Thief Guilds of the Blessed City (GLOG Classes: Thief Guilds)

    Thieves! Good stuff, thieves. Sneaky troublemakers who never seem to suffer the consequences they deserve. These are Lexi's thief guilds.

    As a Thief you can wear light armor but can not carry shields. You never fumble with knives or clubs. Your Guild will give you other proficiencies.

Dagger Cults

Source: Wikimedia.

    The worshipers of Volund. They form small groups wherever there is both industry and poverty. Though a cripple and half-blind, Volund exacts revenge for even the smallest insult. His followers revel in escalation of violence. Disproportionate responses are how they honor their g_d.

Skills: 1. Smithing 2. Animal Handling 3. Opera. You are proficient with slings and garrotes.

Starting Equipment: three daggers (light), a sash for holding daggers, half a dozen beautifully worked sheathes for daggers, a whetstone of an appropriate size for daggers and an object from the ninjas's equipment list

1. Purpose
   

   ✧ You talk to knives as if they were people. Your thrown weapons have double range and +2 to-hit.

   ✧✧ You have names for each knife and assign eccentric personalities to them. Your attacks ignore cover of any kind; thrown weapons turn corners and navigate dense underbrush to hit targets within range.

   ✧✧✧ Sometimes, the knives talk back. You may forego attacking and spend your turn whispering the name of a target to your weapon; if you do so, your next thrown attack at that target automatically hits.

2. Myriapod
   

   ✧ As the Volundarkvitha says: "Many legs make light labor". Whatever that means, I guess. You may wall-run horizontally for 20'.
   

   ✧✧ You can wall-run at a dead sprint for 60', and can climb as quickly as you can walk.

   ✧✧✧ By now you're faster across vertical surfaces than horizontal ones. You may wall-run straight up, or in a loop, and you treat falls as being 30' shorter if it is possible to run down an adjacent wall
   

3. Cachaemia
   

   ✧ Spite and gallows-humor has built up in your blood. While injured, you may smear weapons and projectiles on your wounds to have them deal an extra point of poison damage on their next hit. Your friends can do this as well.

   ✧✧ Your blood is true poison now. 1 HP's worth of your blood deals 1d6 damage if ingested. Additionally, you are immune to most poisons and take half-damage from venomous monsters.

   ✧✧✧ When take slashing or piercing damage, your blood fumes out in noxious clouds. Adjacent creatures take 1d6 damage, or 1 damage on a successful save. Creatures which bite you take 2d6 damage without a save, and creatures which eat you die immediately. If you see an attack coming, you can designate nearby creatures to automatically pass their save.

4. Coiler's Flesh
   

   ✧ In strange rites you have tasted the blood of the Worm. You understand birds, though they don't like being understood by humans and fall silent if they know who you are.

   ✧✧ You can understand anything with feathers or scales, and speak to them in their own language. Conversation is now possible. Your dreams are filled with thoughts of treasure and violence.

   ✧✧✧ You can speak to metal and precious stones. Gold gossips, iron is racist, gems are dreamy and whisper of the past and the future. You may construct a hoard of at least 500 gp. The hoard is impossible to find until you are killed.

5. Swan Feathers
   

   ✧ Dagger Cultists know the secret art of ramie production. You can make garments (traditionally shirts, though it could be capes or trousers) out of wild nettles. It takes three days and 1 HP (taken from your maximum) to craft such a garment. The wearer may ignore gravity for thirty seconds a day, resetting at dawn.

   ✧✧ Your garments now count as leather without taking up any inventory space. The magic resets at dawn and dusk. Existing garments may be retooled with one day of work.

   ✧✧✧ Wearers have flight for sixty seconds which moves them as fast as they can run.

6. Tömösváry
   

   ✧ Delicate horns pierce the skin of your temples. You can sense movement within 20', making it impossible to surprise you while awake [unless it's a ghost or something, or an ambusher shoots you from farther than 20' (which is not unlikely)]
   

   ✧✧ The horns curl backwards like a ram's. You have a better sense of smell than a dog, and can see solid objects within 20' at any light level.
   

   ✧✧✧ The horns sprout razor-filaments which shudder in response to light and motion. You know the HP total of every living thing within 20', and can hear physiological changes when they are lying or afraid.
   

