. Pickpocketing would be least utilized in smuggling.
Equipment: Two items are essential to the Smuggler's vocation: means of transportation and means of protecting the contraband from discovery.
Transportation is usually very basic: wagon or horse for land, boat for water and so forth. More elaborate smuggling plans in Azeroth may include air transportation – imagine a Smuggler who secrets stolen gems out of a city, late on moonless nights, by griffon!
Items from the ”Evasions” section of the chapter on equipment are of great use to the Smuggler. Marbles (if the surface is right) or caltrops can do much to hamper pursuers and aniseed or dog pepper can throw dogs off the trail.
Special Benefits: Smugglers must be exceptionally alert; therefore they are difficult to catch unawares.
Special Hindrances: None.
===Spy===
The Spy is a gatherer of information. At the lowest level, he is a common informant, an eavesdropper with his ears open for saleable information. The expert Spy is hired by guilds and governments to infiltrate opponents’ buildings and ranks to find vital, secret knowledge.
Role: Spies are vital in supporting any large organization such as a guild or government. Information is the key to success, whether thieves are preparing for a burglary or a nation is preparing for war and the Spy's role is to provide that information.
Most Spies are in the permanent service of one such organization. A small number may be double (or triple) agents, but that is very risky. A few are freelance and their main problem is this: to find employment, they must be known; but if they’re known, they have difficulty being successful.
Spies may come from any background. A large percentage, in fact, are from the lower classes, close in touch with the word on the street and all the secret channels of society. A smaller number of elite Spies exist, either in permanent positions (e.g. a count who reports word on his lieges' troop movements to a rival kingdom, or a treacherous castle steward). Most of these characters would not be thieves, since spying is secondary; the focus of their life is (or at least was) something else.
But there are also talented individuals ready to go anywhere, risk any danger and encounter a lot of excitement on the way to finding the knowledge they seek. They excel at infiltration, in finding information, not just in selling what they know. Exciting Spies, and player characters, are usually of this sort.
The standard penalty for spying (if he crime is beyond the low levels of spreading rumours, eavesdropping and scoping out potential burglary targets) is death and Spies from one nation to another can hardly expect anything in the line of “diplomatic immunity.”Weapons: The normal range of weapons open for thieves‘ proficiencies applies to Spies as well and they are not required to use any in particular. A Spy can use non-thief weapons (for the purpose of disguises), but only rarely trains in them.
Example: To help impersonate a castle guard, a Spy carries a halberd. He could use it combat, but he would be clumsy due to lack of training. To increase his chances of success, he would probably switch to a different, familiar weapon-even a dagger or knife unless circumstances prohibit it (e.g. people around him would be surprised to see him not using the halberd and might thereby see through the disguise).
Secondary Skills: Required: Disguise, Information Gathering, Observation. Recommended: Alertness, Begging, Etiquette, Forgery, Heraldry, Local History, Cryptography, Reading Lips, Trailing.Thief Skills: An effective Spy usually needs a fairly even distribution of thief skills, since his vocation can bring him into any number of diverse situations.
Equipment: Spies in Azeroth don’t have all the fancy gadgetry of their modem counterparts. They may equip themselves liberally with what is available, however, such as boots with hidden compartments in the soles, thieves’ equipment and so forth. See the later chapter on equipment for a host of ideas.
Special Benefits: None.
Special Hindrances: None.
===Swindler===
This is the master of deception; while burglars and pickpockets profit through stealth and bandits and thugs gamer their earnings through force, the Swindler relies on his wits. Other thieves take their booty; the Swindler cons his victim into giving it freely.
Role: There are numerous names for the Swindler – confidence artist, con man, mountebank, quack, etc. – and the scams he employs are even greater in number.
Each con artist is unique and develops his own mode of operation. One will specialize in selling bogus items, like medicines; while another may prepare long, elaborate scams to net the wealth of the affluent.Swindlers must either operate in a large city, where there are many potential victims (and even then they usually target visitors to the city, especially foreigners); or they must be wanderers, ready to move on to a new place when they've made too many enemies or too much of the local populous has gotten wise to their devices.
For this and other reasons, Swindlers do not usually join thieves' guilds on a permanent basis. Out of wise deference to the "local boys," however, a Swindler that begins to operate in guild territory will make friendly overtures to it and perhaps offer a share in his take. A most daring Swindler may even try to con the guild...
Weapons: The Swindler is permitted the normal range of weapons open to thieves.
Secondary Skills: Required: Fast-talking. Recommended: Alertness, Appraising, Artistic Ability, Dancing, Disguise, Etiquette, Forgery, Fortune Telling, Gaming, Local History, Observation, Singing, Ventriloquism.
