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SilverLeaf167
2017-02-28, 02:14 AM
Man, the NSA is going to love this. :smalltongue:

I often wonder about this: in a medieval/early-modern setting (or whatever really), how would one actually contact and communicate with an assassin, crime boss, etc.? Such people generally want to be accessible while also staying hidden, maintaining deniability and scouting out their clients.

Presumably they would maintain some contacts who know where to find them and point clients in their direction, but how do those people stay safe, then - and how do clients find them? I assume "word gets around", but then unwelcome guests will know as well.

I can think of some options, mind you, but want to know what you got.

I'm also open to answers involving magic and such, but would rather keep the question system-agnostic.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-02-28, 02:18 AM
There's always the good old fantasy bartender.

Bartender in a shady bar can point you to a certain table if you ask in the right way. Certain people at a certain people can have a chat with you and pass a message along to the actual assassin/crime boss if you don't seem like a rat. If you don't ask the right way in a manner that allows for plausible deniability for them then they don't know what you're talking about.

Satinavian
2017-02-28, 02:56 AM
Dead letter boxes.

You leave a letter that you would like a meeting and how to contact you. The assassin can observe the letter box and take the latter when it is safe. Then has some time to think if you are trustworthy enough to contact you and he can scout out you. Then he proposes a suitable place and time for the real meeting via the way you proposed (as long as this way is safe for him) Then you meet.

the existence of the letter box can be known to a larger numbe of people who are or might possibly know clients without it being too dangerous for the assassin. The box should be located somewhere where the assassin or his allies can monitor it but where are still enough people around that the assassin or his allies can't be found just by looking around. It must also be easy to notice any non regulars who happen to monitor the letter box and there need to be times when no one (else) notices, when the asassin take the letters out of the box. It might even be more prudent, to let someone else take the letters and give them to the assassin in another place. Ideally an illiterate street urchin or so.

That is for low/no magic fantasy.


Crime boss is different. There you make contact via one of his numerous underling who actually do the dirty work. Obviously you would looking for something half open with customers. Like merchants with stock which is just a bit too cheap and might be smuggled or stolen.

daniel_ream
2017-02-28, 03:01 AM
I often wonder about this: in a medieval/early-modern setting (or whatever really), how would one actually contact and communicate with an assassin, crime boss

Those things simply don't exist in a "medieval/early-modern" setting. An "assassin" is nothing more than a hired thug with a weapon[1], and you can't have a crime boss without organized crime, which requires a bourgeois middle class, occupational specialization, and (generally) some set of highly desirable commodities the populace desires but the ruling class wants restricted despite not being able to do so effectively (organized crime in the USA really only develops as a result of Prohibition).

Unless you're playing something like Harn, though, this is irrelevant; D&D is already chock full of modern anachronisms so backporting in whatever modern crime tropes you like is good enough. Reading some hardboiled crime novels will give you plenty of ideas; if you want explicitly fantasy/historical "modern crime", look up the Didius Falco novels (hardboiled PI in Imperial Rome) or the Garrett, PI novels (Nero Wolfe-style mystery in a kitchen sink high magic fantasy world).

[1] cf. also Thomas Becket, whose murderers were four knights - minor nobility.

SilverLeaf167
2017-02-28, 03:11 AM
Those things simply don't exist in a "medieval/early-modern" setting. An "assassin" is nothing more than a hired thug with a weapon[1], and you can't have a crime boss without organized crime, which requires a bourgeois middle class, occupational specialization, and (generally) some set of highly desirable commodities the populace desires but the ruling class wants restricted despite not being able to do so effectively (organized crime in the USA really only develops as a result of Prohibition).

Unless you're playing something like Harn, though, this is irrelevant; D&D is already chock full of modern anachronisms so backporting in whatever modern crime tropes you like is good enough. Reading some hardboiled crime novels will give you plenty of ideas; if you want explicitly fantasy/historical "modern crime", look up the Didius Falco novels (hardboiled PI in Imperial Rome) or the Garrett, PI novels (Nero Wolfe-style mystery in a kitchen sink high magic fantasy world).

[1] cf. also Thomas Becket, whose murderers were four knights - minor nobility.

Yeah, I'm aware of the anachronicity, but as you kinda acknowledge, it's pretty much a given in a D&D-style setting (which this admittedly is). "Medieval/early-modern" is more in terms of aesthetics and mundane tech level, though of course magic can emulate a lot of later tech if needed.

