Thieves Guild of New Edom

[Tybalt]

I have been thinking about stuff I have not yet depicted in my game and came up with this idea for the main region the game is currently set in. Essentially the City of Fineberg is located between two rivers, the Erken and the Silver River. It is the main center of local manufacture and trade and thus what I've come up with is a thieves' guild called The Boatmen.

Both rivers and in particular the large Silver River are used by barges, single sail craft and in the case of the Silver River flat bottomed galleys and roundships. New Edom is a very lawful neutral type society, obsessed with concerns about fairness that sometimes go into legalism. Because of this merchants, farmers and other producers try to find ways to gain more profit and this is how I imagine the Boatmen coming into existence. Essentially their main work is smuggling, receiving illegal goods and selling illegal goods. I imagine that this expanded until they have a measure of control over such transactions. These people were intially simply families of boat transporters who eventually have come to have a measure of power. The different 'guild's are the Boatmen families that occupy areas, who sometimes negotiate between one another or have discreet but nasty moments of violence. The presence of the Council Police and the other authorities means they have to be careful and in fact they are likely to find ways to become Council Police informants if possible, though this is dangerous since at a moment's notice they could be denounced as criminals. I imagine that they balance this by turning in rogues or non-Boatmen type thieves, or by helping spy on locals and the like.

I imagine that the Boatmen have a headquarters in Fineberg that is probably their docking area, and front their business as being just a shipping concern. There are doubtless perfectly legitimate boat captains who simply have a business transporting goods by barge quite openly, and so not everyone plying the river trade is a Boatman so to speak.

In time the Boatmen have come to accept people of other races, mostly exiled or unpopular in their own areas but useful and bringing rare skills to the Boatmen.

[f_hayek]

Sounds like a really well thought-out idea. The way you've described the development, and the 'families' really reminds me of organized crime. I could see the Boatmen families pooling power into larger groups and possibly starting to take a page from modern day organized crime and getting involved in not only smuggling, but racketeering, river 'highjackings', and serious bribing of public officials to keep their activities free from government scrutiny.

Not sure if you want to take it to that extreme or not though.

[Tybalt]

Actually I like the idea and I've been toying with the idea of having that start to happen in game to make it more dramatic. Perhaps that a group of Boatman family leaders are approaching one another cautiously about the idea of pooling resources. It might make for a very interesting subplot of the game for the players to stumble onto.

[Furor]

a good impetus would be a new group on the block, a foreign smuggling ring that is outsourcing the smaller boatmen.

[Tybalt]

I think I'd like to present that with an adventure or subplot in mind, that's a good idea. I have also been considering ideas like infiltration by werecreatures and that sort of thing.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Werecreatures are always a favorite of mine.  They make for great tension and investigation, especially if the PCs have no magical way to identify them and actually have to think.  Wererats are really good for inner-city stuff.

[Tybalt]

I was thinking of wererats too, since water rats exist and it would be a good way for some members to have this amazing reputation for being able to slip the traces of the law. Unlike say werewolves they are more likely to be subtle as well and would be likely to carefully dispose of any dead victims.

For foreign groups I was thinking about slavers. Perhaps normally the guild would be neutralish but would balk at such things as outright slavery as they are still citizens of the Republic. (much as some r/l mob groups might balk at certain kinds of activities while amorally involving themselves in others) However new leadership elements do not (the wererats?) and at the same time place themselves in a position to be able to infiltrate areas held by the enemy.

[Furor]

Check out the Krondor novels by Raymond E. Feist, they are focused around a dark theives guild taking over the city and destroying the established order of crime with assassinations and murders in the streets. Good stuff, and each chapter can pretty much run as an adventure.

[Tybalt]

The only one of those I've read is "The King's Pirate" which I picked up more or less by accident. I'll check out others but it was kind of inspiring to me as well. Particularly as slavery is very very much against the law in New Edom.