Thief Skills: The thieves' skills of a Swindler usually are used in preparation for a con. It is often handy for the Swindler to do some secret scouting, for instance, to observe his victim's habits. For all of this, the stealth skills are invaluable. Linguistics and cryptography is also of more use to the Swindler than to thieves of many other variants.
Equipment: A Swindler may use special equipment as props for his scams (e.g. tarot cards for a sham fortune teller: pen, ink and paper for forgery and so forth), but the specific needs vary among characters, according to their plans and objectives.
Special Benefits: None.
Special Hindrances: None.
===Thug===
The Thug is the most violent sort of thief. Assassins are killers, certainly, but they depend on refinement and subtlety. Bounty hunters also are willing to use violence, but are relatively restrained as well. The Thug, on the other hand, comes as close to the Warrior class as any Thief.In designing the character's description, a Thug should be as physically imposing as possible.
Role: Historically, the "Thugee" were actually a cultist group of murderers found in India. The term "Thug" has come to mean, however, any brutal sort of thief, such as an armed robber, hijacker, or goon (the latter specifically indicating a guild-associated Thug, an enforcer), or perhaps a kidnapper (though bounty hunters are probably better at that activity).
If one compared a guild to the human body, surely Thugs would be the muscle-the large, powerful muscles. Thugs function as enforcers, intimidating common people (especially in racketeering schemes), safeguarding important guilds-men and carrying out the guilds threats of violence often enough to keep people suitably afraid.
In fact, outside of the thieves' guild, the Thug really does not have a place. Most Thugs haven't the wit to become accomplished burglars or even pickpockets on their own, let alone swindlers, spies or fences. Even begging might be denied them on account of their imposing physique: A plea for alms from a huge, muscular man tends to look more like a demand backed up by a thinly-veiled threat. The guild pays them well and gives them a satisfying job: They usually need just to scare the living daylights out of people and not even face real combat.
The few Thugs who are not guild affiliated will be found as armed robbers or (if they are more intelligent) kidnappers or hijackers.
Weapons: Any, with a preference for the big and grisly-looking ones.
Secondary Skills: Required: Intimidation. Recommended: Player's choice; among those that may be selected are Alertness, Endurance, Looting and Trailing.
Thief Skills: There is no uniform preference among Thugs for the distribution of points among their thieves' skills.
Equipment: The Thug's equipment usually consists of the biggest, most intimidating weapon available. Otherwise, it's a matter of common sense according to the job. A kidnapper, for example, will be sure to bring a length of rope to tie his victims.
Special Benefits: Because they are better trained in combat than other thieves, Thugs' fighting skills are on par with those of Warriors.
Special Hindrances: Thugs spend much of their career learning about weapons and their use and their training in the traditional thief skills suffers as a consequence.
===Troubleshooter===
The Troubleshooter, like the investigator, is often aligned against other thieves. He has all the skills of the thief, but puts them to a different use: He works chiefly as a security consultant, playing the part of the thief in order to test the worthiness of his clients' defences.
Role: The Troubleshooter's professional role is rather narrowly defined, but this is to his liking. More than one has been known to moonlight in other, possibly illicit activities. They may range from legitimate recovery of stolen goods through genuine burglary.
As a “security consultant”, a thief of this sort has a legitimate reason for his thieving skills and equipment; and the temptation may arise to use them. For this reason, officials often keep a suspicious eye on well-known Troubleshooters. More sophisticated governments may require some sort of license.
Troubleshooters are rarely guild members, naturally enough, unless they have been bought off in exchange for information on the clients they've served. Of course, few such Troubleshooters will survive long; if they give a place's security their “seal of approval” and then it is broken into with ease, the Troubleshooter's reputation will be shot and he can expect to have more than a little suspicion placed on his shoulders.
Weapons: Troubleshooters are permitted the normal weapons open to thieves.
Secondary Skills: Required: Observation. Recommended: Player's choice; among those that may be selected are Alertness, Fast-talking, Information Gathering, Locksmithing and Trailing.
Thief Skills: Picking pockets, cryptology and forgery are not of much value to the Troubleshooter, but he will probably seek a fairly even distribution among the other thief skills.
Equipment: Any Troubleshooter worth his wages will augment his thiefly talents with the best available equipment. Remember, he wants to try his absolute best to break down his client's defence – as does his client – so he'll use whatever devices will increase his chances. Also, a wealthy client could even be persuaded to help the Troubleshooter acquire hard-to-find thief equipment.