Satinavian
2017-02-28, 03:16 AM
Well, "early modern" includes the time until the end of the 18th century.

And while data of professional assassins for hire is pretty rare (because those successful, if existent, remained hidden), something that counts as crime boss is not especcially uncommon in this time frame. Illicit goods and services are not an invention of the 19th century. Lots of things were forbidden or at least heavily taxed or subject to legal monopolies all the time and people made always a fortune moving those outside of the law. And then we have groups like pirates who also need to sell stuff, whole ship cargos full of stuff. And then there was always also prostitution which might or might not be illegal but could get pretty big.


The problem is really only with assassins. And the problem there is mostly that there are not enough jobs for a professional assassin in most places. How many people really need to get killed per year in a town or even a county ? And will all of the clients really find or hire the same assassin ? There still might have been some individuals with lots of contacts and a huge radius of operation, but there most certainly never was a thing like an assassins guild operating in a single city.

SilverLeaf167
2017-02-28, 03:59 AM
The problem is really only with assassins. And the problem there is mostly that there are not enough jobs for a professional assassin in most places. How many people really need to get killed per year in a town or even a county ? And will all of the clients really find or hire the same assassin ? There still might have been some individuals with lots of contacts and a huge radius of operation, but there most certainly never was a thing like an assassins guild operating in a single city.

Though I still prefer to keep the question itself generic, in my particular situation there are just small numbers of individual, unorganized assassins operating in particular cities with high concentrations of clients and targets, occasionally heading on assignments elsewhere. With high enough prices, they don't even need that many jobs to afford a pretty nice lifestyle.

One could probably argue that specialized assassins are more justifiable in fantasy settings where the difference between a random thug and a trained expert is pretty much insurmountable, even before potentially adding magic (from the attacker, the defender and any investigators) into the mix.

Berenger
2017-02-28, 04:08 AM
If we talk about "assassin" as an professional hired contract killer that makes a living by conduction cloak-and-dagger operations and who is skilled the use of various poisons, all sorts of athletics and a master of disguise, possibly organized and trained in some type of formal assassin guild, that is to say, the archetypical fantasy assassin, then the answer is probably "such people did not exist".

If you are a noble or other influential person, you are likely to have, for completely legitimate reasons, a number of loyal fighting men under your command that can kill a designated person in an ambush that can look like an ordinary robbery if that person is not terribly well protected. Another possibility would be mercenaries which offer fresh faces and a bit more plausible deniabilty. They tend to announce their totally-strictly-battlefield-related-I-swear-to-God services openly by beating loud kettle drums and wearing outlandish clothes dyed in garish colors.

Satinavian
2017-02-28, 04:20 AM
Though I still prefer to keep the question itself generic, in my particular situation there are just small numbers of individual, unorganized assassins operating in particular cities with high concentrations of clients and targets, occasionally heading on assignments elsewhere. With high enough prices, they don't even need that many jobs to afford a pretty nice lifestyle.

One could probably argue that specialized assassins are more justifiable in fantasy settings where the difference between a random thug and a trained expert is pretty much insurmountable, even before potentially adding magic (from the attacker, the defender and any investigators) into the mix.If you want to be realistic, it is probably more prudent to assume indivials who do complete other stuff most of the time, but are not above murder if the need arises. Without feuds or political unrest, murders are really rare, even in cities and in those two cases most murderers are not hired professionals.

BarbieTheRPG
2017-02-28, 04:25 AM
Assassins tend to be members of secret guilds. Those guilds have various contacts who act as informants for the assassins. A character with military, criminal or political contacts should have access to at least two or three 'specialists'. Assassins are NOT just another thug. These are people of exceptional skill and discipline which makes them valuable to people of power.

SilverLeaf167
2017-02-28, 05:02 AM
I should probably clarify: I'm not necessarily asking for historical precedents, or whether professional assassins existed, though any tidbits are obviously interesting. "Realism" isn't my first priority either - verisimilitude is.

I'm mostly looking for DM'ing ideas to handle assassins (in a setting where they do exist) in a way that won't make my players go "Hey, wait a minute..." :smalltongue: It's an intrigue-heavy campaign, so I'd rather handwave as little as possible.