Thugs Guild

The most noble seal of the Thugs' Guild. Accept no substitutes.

    Those who do it for a living. "Thieves Guilds" are a bit of a stupid idea, aren't they? Why would criminals form a guild of all things? What, do they offer one another insurance? Is there a pension for thieves who are too old to steal? What sort of incentive do they have to not rat one another out immediately for rewards and favors from Johnny Law?
    Now, a Thugs Guild, that makes a lot of sense. There are a thousand reasons why a legitimate businessman might need to hire the services of Rudy (two meters tall, cornrows, wrap-around green shades, dual-wields nunchucks) and Boris (two meters tall, ginger fuzz, big raggedy scar over his eye, carries a baseball bat everywhere he goes). Consider the club bouncer, the bank security guard, the anti-shoplifting squad — plenty of honest work out there for the hench among us.

    And Rudy and Boris have a lot of reasons to unionize. It seems if they aren't being kicked in the teeth by Angelina Jolie then they're being tossed out of helicopters by Daniel Craig. That's dangerous work, often non-OSHA compliant, with minimal benefits (unless you really enjoy being abused by Daniel Craig or Angelina Jolie). Thus: the Thugs Guild.

Skills: 1. Intelligent Conversation 2. Tying People Up 3. Getting Da Boss Coffee. You can wear medium armor and are proficient with one-handed guns and blades.

Starting Equipment: a card and a pin indicating Guild membership, a standard-issue blunt object (1d6, ⅓ slot), half a dozen tallboys (1 slot), a pack of menthols and a lighter.

1. Swagger
   

   ✧ Your training has given you a distinctive way of moving. If you choose, shopkeepers, street urchins and other minor NPCs immediately recognize you as someone who could beat them up. Morale rolls are made with a penalty equal to the difference between your level and the NPC's HD (minimum -0).
   

   ✧✧ When you intimidate an NPC, they get a penalty to their morale roll equal to how many of the following things are true:
   

   • You broke something of theirs in front of them. 
   • You mentioned a specific, non-obvious fact about them (full name, address, favorite food, a sibling they care about, &c) (stacks up to -4)
     
   • You came up with a good in-character threat.
   • You confronted them somewhere they thought was safe (their shop, their home, their parent's funeral).
     

   ✧✧✧ You can intimidate anything which can understand your threats. You could bop a dragon on the shin and say "eeeeeehhh nice pile of treasure you got here, be a shame if something happened to it" and they would have to make a morale check. Dragons have very, very high morale scores, but they still have to make the check.
   

2. Friends in Low Places
   

   ✧ You have 1d6 guild contacts in the underworld. They keep you updated of the gossip in the streets. Possible services include:
   

   • Fence for you to sell contraband.
     
   • Dealer for you to buy contraband.
     
   • Information Broker who can swap secrets.
     
   • Capo who can rent you soldiers.
     
   • Robber who needs another hand for a job.
     
   • Gentleman-Burglar who can be hired to steal specific things for you.
     

   If you move to a different area, it takes you a week to find another 1d6 contacts.
   Additionally you know Thieves Sign, which is impressive for someone with such big ugly sausage fingers.
   

   ✧✧ You have every common contact, and if you bring a letter of recommendation to a new city you can rebuild your network in an afternoon. If you ask around, 1d6 thugs will follow you on a job for a share of the loot. They have one rank in Exotic Proficiency and skip if they think you are screwing them over.
   

   ✧✧✧ You can communicate with Thieves Sign with eye contact and blinking, even if your hands are full. Rats, cats, pigeons and possums are willing to negotiate with you — they can be your spies or your thieves in return for food and minor favors.
   You can have a pet rat if you want. Roll on the following table for its name:
   

   1. Squeaks
   2. Sunny
      
   3. Reginald
   4. Garfield
   5. Schmendrick
   6. Fido
      
   7. Marcus
      
   8. Doris
   9. Rags
   10. Oswald
   11. Adorabelle
   12. Draco
       

3. Optimized Looting
   

   ✧ When you take ten minutes to search a room, you can choose to search it very thoroughly (heh heh). This is a loud process and will alert anyone else in the building or cause an immediate wandering monster encounter. At the end of this thorough search, you will have discovered every secret door, revealed every trap, and piled up anything even vaguely saleable in a heap on the floor.