Special Benefits and Hindrances: Troubleshooters have an uncanny knack for... Well, troubleshooting. If there's a glitch somewhere in a security system, the Troubleshooter always seems to run into it.In a way, the Troubleshooter is a living manifestation of Murphy's Law "If anything can go wrong, it will." The Troubleshooter thief, of course, capitalizes on this professionally. His job is to find everything that can go wrong, so it can be fixed.
While everything going wrong has its ironic professional advantage, the downside is of course that the things that go wrong often do so to the Troubleshooter's personal disadvantage.
This is difficult to quantify, to define as a mechanic. Instead, the players and event hosts are encouraged to bring it in at their discretion during play, for maximum excitement and role-playing fun. Fill the character's life with astronomically improbable events and bizarre coincidences.
The event host is by and large left on his own to "wing it" with this special benefit/hindrance, but there are two questions for him to ask himself before he brings it into play: Would this further the plot of the adventure? Would it be fun? At least the second question should be answered "yes," and it is best if both are.
Furthermore, the rule to follow in deciding the specifics is: Everything should be balanced. For every freakish mishap that works in the Troubleshooter's favour, there should be a complementary one that works to his disadvantage.
==Tools of the Trade==
A wide variety of special equipment items are available for thieves if they know where to look for them. This chapter details many such items. Many of these will be specific to particular thief skills and are listed for each skill. The use of lockpicks is an obvious example. However, there are also many miscellaneous items which thieves are particularly likely to find useful in their work and there is a listing of these items also.
All this isn't to say that only thieves should be allowed to use the items detailed here, of course. In some cases, other characters cannot use these items effectively. Lockpicks are useless for picking locks in the hands of anyone unskilled in this craft. However, many other items do not necessarily have such restricted use. For example, the use of tar paper (see below for a full detailing of this) could potentially be useful for characters other than thieves. But such an item is particularly likely to be encountered in the subculture of thieves and to be used by them when going about their nefarious activities. Also, taking a lively interest in equipment items which assist stealth, concealment, silent break-ins to places where you shouldn't be and suchlike is naturally part of the role-playing of thieves. Brave, hardy warriors and pious priests really shouldn't be interested in such matters!
===Picking Pockets===
This skill is usually practised by simple manual dexterity and swiftness. Even so, there is a small number of simple items which can help the thief in this art.
Arm Sling
This is simply a cloth sling; the thief wears it to appear as if he has a broken or injured arm and speedily withdraws his hand from it for the pocket-picking attempt.
This actually reduces the chances of licking pockets, but the pay-off is that the chances for being discovered are lower. This reflects he fact that people simply do not expect to see a man with a broken arm picking pockets and the expectation determines the perception. The use of this unusual strategy is only useful – but it is really useful here – when the priority is not to be discovered, rather than to be sure of success. A thief working in a city where he is not a guild member, or one where legal penalties for picking pockets are very harsh, might favour the use of this ruse.
A thief obviously cannot use this ruse for an extended period of time in the same place (save possibly by posing as a beggar). There is a limit to how long an arm can plausibly need for healing after all.
Mini-Blade
This is the generic term for a very small (and usually very sharp) blade which can be held (with care!) between the fingers or in the “edge of the hand”. A sharpened coin-edge, filed down, can be used in this way and has the advantage of being readily available. A more sophisticated (and rarer) version is the razor-ring, a hollow signet with a flip-top and a sharp blade within.
The mini-blade is used to cut a soft container – most obviously a purse or pouch – so that the thief can get at what's inside it. It is the most effective method of getting at coins, gems, etc., inside a purse with drawn and tied strings.
===Opening Locks===
Lockpicks
These are essential for the thief to use this skill at anything like his "natural" ability level. They are usually short lengths of rigid wire and flat, narrow plates of iron or steel, especially designed and made for dealing with locks and there will be a dozen or so to a set.
They will be supplied either on a ring (like keys) or in a cloth or leather wallet which unrolls. These items will never be freely available on the open market.
Improvised Lockpicks
Lockpicks are made for the job, but it is possible for a resourceful thief to improvise a lockpick from a length of wire, a hairpin or hat pin, or some similar ready-to-hand item. Obviously, this will never be anywhere as good as the specially-crafted item, but it's better than nothing.
Acid
If a thief is faced with a lock which his best efforts cannot pick open, metal-eating acid is one alternative. Such acids will eat through locks if they are strong enough. If the thief is unfortunate, the lock not only cannot be opened, but it will be ruined and unopenable! Use of such acid is difficult and avoided by most thieves, for various reasons.