Lord Raziere
2017-02-28, 05:18 AM
Are you talking in a fantastic manner or in a realistic manner?

because in fantasy, it can be as fantastic as whispering into the shadows of a certain magical whatsit, praying to the assassin god for a kill, and other spooky magical stuff like that.

if we're being realistic to actual medieval ages however, then the answer is that assassins didn't exist as a formal thing. Lots of things didn't exist as a formal thing then. the medieval ages clung to tradition so much not because it was full of iron-clad all-controlling tyranny but because it wasn't very well in control of anything at all, so it had to cling what islands of stability that it could.

heck the first assassins ever were religious people. founded during the Crusades. Kind of says a lot about what people thought of faith back then. in many ways, if you want a realistic formal institution outside the nobility in medieval times, you make a religion out of it. because even the nobility, in the end are kind of just descendants of really successful bandit warlords who go "see? the gods approve of me, so overthrowing someone elses absolute rulership for my own was A-OK!" who only rule as long people don't feel like killing them.

So if you want a realistic order of professional assassins, make them religious. otherwise, your a noble who has custom trained a guy to be sneaky, good with a dagger and kill your enemies silently and hope that your resources are enough to train them well. If your a commoner and your trying to hire an assassin the questions become: how foolish are you, what makes you think you have anything worth paying them, how will you find one assuming they exist when your in an isolated village surrounded by dangerous wilderness, and if your going to be so risky why aren't you going forth to become an assassin yourself, or even the first assassin ever?

RazorChain
2017-02-28, 05:50 AM
Like in the real world. You know a guy who knows a guy.

MrStabby
2017-02-28, 06:33 AM
People have been killing each other for millennia. People have been paid, in one way or another, for as long. Not all of this has been in open warfare. I am pretty sure assassins have existed for a long time. They might not match our fantasy of an assassin - but killer for pay is certainly plausible.

I will just leave this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_assassination

In terms of meeting them you can be active or passive. To be passive just make your grudge public and let them approach you.

To be active, ask around. Again, you might not find anyone but if you are asking around they might hear of it and come to you. Part of the trick might be to find someone with sufficiently little to lose that they will take the risk.

Maybe approach corrupt watch/guards - they will be hunting violent criminals anyway. If they could be prepared to cut a deal then you might have yourself an assassin.

Darth Ultron
2017-02-28, 07:45 AM
I should probably clarify: I'm not necessarily asking for historical precedents, or whether professional assassins existed, though any tidbits are obviously interesting. "Realism" isn't my first priority either - verisimilitude is.

I'm mostly looking for DM'ing ideas to handle assassins (in a setting where they do exist) in a way that won't make my players go "Hey, wait a minute..." :smalltongue: It's an intrigue-heavy campaign, so I'd rather handwave as little as possible.

You'd have a group of common assassins. they are not the demi gods that kill kings, they just kill normal folk. Assuming a mostly good city they would have a clean (non-criminal) contact. Someone like a bar keep, or an easy to find social person, but it could be anyone. The more careful ones might have two folks you need to go through. And some times you never meet the assassin.

A low life bar might have some amateur assassins, of course.

The more evil place will just have an assassination office, where you can just hire the guy like any other job. They might even advertise..

BWR
2017-02-28, 08:14 AM
The way I run games, most assassins would be people already within an existing power structure. They function as high level problem solvers for their boss, be it a wealthy noble, a country, a crime ring, a powerful merchant, etc.. Spies, instigators, saboteurs, 'cleaners', enforces, etc. and sometimes their job includes assassination. Anyone wanting to hire an assassin would have to contact the noble/crime lord/organization/whatever rather than the assassin directly.

In a fantasy setting it is possible that there might be some reclusive order of assassins, possibly with some political or religious foundation, that everyone knows of, usually located well outside the direct sphere of influence of any local lord. Either you try to visit them directly or they have some specific method of being contacted.

The problem with the idea of people who do nothing but assassinations for a living is that they have to eat. Either they live in a place where people are hired to kill other people all the time, or they have to charge such ridiculous amounts of money that they can afford to only do one job every now and then, which is technically possible, but hard if we are taking into account they might need to purchase magic and want a decent standard of living.

Stealth Marmot
2017-02-28, 08:19 AM
Who's the job?

...wait you mean in game, okay, well the first thing you need to remember is that the term "assassin" can mean different things. Do you mean just a person to kill someone? Then it's the same as hiring any mercenary and you are just a quick gather information check away. If you need a more professional killer, then you have two potential situations.