   ✧✧ You are a skilled appraiser, and can tell the approximate value (well within a magnitude) and the historical/geographical provenance of items and architecture on sight. You can smash priceless-but-intractable works of art into manageable chunks in such a way that they can still be sold for ¼ their value.
   

   ✧✧✧ You are a master appraiser, to the point of identifying individual works and artists on sight. Magical swords will talk to you even if they normally wouldn't. You know the value of mundane objects to within the nearest 5 gp, and can predict the value of magical items (contingent on your understanding of the magical effects).
   

4. Impress Da Boss
   

   ✧ If you rolled lower than 10 on a strength-related check outside of combat — that is, to move an object, bend a bar, lift a gate or something along those lines — you rolled a 10 instead.
   

   ✧✧ You have a bag of tricks which can occupy up to 6 slots of inventory. You can pull a mundane one- or two-slot item out of the bag at any time, which then occupies those slots. The bag can be refilled in town with 5 gp of actual money and two hours of theft.

   ✧✧✧ If you can lift something, you can carry it indefinitely. Ignore encumbrance penalties. When people ask "isn't that heavy?" you must grunt and say "not really".
   

5. That Didn't Hurt
   

   ✧ You have two hector points (hP). These represent your ability to ignore karate-kicks and blows to the head. When you take damage from a physical attack, your hP soak it first. You get a single hP back every time you intimidate an enemy into fleeing or reduce a target to 0 HP.
   

   ✧✧ You have four hP. They now soak damage from poison, fire, falling and magic. You can regain a point by getting drunk or destroying 5 gp of furniture.
   

   ✧✧✧ You have six hP. You can sacrifice one in combat to roll an attack with advantage. If you take a hit at full hP which overflows, ignore the overflow damage.
   

6. Exotic Proficiency
   

   ✧ Pick a weapon which would be stupid and impractical for an urban setting (an urumi, a three-foot boomerang, a sledgehammer, a pair of nunchucks, a pair of tiger claws). You are proficient with that weapon as a fighter, and get +1 to-hit while using it.
   

   ✧✧ When making an attack with advantage using your stupid weapon, if both attack rolls succeed you hit twice. You also have +1 damage with the stupid weapon.
   

   ✧✧✧ Negotiate a special effect for your stupid weapon. An urumi might ignore shields, a missed boomerang might get a second chance to hit on its way back the next round, a pair of nunchucks might tangle enemy weapons. Something cool and intimidating. You get +2 to-hit and damage with the stupid weapon.
   

Preppies

Source: Thief GI cover by I-GUYJIN-I

    Those who rob for sport. Some are gentlemen-burglars, too proud to work (think A. J. Raffles and Mssr. Flambeau). Some are professionals with complicated reasons and justifications (Carmen Sandiego and Arsène Lupin). Some are rich kids bored with their lives of leisure. A few are just total shitheads.

Skills: 1. Dance 2. History 3. Gamesmanship. You can use shields and are proficient with rapiers, pistols, broadswords and shortbows.

Starting Equipment: An extra-large wallet, a domino mask, a nice suit (as unarmored, +1 reaction) and twenty calling cards with your name [design your own in Photoshop (or Paint)!].

1. Idol Rich
   

   ✧ Everyone knows you come from good stock. Your calling cards count as invitations to the best parties in any city they are recognized, and your extensive balleto training lets you run across any structure which can hold your weight.

   ✧✧ A week of fraternizing gets you 1d6 contacts in the upper class. They give you accurate rumors and might let you borrow their yacht. Your calling cards can get you out of minor punishment (for crimes such as parking violations, trespassing, public drunkenness) with a minimum of embarrassment.
   

   ✧✧✧ Once per city, your calling cards can get you out of a death sentence (for crimes such as murder, kidnapping, blasphemy). You will be quietly escorted to the city limits and asked to never return. Your rich friends will think this is hilarious, unless the crime was against the upper class.
   

2. Fancy
   

   ✧ High Fashion (as unarmored, +1 reaction) counts as leather for you. No one ever thinks it is strange that you are dressed in High Fashion.
   

   ✧✧ Your reaction bonus is trebled if your party members are also wearing High Fashion. When you take a hit, you may sunder your fancy clothing. The outfit is ruined, but incoming damage is reduced by a d12.
   