Use of metal-eating acids is difficult because only acids of great strength will do the job effectively. The availability of such strong acids is very low (and the cost very high).
Thieves usually avoid such acids in any event. First, the acid is very hazardous to carry. While it may be contained in glass containers (and possibly ceramic), such vessels are fragile. Imagine falling down a pit and hearing the sound of breaking glass as double-strength acid begins to seep through clothing and over one's back... Second, if the acid does not do the job it may ruin the lock and any hope of opening it in another way, as described. Third, it is a calumny on the professional reputation of a thief to have to resort to such means as acids!
Chisels
A thief may attempt to force a lock open with a lock chisel and a small hammer. This is not really a highly skilled activity and non-thieves might have a chance of success at it. Obviously, forcing a lock is a noisy activity and any hope of subtlety and surprise evaporates with the first blow.
Cutters, Files and Hacksaws
These instruments may have to be resorted to if a thief cannot pick a lock, but thinks he has the time to try these desperately slow methods for bypassing the lock With a file or hacksaw blade the thief can try to saw through the lock apparatus; a pair of small wire cutters ma also be useful for disabling some part or the internal mechanism. Usually, only reasonably small locks can be cut through in this way. It may also be possible for the thief to cut around a lock with a hacksaw blade.
Again, use of such instruments is fairly noisy (although nowhere near as noisy as using a lock chisel). The main drawback to cutting through or around locks is that it takes a very, very long time. However, in most cases the
attempt will be certain to succeed, unless there are special circumstances, such as when the thief has only one small rust file and the lock is a huge combination lock device!
Magnifying Glass/Lens
Using such an item to inspect lock may add to a thief's chance to open the lock. This only applies if the thief has some element of the lock apparatus exposed to his view – if he can see something of the inner workings of the lock.
Oil and Funnel
Some locks may grow rusty with age and disuse and be harder to pick than new locks of the same quality of make would be. Seasoned thieves know only too well that the locks of doors in dungeons are all too often of this sort. However, rusted and even fairly dirty locks may have a little light oil applied to their insides, usually with the use of a long-necked funnel (and maybe with a short length of rubbery tubing on the end of that). The effects of the rust may be negated, in whole or in part, by such lubrication.
Of course, using oil to lubricate a lock helps the thief to open it silently. Oil is also useful when it comes to rusty door tinges in this context.
===Moving Silently===
Footpads
These useful equipment items have even have a type of robber named after them. Footpads can be improvised from rags or cloth tied to the feet, or built into footwear – the latter obviously negates any risk of cloth falling off!
Footpads are not considered standard equipment worn by thieves because of the disadvantages they have. Their advantage is that they significantly reduce the sound of the user's footsteps. The corresponding disadvantage is that footpads reduce traction, increasing the chances of slipping while climbing or running. Cat burglars are advised to use detachable footpads which can be donned after getting over the wall on their way in!
Silenced Armour
A special form of silenced elven chain is available to the thief. Such armour has each individual link wrapped in thin leather or light cloth binding. This to some extent "silences" the armour, at the cost of increasing its weight by one-third above that of normal elven chain. It is also fiendishly expensive, costing more than plate mail. Of course, it is even rarer than ordinary elven chain itself. Finding a craftsman and persuading him to make such a suit of armour could be a challenging adventure in itself for a thief.
Strapping
A thief may use lengths of strapping – usually of stiff, hardened leather – to improve his chances of moving silently if these would otherwise be reduced by such factors as squeaky floorboards (but not otherwise). These straps will usually be 30 to 36 inches or so in length and they help distribute the thief's weight over a wider area. Their use negates any negative modifier arising from squeaky floorboards, but the thief has to pick up the strips and move them before him as he walks along. This reduces his movement rate even further from that which normally applies for attempting to move silently.
===Hiding in Shadows===
This ability is not the knack of spontaneous invisibility. It covers hiding in deep shadows, bushes, shrubs, behind drapes, in alcoves – anywhere where there is a chance of skulking about immobile in some location which offers cover and the hope of staying unseen. Considering appropriate equipment needs to be considered in this light.
Camouflage Clothing
There may be exceptional variants on this – for example, if a thief knows that he needs to hide in shadows amongst the crimson curtains of a lady's boudoir he might use a crimson set of clothing. Apart from such singular special cases, there are two general types of camouflage clothing the thief will find useful in various situations.
Darksuit: This comprises black or very deep blue clothes, usually fairly voluminous robes or what might be termed a "utility suit” Such clothing will usually be lightweight so it can be carried about easily and worn under normal clothing if needs be. It will always include significant facial covering. If such a suit is worn, it will help hide in shadows in any area which is shadowy, has a light level equal to dusk or early dawn, or equivalent.