One, you find a self employed person with a reputation for being a professional killer. This means you have to make contacts with underworld people through the right channels. Basically, expect to make gather information checks, diplomacy checks, use bribes, use bluff checks to provide innuendo, and for the love of Olidammara DON'T GET NOTICED BY THE AUTHORITIES. There is an element of luck involved, especially since you want to make sure no one knows who you want killed. They may have rules on who they will kill. Some won't kill children for example, some won't kill innocent families, some won't kill their own race or might ONLY kill a particular race. True professionals though, know how to make exactly the right amount of mess. Want it to look like an accident or do you want to send a message? Some advice, if the assassin says it will cost you more to make it look like an accident, he is BSing you. Assassins WANT it to look like an accident. They want to undersell their presence so that the goodie-goodie paladins don't get in the way of their very professional and often necessary function. Not that I would know about that at all.

The other situation is the existence of an Assassin's guild, and if such a thing exists you can bet your coin purse they will have a very careful network set up. If there is an assassin's guild, a gather information check will be needed to find out just what you need to do to find them. If you are familiar with Skyrim, you know there can be mystical methods to it. It might involve leaving a letter in a specific place or tipping off a certain person, and the assassin's visit you asking what you wish. That is entirely setting based and if your DM has an idea, he probably will be giddy hearing you ask how to contact them since he gets to show off his cool hush hush spy network style of espionage and assassination. Really, half of it just to set up an aura of mystery. Clients love the theatrics. I mean...theoretically.

Thinker
2017-02-28, 11:56 AM
I should probably clarify: I'm not necessarily asking for historical precedents, or whether professional assassins existed, though any tidbits are obviously interesting. "Realism" isn't my first priority either - verisimilitude is.

I'm mostly looking for DM'ing ideas to handle assassins (in a setting where they do exist) in a way that won't make my players go "Hey, wait a minute..." :smalltongue: It's an intrigue-heavy campaign, so I'd rather handwave as little as possible.

I think your best bet is to have your assassins double as bounty hunters, mercenaries, highway bandits, pirates, smugglers, less reputable town watch members, traveling circus members, vagrants, and other folks who operate at the fringe of society. There are a couple of ways to find those who are willing to murder for money - underworld contacts are likely already aware of who might be willing to do the job (though, they might not be entirely reliable); using double-speak when talking to a might-be-assassin (speaking to a mercenary, "I've got a problem that's not on the battlefield and needs to go away") allows deniability while also getting the message across, but also comes with risk; contacting a faction boss who might have some people on staff who are willing to do such work (pirate captain, high priest, crooked watch captain, etc.). I don't think there's a plausible way to contact an assassin directly without already knowing that the person is willing to take on such jobs.

Temperjoke
2017-02-28, 01:18 PM
You hire a party of adventurers to do it.

On a more serious note, usually in smaller villages and towns, people do their own dirty work, either secretly or with a set up to avoid blame (like provoking the other guy in a fight for example). In a larger city, they might be linked to a larger crime organization. In some fantasy stories, all the various types of criminal activities are set up in different guilds (like the thieves guild versus the smuggler or assassin guilds). So, in a situation with a known (not official, but everyone knows it's there), there are going to be connections to connections. Of course, the more respectable the person doing the search for the assassin, the harder a time they're going to have contacting them.

Mastikator
2017-02-28, 01:38 PM
Normal people can't contact professional assassins. Normal people aren't even privy to the knowledge that there are professional assassins.

Only organizations that are in the business of killing people have access assassins and these assassins are loyal to their organization/leader. I'm talking about organized crime, state intelligence agencies and military agencies.

What a normal person can contact is a murderer and they do so at incredible risk to their own person.

A league of assassins that allows itself to be hired by anyone to do any killing is setting itself up for its own death.

Fey
2017-02-28, 01:59 PM
Those things simply don't exist in a "medieval/early-modern" setting. An "assassin" is nothing more than a hired thug with a weapon[1], and you can't have a crime boss without organized crime, which requires a bourgeois middle class, occupational specialization, and (generally) some set of highly desirable commodities the populace desires but the ruling class wants restricted despite not being able to do so effectively (organized crime in the USA really only develops as a result of Prohibition).


The problem is really only with assassins. And the problem there is mostly that there are not enough jobs for a professional assassin in most places. How many people really need to get killed per year in a town or even a county ? And will all of the clients really find or hire the same assassin ? There still might have been some individuals with lots of contacts and a huge radius of operation, but there most certainly never was a thing like an assassins guild operating in a single city.


