Guild Leaders (CTH)

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Clearly, how a guild is organized will influence how it is ruled (and vice versa). This is taken into account in the rules for designing and developing guilds. At this stage, we'll just consider the commonest patterns of leadership, which again can be developed by the DM as he wishes.
==Guildmaster==
This is by far the commonest style of leadership; the single leader. His style of leadership may vary considerably, of course. He may be a stern, harsh despot, ruling by force and fear. He can also be a kindly despot, a firm but wise ruler. He might also be a weak, querulous, but kindly leader—rather ineffectual, having lost his old strength and daring, but still smart enough to eliminate young pretenders to his rulership when he sees them preparing a bid for power. Styles of leadership will be looked at right after this section.
==Council==
The guild is ruled by a number of individuals, usually fairly small, who act as a central conclave, Praesidium, ruling council, or under any one of a variety of titles. This is often the equivalent of an oligarchy in government—a self-perpetuating elite, who appoint replacements from senior ranks as and when necessary to maintain or expand their number.
==Democracy==
Rather unusually, the rulers of the guild are elected by the guild members. This does not mean that these rulers need be weaklings, or afraid of using their powers sternly and firmly when they need to (imagine a ruler elected for a 10-year term for example!). The "elections" may be the source of notable corruption, bribery, fixing, and vote-rigging of all sorts. The devious DM can imagine dozens of ways of embroiling PCs in the kind of scandals and scams such a state of affairs will throw up!
==Leaderless==
This is mostly a temporary state of affairs, when the guildmaster has just died, the ruling council been arrested, and the like. However, in a very few guilds this may be a permanent state of affairs. Here, the guild will carry on only a few of the usual functions, and will primarily act only as a practical resource. Thus, the guild house will be somewhere to find a trainer, buy equipment, and gossip with fellow thieves. Guild dues will not be excessive, and they will be paid for reasons of pragmatism. However, regulation of thiefly activities will be minimal or non-existent.
A leaderless guild is ripe for a coup, of course, and again this be a good option for the DM!
==Complex/Mix==
In this context, this means some kind of power struggle in most cases. A guildmaster may have had an ultimatum put to him by powerful seniors within the guild—accept a ruling council or else. Likewise, an ambitious and smart thief may be trying to take over a democratic guild and install himself as the undisputed leader.
==Special==
Because the ruler(s) of the guild are of such major importance, many DMs will be prepared to put some extra effort into designing them in some detail. For those who don't want to have to go to the trouble, the blueprint profiles (later in this chapter) can be used for guildmasters. For the more industrious, why settle for the usual option of (say) a human or half-elf guildmaster with the usual high skills and appropriate magic items, or the sourpuss old dwarf with his smelly leather armor who is the secret behind-the-scenes master thief? Guild design does include such natural racial possibilities, but there are other, more exotic, options.
The DM will always want to design these cases individually, but a few examples won't go amissóthese can be ripped off with or without DM development, or used as a spur to DM imagination.
Dragon: A dragon makes an excellent guildmaster. Some can polymorph self into human (half-elf, etc.) form as a natural ability, others can use the spell of the same name, others still might have a magical item permitting this change of appearance. Dragons are vain and love treasure, so what more natural than a stream of junior thieves bringing pretty treasures to the "guildmaster" as a tithe? The guildmaster can also, of course, have many charmed servants from charm person spells.
Deepearth Creature: Drow and Illithid are the best candidates. Appearance can be disguised with an illusion spell, the use of a mask (imagine cowled, masked thieves protecting their identities in a council meetingóa very sensible set of precautions), a hat of disguise, or in other ways. The guildmaster could aim at gaining wealth, power, information, all for nefarious purposes which PCs should want to stop. Combatting such a guildmaster (or even a ruling council) is an excellent introduction to deepearthing, a pleasure no player should be denied.
Extraplanar Creature: Denizens from evil planes make excellent guildmasters. They like having power, gaining information, and wealth isn't something they are wholly indifferent to. Plus they have lots of time on their hands to indulge themselves by being a thieves' guildmaster. Their powers of disguise and concealment make it easy to maintain the pretense of humanoid form.
Intelligent Monster: A troll as guildmaster is not terribly likely. But how about a beholder? efreet? rakshasa (a particularly good choice)? a faerie dragon using its many spells? There are many possibilities!
If the DM decides on a special guild ruler, there are several questions which he needs to consider:
* Can the ruler pass itself off as a normal race? This will usually be important for retaining the loyalties of guildmembers. A spell, magical item, innate power, or plausible reason for seclusion will be needed.
* How did the creature get to the top? Either it must have thief skills, or be able to simulate these (with spells, magical items such as gauntlets of dexterity, etc.), if it has worked its way up through the ranks. Or, it must have been able to replace someone at the top of the guild (through assassination, etc.).
* Why does this creature want to be guildmaster? The possible reasons are money (tithes), information (thief spy reports), power, amusing itself (a faerie dragon, or an evil denizen with a few decades to kill), and the like.
If the DM is prepared to think through such issues, then a special ruler type can be great fun.