Woodland Suit: This has a similar basic design to a darksuit but is made of light clothing dyed in irregular patterns of greens and browns. It helps hide in shadows when the thief attempts to conceal himself in any suitable outdoors setting such as woodland, a field, or the garden of a town house.
Charcoal
Even wearing a darksuit, the glint of moonlight on a pallid white face can give a thief away. Blacking up the face (and neck) with charcoal further help to hide the concealment of shadows, dim light, etc. Burnt cork and soot are alternatives. The thief should not forget to blacken the backs of his hands either!
Plant Dyes
Analogous to the use of charcoal in dim lighting, a thief can use plant dyes (crushed leaves, berries, certain oily barks, etc.) to disguise his exposed face and hands and further help hide in the shadows of suitable outdoor settings. Such plant materials are usually rather sticky and smelly, however!
Weaponblack
One common problem for the thief attempting to hide in shadows is the glint of a steel weapon in moonlight, torchlight and the like. The way to avoid this is to use weaponblack, a thick emulsion of oil and soot. Weaponblack can be coated on to any metal surface and renders it almost completely matte black and reflection-free.
Use of this substance saves the thief having to worry about the glint of metal if he draws a weapon while hiding, or if he has a weapon already drawn when he attempts to hide in shadows initially.
Once the weapon has actually struck a blow, the weaponblack will be wiped off. Because it is oil-based, it is also highly flammable. If ignited it will burn brightly for a short time, adding fire damage to the thief's attack. However, if the thief is not protected from fire, his hands will be burned!
===Climbing===
Clawed Gloves and Shoes
Clawed gloves and overshoes are slipped over the thief's normal footwear. The thief uses these clawed items for extra grip on small nooks and crannies of whatever surface he is climbing. On very smooth surfaces where almost no nooks and crannies exist, clawed gloves and boots will not aid the thief in any way.
Clawed gloves and shoes can be used as a melee weapon – no training is required.
Climbing Daggers
Daggers have peen used to aid climbing by thieves for generations, so it is to be expected that a more specialized form has been developed for this task. Climbing daggers lave relatively short blades (some 6 to 8 inches long) which are stiff, strong, flat and very sharp. This allows the dagger to be inserted into wood or between ricks with greater ease than an ordinary dagger. They can be used in all surfaces other than very smooth ones. The handle is also flat and quite broad and usually bound with leather strips or thick string to give the hands a good grip, or even to allow feet easy purchase when the dagger is used as a step. also, in place of a normal pommel is a broad, smooth iron ring. This allows a rope to pass through, or it can be attached to one of the straps of a housebreaker’s harness (see Miscellaneous equipment, below).They may be used in combat, though ineffectively.
==Miscellaneous Equipment==
Many more equipment items are detailed here, which may be used by thieves going about their business. Virtually none of these are restricted to usage by thieves only. However, as before, thieves are he most likely characters to use them or to know where to find those that are not legally available.
The miscellaneous items have been grouped into various categories depending on their main application. This sometimes just for convenience and some items have several potential uses, so the list is worth perusing carefully.
===Burglary and Theft===
Crowbar
This is a simple all-purpose tool that can be used for forcing windows open, levering chests with locks which refuse to be picked and for similar purposes. A crowbar is usually a metal rod 3 to 4 feet in length, with one end slightly crooked and often with a snake-tongue division in it. They can be used as weapons.
Glass Cutter
This very simple instrument is usually a small diamond set into a suitable handle, or even one set into a ring. The diamond must be cut to a fine point and if used in a ring, a hinged top must be used to protect the gem. Such a tool will cut through glass fairly quickly. Attempting an entry through a window is always superior in principle to attempting to force a door, since windows cannot be as physically tough as doors and are less likely to be locked; but if they are locked, a glass cutter is highly useful.
The efficiency of this item is considerably increased if used together with tar paper (see below).
Keymaking Set
This expensive item allows a thief to make duplicates of keys he holds in his possession or from impressions of keys made using a wax pad (available as a separate item: see below). The keymaking set is a number of moulds, files, small blades, metal-working instruments and the like. It also uses a small oil-burning apparatus for softening and moulding metal, so its use is usually restricted to a safe, secure lair where the thief will not be disturbed. Duplicating a key takes a few hours, depending on the size and intricacy of the original.