The problem with the idea of people who do nothing but assassinations for a living is that they have to eat. Either they live in a place where people are hired to kill other people all the time, or they have to charge such ridiculous amounts of money that they can afford to only do one job every now and then, which is technically possible, but hard if we are taking into account they might need to purchase magic and want a decent standard of living.

These statements are inaccurate.

1. The word "Assassins" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins) comes from the Arabic Hashshashin, a group developed in the 11th century that was active for hundreds of years. A D&D assassin's guild could easily be built off a similar concept.

2. You're using "organized crime" in the context of modern mobs and mafias, but in a medieval setting, organized crime is simply run by the Thieves' Guild, a common fantasy trope (and one which prominently held a role in the Order of the Stick). A "Crime Boss" is the Guildmaster. The real-life equivalent would be an organized group of bandits or highwaymen, or smugglers moving illegal goods, each of which has a history going back for centuries. There was a lot of smuggling as far back as the 13th century in order to evade taxation or get around trade embargoes.

3. There's nothing saying an assassin can't also have another source of income, such as a day job they maintain for appearances, or they might operate as a thief as well as an assassin. And living expenses would EASILY be covered by what an assassin charges...a modest to wealthy lifestyle has a cost of between 1 to 4 gp per day, or 365 to 1460 gp per year. An assassin could charge 500 gp for a hit and only need to work 2-3 times per year. Or if they're being hired by a wealthy noble for a political assassination, they could reasonably charge even more.

As for how to hire them...Make your players roll a Gather Information or Investigation check to ask around in seedy bars and other wretched hives of scum and villainy.

Berenger
2017-02-28, 02:07 PM
People have been killing each other for millennia. People have been paid, in one way or another, for as long. Not all of this has been in open warfare. I am pretty sure assassins have existed for a long time. They might not match our fantasy of an assassin - but killer for pay is certainly plausible.

I will just leave this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_assassination

I read the chapters "Ancient History", "The Middle Ages" and "Modern History - Pre-World War I" very carefully and the only mention of killers with a) anything resembling a specialized "assassin skill set" and b) a general willingness to employ said skill set in the service of the highest bidder are the ninja (aka shinobi).

MrStabby
2017-02-28, 02:45 PM
I read the chapters "Ancient History", "The Middle Ages" and "Modern History - Pre-World War I" very carefully and the only mention of killers with a) anything resembling a specialized "assassin skill set" and b) a general willingness to employ said skill set in the service of the highest bidder are the ninja (aka shinobi).

Why does it have to always be employed in the service of this highest bidder? Where does this ever happen? Is there some kind of death auction?

Also - what is an "assassin skill set" - surely it is the skills to get the job done? Given that these people did get the job done, ruthlessly and pragmatically, I would say they had the skill set.

If you define Assassin to only mean Shinobi, then you shouldn't be surprised if that is all you find.

RedMage125
2017-02-28, 02:57 PM
One of my old character concepts (Monk/Assassin) exists as an NPC in my world, and he runs a magic item shop "The Woven Web". If you go in there, and tell the shopkeeper that you are "looking for a spider", the assassin will contact you to begin contract negotiation.

Flickerdart
2017-02-28, 03:12 PM
You pass the buck to a lower-ranked member of your social circle, who passes the buck down to a lower-ranked member of his social circle, until the job falls to Baldrick and he stabs the mark with a sharpened turnip.

Professional killers-for-hire are a very modern concept. A king or a powerful nobleman could have his own secret police, of course. The famous hashashin were a religious order, which is pretty much the same but dressed up differently.

As for a crime boss? Let a street urchin know that you want to talk, and the right people will be in touch.

jayem
2017-02-28, 06:22 PM
Would Locusta count, at least in reputation? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locusta)

MrStabby
2017-02-28, 07:13 PM
Would Locusta count, at least in reputation? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locusta)

Yup. Someone engaged to kill someone else. Sounds like an assassin to me.

LibraryOgre
2017-02-28, 08:37 PM
How legit, open, and organized are your assassins guilds?