   ✧✧✧ Given half an hour and a knife you can turn any set of clothing into particularly daring High Fashion. Careful; you might start a new trend.
   

3. Amateur Cracksman
   

   ✧ It's more fun if they never even knew you were there. Dark clothing and dance shoes give you a +2 bonus to sneak attempts. You have a 3-in-6 chance of picking a common lock in ten minutes (2-in-6 for something more secure, 1-in-6 for a safe or the like). Your jump distance is doubled..
   

   ✧✧ Odd how they never think to look behind them, or up. You can silently follow a lone creature for as long as you want. You don't need to roll to climb anything a normal person could climb with a roll, and your lock-picking attempts are improved by 2-in-6.
   

   ✧✧✧ When you step into a shadow, you leave the scene. Reenter from another shadow when you feel like it. This trick can take you unseen to anywhere, unless it would be literally impossible (the dimensional portal is well-lit and watched by Argus, the wizard teleported to the bottom of a volcano 1,000 miles away, or something else truly absurd). It might be more sporting if you started leaving your calling cards.
   

4. Real Professor
   

   ✧ You've learned the hard lessons of the street. Quite literally — the Thugs Guild holds workshops down at the community center. Refreshments are provided (bagels and lemonade). When striking an unsuspecting target with a blunt object, you may forego damage to knock them prone and dazed for 1d6 rounds. You have a friend in a low place of your choice (except for the burglar, because that's you).
   

   ✧✧ Did you know the Thugs Guild offers a subscription service as well? It's true! Before a job, you can scare up 1d6 Thugs with one rank in Exotic Proficiency. They will each demand a share. If you lose a Thug, the Guild will expect a reimbursement of 100 gp. You can't get out of this penalty without skipping town entirely. Even you aren't more powerful than unionization.
   Roll to determine your thug's name:
   

   1. Klaus
      
   2. "Bubba"
      
   3. Big John
      
   4. Natasha
      
   5. Cash
      
   6. Rolf
      
   7. Maurice
      
   8. Gator
      
   9. Boris
      
   10. Crusher
       
   11. Nickie
       
   12. The Ethnonym
       

   ✧✧✧ In recognition of the friendship between you and Thugs everywhere, the Guild has put your name on a little board in their meeting hall. There's even a really ugly bronze statue of you on a park bench somewhere. You can flash your calling cards to get in to the back room of any casino or unsavory club, and you can reach any common friend in a low place within twenty-four hours. Various criminal elements recognize you as a patron of the Art. You can depend on their friendship and silence.
   

5. Daddy's Money
   

   ✧ When you gain this skill, your parents send you a check for 50 gp. If you plan out a job at least a day in advance then you already own the mundane supplies — we've got people for that, you know.
   

   ✧✧ Your calling cards can be offered as promissories to automatically bribe doormen, revenuers and border patrol. This also works on 4-in-6 actual cops and 3-in-6 actual minor officials (judges, secretaries of politicians, bureaucratic functionaries).
   

   ✧✧✧ Your parents and any elder siblings have died in a tragic yachting accident at the family ski lodge. You immediately receive 1,000 gp, an estate in the city, an estate in the country, a yacht, a ski lodge, a crypt, 15,000 gp in gambling arrears and whatever grudges or favors your family is owed.
   

6. Decadence
   

   ✧ The family library is extensive, and contains a few elder tomes of hideous secrets. You can cause one of the following effects with a whispered word:
   

   • Shatter a fragile glass object, like a cup, mirror or window. 
   • Snuff a small fire, like a match, candle or lamp.
     
   • Kill a small creature, like a spider, mouse or canary.
     
   • Force a sensation on a person, like a rotting stink, a flash-paper light or the sound of loud whispers. 

   When you use a hideous secret, roll an intelligence save or take a point of damage.
   

   ✧✧ When you gain this rank, you lose 3 points from Charisma or Wisdom. You can see in dim light as easily as direct sunlight. You know the names and faces of 1d6 of them, which allow you access to all sorts of exciting clubs and secret parties. Gain an MD and a spell of your choice.
   

   ✧✧✧ When you gain this rank, you lose 3 points from Charisma and Wisdom. They have noticed you and your meddling. Gain a mutation, another spell, and an additional MD. You might need to wear a mask in public now.