Tar Paper
This is simply any kind of heavy paper or (more usually) cloth which has been soaked in tar, honey, treacle, or anything suitably sticky. The thief usually uses it by slapping it on a window before breaking the glass in a window-pane. The sticky surface keeps all the fragments together as the glass breaks. Noise is considerably reduced, both from cushioning the impact of a hammer on glass and by preventing broken glass from scattering all over the floor beyond the window. If there is someone within fairly close listening distance, however, even tar paper won't help.
Tar paper can also be used with a glass cutter (see above), being affixed to the centre of the area of glass to be cut out, so that it can be simply pulled out when the cutter has done its work.
Wax Pad
This is a small block of wax usually kept in a rigid container to keep it in one piece-the equivalent of a large snuff-box will do nicely. The thief uses the wax to record an impression of a key he wants to have duplicated later. Obviously, the thief can only do this if he has access to a key, at least for a short time, and if he doesn’t wish to take a chance on borrowing the key for a while. From the wax impression, the thief can have a locksmith make a duplicate of the original key, or attempt to make one himself using a keymaking set, if he has one.
With very soft wax, which may need heat-softening on the spot, the thief may even be able to make a wax impression of such items as heavy seals, which may be capable of being duplicated later – but an expert will be needed for this kind of duplication/forgery!
===Evasions===
Thieves often have reason to evade detection or pursuit. Some of their skills (hiding in shadows, moving silently) are tailored toward this end. Equipment detailed here includes further aids to evasion, items to assist in avoiding detection and even an item or two to enable the thief to whistle innocently if he is found and apprehended at the scene of the time.
Aniseed
Aniseed is a simple plant-derived natural flavouring. A small quantity of aniseed extract can be used by a thief to ruin any effort to have dogs track his scent, if bloodhounds (or similar) are used by pursuers. Dropping a vial of aniseed down at a suitable place (e.g., by the bank of a stream the thief crosses, by the base of a wall he traverses, even at a crossroads) will ensure that the dogs’ sense of smell is utterly ruined for several hours if they reach the spot where the aniseed has been dropped. It's debatable how well it should work on any other kind of any tracking animal, but it's certain to have a detrimental effect on almost anything's sense of smell.
Dog Pepper
This may be dropped on the floor, like aniseed, to put dogs off the scent when pursuing a thief. It is less effective than aniseed, however, if used in this fashion. Dog pepper may more usefully be scattered into the air. The pepper will hang in the air for some time after being flung into it. A dog entering the area during this time has no chance to avoid the effect of the pepper. If dog pepper is thrown right into a dog's face, the unfortunate animal becomes hysterical for some time, during which it is totally uncontrollable.
Caltrops
These actually come in many different shapes and sizes, but the basic form is a metal ball with four to six spikes or prongs set into it. When a caltrop is thrown to the ground it always lands with one spike standing more or less upright. A thief may throw small caltrops to the ground to slow down pursuers. Caltrops cannot be used as missile weapons, however.
Hand Lamp
This is usually a small metal pot about the size of a night-light candle. It has a hinged flip-up lid with a mirror on the inside; a silver mirror is often used, so the item is not cheap. The mirror directs the light and the lid also works as a snuffer when closed. The lamp provides enough light for the thief to work by (e.g. when trying to pick a lock in a dark place), while not shedding enough to give the thief away (hopefully). Certainly, the dim, focused light is unlikely to be visible at all further than some 20 feet from the thief and even within this range it is very, very dim.
Hollow Boots
These come in various forms, but a common design is one with swivelling heels. The heel of the boot is grasped and twisted firmly toward the inside surface. The heel swivels and reveals a small, hollow compartment within the boot. These compartments are very smal; and will typically only hold one gem of moderate size or up to four small ones. The design of the boot is such that there is not an externally visible built-up heel, but nonetheless a thief wearing these boots will find it difficult to sneak around.
Marbles
The use of these is an old chestnut, but perennially popular with thieves, not least because of their effectiveness. A small bag of marbles (a general term for small spheres of glass, metal, etc.) unleashed over a stone floor to roll around forces any pursuers to slow down or slip up and have to give the thief headway while getting up again. Because marbles roll around a lot, a small bag will cover a large area. Small stones and pebbles can only be substituted for marbles if they have been polished, filed, etc. so that they are almost perfectly round - a time-consuming business.
===Self-Protection and Combat===
The equipment detailed here offers sneaky combat options for thieves, which any character with any real decency and sense of honour would usually eschew.
Blinding Powder
This is a general term for any powder which is highly abrasive, irritating to the eyes and disabling to the victim as a result. Powdered stone, pepper, dust soaked in onion juice and strong ammonium salts – blinding powder can be made from many ingredients.