In Steven Brust's Draegara, there's House Jhereg, who has most of the skilled assassins (you can throw some coin at an Orca and have them kill someone, but the Jhereg are the ones who will do it professionally). Depending on where you are in the cycle, the Jhereg might be operating openly, or you might have to find an illegal game of chance or market to contact them, and they'll get back to you. Of course, post-Interregnum, killing someone isn't necessarily illegal, 'cause the Dragaerans are weird that way. Bear in mind, their assassinations can get downright martial... the Sword and Dagger of the Jhereg would teleport in, one of them using a two-handed sword... while Vlad Taltos, another Jhereg assassin, is known for the line "No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will severely cramp his style"... but he was assassinating that wizard with the help of another wizard.

In Morrowind, the Morag Tong operate openly. You can go to their guild house and pay them money and they'll go kill someone. It's even legal.

Beyond that? You put the word out that you're looking for an assassin, or you ask someone who will know. If you're in AD&D, ask a thief friend, since they know the cant and can find professionals.

Berenger
2017-02-28, 09:31 PM
Why does it have to always be employed in the service of this highest bidder? Where does this ever happen? Is there some kind of death auction?

Also - what is an "assassin skill set" - surely it is the skills to get the job done? Given that these people did get the job done, ruthlessly and pragmatically, I would say they had the skill set.

If you define Assassin to only mean Shinobi, then you shouldn't be surprised if that is all you find.


"For the highest bidder" was meant as a shorthand for "is willing to provide his service in exchange for payment and to further a cause he himself doesn't identify with" or "a killer for hire as opposed to a killer that kills to further his own political or religious agenda".

Because, for the purposes of this thread, there seems to be a clear distinction between "assassin" as in "successfully murdered a fellow human" and "assassin" as in "makes a living from doing contract killing for random employers and was trained for this job". I referred to the latter definition.

Assassin skill set: This refers to a combination of skills commonly attributed to successful assassins and uncommon for members of the non-assassin populace. Examples include: Extensive knowledge about specialized poisons. Being able to move stealthy and being able to avoid detection by common security measures. Being able to use a knife or other concealable weapons in a quick and silent way. Being able to overcome obstacles such as walls, locked doors, guards. Being able to stay calm and use these skills in conjunction with the unifying goal of killing a human being. Being able to vanish from a crime scene without being caught and without leaving useful hints for any type of law enforcement. If Alice waits for Bob in a monitored underground parking lot, jumps him with a baseball bat and smashes his head with 3d4+2 brutal hits while screaming at the top of her lungs, then yes, she evidently assassinated Bob and therefore demonstrably possesses the skills needed for an assassination. It still doesn't make her an assassin in the latter sense and doesn't qualify her to assassinate a guarded VIP and escape from the scene to enjoy her hard-earned money.

junlogji
2017-02-28, 09:58 PM
Man, the NSA is going to love this. :smalltongue:

I often wonder about this: in a medieval/early-modern setting (or whatever really), how would one actually contact and communicate with an assassin, crime boss, etc.? Such people generally want to be accessible while also staying hidden, maintaining deniability and scouting out their clients.

Presumably they would maintain some contacts who know where to find them and point clients in their direction, but how do those people stay safe, then - and how do clients find them? I assume "word gets around", but then unwelcome guests will know as well.

I can think of some options, mind you, but want to know what you got.

I'm also open to answers involving magic and such, but would rather keep the question system-agnostic.


http://i.imgur.com/TnUzz.jpg

Xuc Xac
2017-02-28, 10:11 PM
In a medieval/early modern setting, the only difference between an organized crime boss and a nobleman would be the number of generations their family has been in the business.

Efrate
2017-03-01, 01:49 AM
You said intrigue heavy campaign,so a lot of politics, back room deals, etc. Make or RP a bunch of streetwise, gather information, contact, investigation checks. They lead you to a guy, who might know a guy, and might tell you where to see him, for a price. Repeat until a sufficient level of plausible level of deniability is reached. Expect to be watched. Maybe the guy who you paid first is the assassin and wants you to jump through the hoops to prove you are who you say you are. The guard just knows him as ol Jim, a nasty sort, always in tavern. Its a shoddy shipwright by day, but its a merchant city and he charges next to nothing for his shoddy work. Probably been arrested for a few drunken brawls, typical gutter scum. Which is of course all a cover identity.

Depending on the setting, it might be walk in, name a name, pay a price and its done. Depends a LOT on city through. Street urchins, seedy dockworkers, prostitutes, and others who live and work with the dregs of society might know a way.

