G is for Guilds

I missed the April A-Z Blog Challenge this year, so I'm doing my own...in June. This year, I will be posting one post per day discussing my AD&D campaign, for the curious. Since 2020, this is the ONLY campaign I run. Enjoy!

G is for Guilds and Guildmasters...the kind that rule over thieves and assassins.

All right this is going to be a short one, because I don't have much to say on the subject. There's a lot of information available on the "guilds" of the middle ages that a person can research...for several hundred years they were a major part of urban life and the economy of Europe, acting something like a combination of cartel and trade union, and wielding power and influence over the population...even though they were beholden to the local rulers for their official charters.

The idea of a "thieves guild" is generally attributed to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser books, but so far as I'm aware, his stories little describe how such a guild would function. A better reference (perhaps) is the short story Rinconete y Cortadillo written by Cervantes in the early 1600s which details the indoctrination of two young n'er do wells into a thieves guild operating within Seville. Cervantes's guild is small and shabby, its thieves ridiculous in their grandiosity and professed piety, but one can see how such a thing might function in a medieval setting (i.e. during the time of European guilds). The guild is more of a "gang," the hideout something of a clubhouse, and every thief contributing what they steal to the guild with spoils being divvied out based on rank, function, and seniority. Cervantes's guild includes not just theft, but card sharping, prostitution, and revenge beatings (acting as hired thugs for civilians who don't wish to dirty their own hands). Monies collected are used to maintain their hideout and for bribes to their various "benefactors:"

"...the procurator who defends us, the constable who warns us, the executioner who has pity on us, and the man who, when one of us is fleeing down the street with a mob at our heels shouting: 'Thief! Thief! Stop him! Stop him!' stands in the middle of the street and tries to stem the flood of followers, saying: 'Leave the wretch alone for his luck is hard enough!'...the sisters of charity, who by the sweat of their brow help us as well in court as in jail, and the lawyer; for if he be in a good mood, there is no breach of the law which is rated as a crime an no crime which meets much punishment..."

This is not a "tithe 10% to the guild to operate" kind of operation; rather, if you wish to commit crime in the city, you ARE giving your earnings to the guild (all of 'em) and they will take care of you...in many ways Cervantes seems to see such an enterprise much as a monastery or religious institution (the thieves even refer to themselves as "brethren"), doing the work that God has set them to do. 

The number of thieves in Cervantes's guild number about 20 (before the new apprentices join up), with at least one mentioned outsider thief ("The Jew") who's in need of a beating due to not following orders from the guild. Seville, the capital of Andalusia, had an estimated population of 150,000 people in 1600...although this had grown dramatically from about 50,000 just 70 years prior (this population explosion being born of Seville's granted royal monopoly of trade with the Spanish Americas). Cervantes grew up in Seville, his family moving to Madrid in 1566 when the boy was 19. While he returned as an adult (1596-1600), but the Rinconete y Cortadillo novella may well have been written as early as 1590 (when Seville's population was still only 80,000)...his perception when writing the book may well, have been based on his childhood memories.

This matters to me, because I'm interested in how many organized criminals a particular community can support. In my campaign, there is no town of more than 50,000, and only three towns with more than 5,000 (Port Townsend, city of the elves, has less than 4,600). Given Cervantes's figures as rough estimates, only my three largest towns (Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane) could support anything like a "thieves guild." Which might, by the way, explain why any thief of any degree of skill would seek a life of adventure outside of an urban environment; it would certainly explain all the elven thieves I see running around the setting.

On the other hand, it might be that there are PLENTY of thieves in even moderately sized townships...they just don't fall under the protection/province of any particular "guild" (and, thus, getting caught results in facing the full penalty of the law; another reason for thieves to leave home and adventure elsewhere). 

Suffice is to say that, despite calling themselves "guilds," any such den of thieves is nothing more than a gang operating in a particular territory or area, unsanctioned by the local rulers, and set-up pretty much the same as any hideout built by a 10th level thief (as per the rules in the PHB). All apologies to Leiber, there are no vast networks of organized Mafia types running rackets, just independent operators and their "families" operating outside the law and squabbling with rival gangs that pop up and horn in on their territory.

Now assassins are a different matter: all assassin missions are contractual by nature with set costs based on rank and ability. As such, there must be a wider organization that they operate out of...and, yet, there are far fewer assassins (trained in poison, murder and disguise) than there are thieves. A single "Grandfather" of assassins seems appropriate for a campaign setting of my size, but what about all the 14th level "guildmasters?" The PHB provides specific instructions on assassins guilds, but I'm only inclined to place them in the Big Three (human) cities...which provides good justification for why most demi- and semi-humans in my campaign are limited in the level they may obtain as an assassin. Doesn't really explain orcs, though...unless unlimited orcish advancement is tied to the racial identity of the current Grandfather/Grandmother of Assassins?

Yeah. That sounds about right.

So, rather than multiple guilds there is only ONE "assassins guild" in my campaign, although there are "masters of the guild" (i.e. the 14th level "Guildmaster Assassins") who act as a sort of "section leader" in the major population centers (including Boise, Portlandia, and Vancouver, B.C.), and it is only in these places that contracts can be handed out (and cashed in)...although emissaries from other towns may travel to achieve their services, and independent operators (i.e. the player characters) may be contracted at the standard rates by anyone. 

Unlike the thieves guild, I think that the assassins ARE officially sanctioned by the powers that be. By giving them a measure of autonomy and ability to function, the rulers are able to exert some control over their targets (i.e. preventing them from targeting the rulers themselves). They serve as both a weapon and a means of detente, as the threat of assassination stays every ruler's hand from creating national crises through reciprocal murder vendettas. 

As for the location and identity of the Ruler of All Assassins...well, that remains a mystery at this point. Even to me.