Blinding powder is only useful if it is thrown right into the eyes of a victim.
If blinding powder strikes a victim, their eyes begin to lacrimate intensely, blinding them for some time. If the victim can wash his eyes with plenty of water, the effect will only last for a very short time after the eyes are washed. Although blinding powder can contain some unpleasant ingredients, it has no permanently damaging effects on the eyes.
Death Knife
This sinister instrument can appear to be a blade-less knife, but it is more often disguised as something more innocent such as a case for a comb or spectacles or quill pen, a tool of some sort, etc. The disguise will not fool any close inspection, however. The blade of the knife is within a barrel inside the handle and is spring-loaded. The knife is triggered by pressing a catch on the handle; the blade shoots forward with considerable force.
The obvious advantage of the death knife is its capacity for surprise. Since it doesn't look like a weapon until the blade is sprung, a victim can be taken totally off guard by its use. If the target does not realize a blow is coming and the thief manages to get the weapon close to the body of the victim so that a lunge can be made with it, any strike is treated as a backstab, given the surprise element. A backstab is not always literally a stab in the back! An envenomed death knife in the lands of a skilled assassin is an exremely dangerous weapon.
Folding Bow
Bows are very useful for thieves, but are very hard to conceal because of their size and shape. A folding bow solves this problem, dividing neatly in half when unstrung, making it a much more suitable size and allowing concealment-for example, in a thigh sheath. Only short bows have folding-bow equivalents. The joint in the middle of the bow weakens it, however, reducing range and damage.
Pin Ring
This simple a ring with a flip-up lid, below which is a needle capable of delivering a dose of poison (or knock-out drug, etc.) to the target. The most primitive version of this will have the pin simply sitting in a small reservoir of liquid drug or toxin. Subtler and more refined designs have a needle capable of drawing up liquid from a reservoir.
Sword Stick
This is simply a long, slender rapier concealed within what appears to be a simple walking stick or cane. Rogues are especially fond of this weapon. Its main use, obviously, is the possibility of smuggling it into places where weapons aren't allowed.
Wrist Sheath
This small leather sheath is made to hold a knife or dagger and is strapped to the forearm below the sleeve of a garment so that the weapon can be flipped to the hand by an arm movement and the blade readied for action. A dexterous thief can work the blade into his hand by arm movements disguised in the context of changing posture or similar, innocuous moves. Again, the advantage is concealment.
===Miscellany===
Blade Boots
This exotic title is a catch-all for specially modified boots which have concealed blades within them. The blades have to be small, of course; they are usually little bigger than modern-day razor blades. They are usually concealed in secret compartments in the heels of boots (see Hollow Boots above), but slender blades can even be hidden in the soles of boots. Such blades are of little use as weapons, but can be used to slit pouches and purses, to cut ropes and for similar tasks.
False Scabbard
Thieves can employ stout scabbards which are slightly longer than the swords which fit into them, leaving a length of scabbard at the end which is a separate, hollow compartment. Usually, this can be accessed via a sliding panel at the end of the scabbard.
This hollow compartment can be used to conceal a great many kinds of things, either to smuggle them in (poisons, dog pepper, blinding powder, etc.) or smuggle them out (gems and such). Some are so well-designed that the compartment can be entered from above or below, so that the thief can use the false scabbard as a snorkel (or, more correctly, as an underwater breathing tube) if he has to stay concealed in the water for any reason.
Hand Warming Lamp
This small lamp is oil-burning, with a reservoir of oil and a small wick sunk into an earthenware shell. It is used by the thief to warm his hands, by cupping them around it, if cold would otherwise impair his talents (try picking a lock with frozen fingers!). Virtually no light is produced, the aim simply being to warm the hands. The simplest version of this is a corked earthenware sphere which can be filled with hot oil before the thief sets off on his work, to be drawn from a pocket and held in the hands when needed.
Marked Cards and Biased Dice
These are standard trappings for any self-respecting swindler.
==Appendix 1: The basics of Thieves' Cant==
Box-Man: Strictly speaking, a thief specialized in cracking safes.
Burn: To underreport the take in a job to one's partners. "Luigi burned us. He told us there were only three diamonds and kept two for himself."
Cannon: Pickpocket, cutpurse.
Contraband: Illegal goods (stolen or prohibited by local law).
Fencing: Selling stolen goods. “We stole the duke's jewels and fenced them later the same night”.
The Fix: Ties with corrupt officials to have criminal charges "fixed”-that is, thrown out. This will usually require bribes or favours.
General Subscription: Money collected from the local underworld to free a captured thief by bribing officials.