Or it could be one of the most powerful nobles. If you can manage to meet him in his manor he will deal with you. If you die along the way oh well you were trespassing. How do they find out about him? Well asking around reveals some odd habits, might be eccentric nobility, but his clothier says how he never wears the same thing twice, and when he delivers his dubs for final fittings the house is always different. Crazy nobles eh? You might find a few out of favor nobles deep in their cups talking about how scary said noble, or his captain or the guard, or his lovely but unreachable daughter is.

Start with who the assassin is, then work back words in a way that is plausible, difficult, but you can find out. And if someone who isn't supposed to know does, well, they are an assassin after all,not likely to be caught easily.

Knaight
2017-03-01, 02:01 AM
If you're not after historicity, there are some modern concepts that might work. Among these are thinly veiled assassination contracts couched in terms of bets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market) made about the exact date that people die, where the person who guesses correctly makes the money.

daniel_ream
2017-03-01, 10:14 AM
These statements are inaccurate.

No, they pretty much are.


1. The word "Assassins" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins) comes from the Arabic Hashshashin, a group developed in the 11th century that was active for hundreds of years. A D&D assassin's guild could easily be built off a similar concept.

I was wondering when someone would bring up the hashishin. The followers of Hassan i-Sabah were not contract killers, which is what we're talking about here. They were a separatist political/religious sect that engaged in asymmetric warfare because they lacked the manpower for a standing army. We're talking the IRA and Basque separatists here, not Carlos the Jackal.


2. You're using "organized crime" in the context of modern mobs and mafias, but in a medieval setting, organized crime is simply run by the Thieves' Guild, a common fantasy trope

The fantasy trope of the thieves' guild originates in Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar series, and it's a deliberate joke - that Lankhmar is so corrupt that thieving is an organized profession rather than something done opportunistically.


The real-life equivalent would be an organized group of bandits or highwaymen, or smugglers moving illegal goods, each of which has a history going back for centuries. There was a lot of smuggling as far back as the 13th century in order to evade taxation or get around trade embargoes.

Yes, there was. It wasn't organized in the way you're suggesting unless it was part of a national effort (a trade war between nations or something). When we talk about organized crime, we're talking about a model that really only exists circa Prohibtion and afterward, because there just isn't enough money in it otherwise. In a feudal medieval setting, the middle class simply isn't big enough or rich enough to prey off of, and it isn't possible for career criminals to exist without occupational specialization, a robust middle-class economy, and a legal system that makes crime as a profession reasonably profitable. Keep in mind that for most of English medieval history, at least, the criminal penalty for just about everything was death. Maybe mutilation if you were lucky.

As I said before, most fantasy settings RPG and lit are anachronistic mashups anyway. There's no small amount of current pulp fantasy that mashes Stephanie Plum-style crime fic with D&D tropes.

Satinavian
2017-03-01, 01:36 PM
I would still say that things like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers under Klaus Störtebecker totally count as "organized crime".

oudeis
2017-03-01, 01:51 PM
I was inspired to search for 'beggars guilds' because I just couldn't believe that the Beggars Guild from Tim Powers' enjoyable fantasy/sci-fi/historical fiction novel The Anubis Gates was wholly made up. It probably was, but I came across this (http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25186)discussion on a history site.

SilverLeaf167
2017-03-01, 04:17 PM
I was inspired to search for 'beggars guilds' because I just couldn't believe that the Beggars Guild from Tim Powers' enjoyable fantasy/sci-fi/historical fiction novel The Anubis Gates was wholly made up. It probably was, but I came across this (http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25186)discussion on a history site.

I swear, I once read something about a rare but real phenomenon of "beggar kings" or "kings of beggars", unofficial leaders appointed by the local authorities as a pretty lazy attempt to keep the other beggars in check (with little success), but Google is proving understandably unhelpful.

daniel_ream
2017-03-01, 08:43 PM
I would still say that things like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers under Klaus Störtebecker totally count as "organized crime".

I think most people would recognize a distinction between organized crime and piracy/privateering.

The Victual Brothers weren't criminals. They were a mercenary naval squadron - privateers.

Keltest
2017-03-01, 09:10 PM
I think most people would recognize a distinction between organized crime and piracy/privateering.

The Victual Brothers weren't criminals. They were a mercenary naval squadron - privateers.