Hit Man: Assassin; an "executioner" for crime bosses, paid to kill their enemies.
Lone Wolf: A solitary, independent thief. He is probably self-taught and not allied with a guild.
Made-Guy: A burglar who is in good standing with the local thieves' guild; a guildsman.
Mark: The target of a confidence game. "We have to bring the mark to the Blue Recluse."
Mob: A group of thieves.
Pennyweighter: A thief who operates by replacing valuable items (especially jewellery) with worthless ones.
Piece Man: Someone who trades knowledge on where stolen property can be sold.
Pigeon: Victim of a con or swindle.
Pigeon Plucker: swindler, con artist.
Racket: Any sort of larceny, from pickpocketing and burglary through embezzlement.
Rootin': Committing crimes.
Roper: Someone who pulls in a mark for a con.
Rounder: A good, professional burglar.
Score: Loot from a theft. "We got a good score from the duke."
Squeal: To identify one's partners to the local authorities, usually in return for a lighter penalty for one's own crimes.
Tipster: Someone who has knowledge to share with burglars about good targets
==Appendix 2: The Code of the Professional==
Do you think that a city, an army, or bandits, or thieves, or any other group that attempted any action in common, could accomplish anything if they wronged one another? - Plato's Republic, Book I
One of the things that distinguishes a "professional" thief from the more common, vulgar variety is his understanding, like Plato's, of the delicate balance of justice that even thieves must maintain among themselves to be successful.
Many thieves wish to be regarded as professionals. It is a privileged status, indicating success and the respect of the underworld. It can be an asset for business, bringing more and more lucrative jobs. Even in places not claimed as territory by guilds, there are circles of professional thieves, forming the elite of the underworld.
The most basic qualification of a professional is that he is recognized as such by other professionals. This recognition is not easy to gain. A thief must build a reputation for excellence – for competence, reliability and honour among his business partners.
A would-be professional also needs to hang out in the "right spots," taverns and such establishments, particular places where the professional clique gathers. There they relax, share information and make contacts and arrangements for professional cooperation with other thieves.
Attitude is the first element to be adopted by the aspiring professional. The professional attitude says thieving is a business and should be conducted as neither more nor less than one. The professional is not contemptuous of his victims; they simply failed to protect their property adequately and suffered the economic consequences.
Professionals develop an unwritten code of conduct, guidelines for behaviour. Its exact contents vary from place to place; the only universal rule seems to be the prohibition of "squealing." A typical "code" is as follows, with its elements listed in order of importance:#A professional thief does not "squeal": If captured by authorities in the course or as a consequence of a job, he must not reveal the identities of his partners, fences, informants, or other professional contacts.#A professional thief will honestly report how much money or valuables are taken in a job; he will not "burn" his partners.#A mob of professional thieves will share their score equally among themselves, or according to the contribution of each to the job, arranged and agreed upon beforehand.#A professional thief will share some of his earnings with other professional thieves who have been incarcerated (to help pay fines, bribe officials, etc.).#If a professional thief has valuable information (e.g., attractive targets, location of traps and the activities of the town watch), he will share it with other professionals.#Professional thieves will help one another, even in spite of personal differences or enmity between them.
As stated above, not all of these rules are recognized in each circle of professional thieves; but some sense of honour is vital to the attitude and behaviour that mark a professional and gain him recognition as a "good burglar." The penalty for breaking the professional code can be at least as severe as breaking the law. A few transgressions may be overlooked by the criminal community, but a pattern of consistent disregard for the code will cause a character's reputation to deteriorate. Other thieves will not invite the character to be a partner in jobs; silence and cold stares will greet him at his favourite social establishments; and fences may even refuse to purchase the goods he acquires. He also runs the risk of former associates squealing on him.
In the worst situation – say, a thief burns his partners, squeals on them and then skips town for some foreign port – the offending thief could not only expect his professional reputation to be ruined, but he had better keep an eye over his shoulder, watching for assassins and bounty hunters hired by his former associates, or by their friends or families.
On the other hand, there are considerable benefits for the thief who adheres to the code. He will gain the respect and trust of his associates. He is not immune from dishonourable thieves, who may try to burn him or squeal on him; but he will have the support and approval of others in exacting revenge on those who wrong him. Also, if he is captured and imprisoned by authorities, he can expect the privilege of the fix: the guild contacts (or less formal contacts) may arrange his release through bribes or favours. Even if the professional does not have access to the money needed, other thieves, knowing that he'd do the same for them, will pitch in until the necessary amount has been gathered.
Category:Guides