Who were also pirates, ie criminals.

lightningcat
2017-03-01, 10:09 PM
http://i.imgur.com/TnUzz.jpg

In a magical society, something like a Incantation/Ritual to send a message to a defined group makes sense. In fact, while I had never thought of it before, it is now part of any D&D or Pathfinder game I run from now on. Even if it never gets used.

daniel_ream
2017-03-01, 10:44 PM
Who were also pirates, ie criminals.

That's a big stretch of the definition of "criminal", not least of which because by definition pirates and privateers operate in a region where no nation's laws have any jurisdiction.

In any event, I think it's pretty clear that "pirates" isn't what anyone's thinking of when the term "organized crime" gets used.

The Key
2017-03-01, 11:17 PM
Very carefully! :smallwink:

junlogji
2017-03-01, 11:35 PM
In a magical society, something like a Incantation/Ritual to send a message to a defined group makes sense. In fact, while I had never thought of it before, it is now part of any D&D or Pathfinder game I run from now on. Even if it never gets used.

maybe you should run one focused on an assassin or assassins

i would definitely love to play in one whether as an assassin myself or someone who is trying to catch an assassin

daniel_ream
2017-03-02, 12:14 AM
Like in the real world. You know a guy who knows a guy.

To return to the OP: this.

If you have a large bourgeois middle class, the likelihood that anyone in that middle class knows a contract killer for hire, or anyone who knows a contract killer for hire, or anyone who knows someone who knows, etc., is pretty slim. Generally you get to be and stay middle class by following the law and staying away from violent criminals.

Once you start talking about the hand-to-mouth lower classes, though, the likelihood that somebody who hangs out down your local is into some shady **** increases dramatically, because turning to petty crime to survive has less stigma and (relatively) less impact on your life. And once you know that Allorius can get you q'taba melons that just happened to fall off the back of a farmer's wagon on the way to the market, there's a chance he might know somebody who can do something about that cocky town guardsman who keeps leering over your daughter when she puts out the morning bread for the customers.

Kane0
2017-03-02, 01:07 AM
Also messenger pigeons.

If in D&D, literal animal messengers.

junlogji
2017-03-02, 01:17 AM
Also messenger pigeons.

If in D&D, literal animal messengers.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/stoopidtallkid/RPG%20motivational/Classes/Druid-PrincessMononoke.jpg

SaintRidley
2017-03-02, 03:15 AM
There's always the good old fantasy bartender.

Bartender in a shady bar can point you to a certain table if you ask in the right way. Certain people at a certain people can have a chat with you and pass a message along to the actual assassin/crime boss if you don't seem like a rat. If you don't ask the right way in a manner that allows for plausible deniability for them then they don't know what you're talking about.

This.

The answer to the question isn't much different from how it works in the real world. People know people, and if you know the right bars and the right dark booth in the bar, you can contact a hitman if you know how to ask around right. This is exactly how my grandfather was killed, so yeah - it's pretty much true to life.

Esprit15
2017-03-02, 07:02 AM
Cast Divination and ask for the name, location, and price of the nearest assassin.

Depends on the fantasy tropes that you want to invoke. I'm partial to the shady bartender who knows a guy. I've also played assassins who simply kept an ear out for jobs, people talking about needing to get rid of someone and that person later finding a note in their bag suggesting they meet someone, alone, at a location.

Kitten Champion
2017-03-02, 01:33 PM
It would depend on the means of the person placing the contract. If it's someone with resources - particularly within a political or religious organization - they may have access to some loyal/well-paid agents who can do these sorts of covert actions within their ranks, whether they're aware of it or not. That or they may know someone affiliated with such an organization who will supply such a killer in exchange for certain favours or potentially as a means to put them under their thumb indefinitely.

If the person seeking a contract killer is relatively disconnected and poor, they're more in the realm of hiring a thug/cut-throat or a particularly crooked guardsman. Naturally you'd have to go to places where such people can be found, whether that's characterized as some kind of criminal syndicate or simply an area where rough people live without the reliable gaze of the law. How that goes depends on the wits of the contractor and a certain degree of good fortune.

Basically, the level of skill you'd expect from the assassin and personal risk involved in contacting them depends on who you know and how much coin/benefits you can offer in exchange. So, yeah, people know people who know people that are in the know with the messier side of business - but people with actual skill in assassination are very few and far between and tend to work for reliable clients or are motivated by a specific cause/ideal rather than a blank check.

Jay R
2017-03-02, 01:53 PM
Easy. Ask anybody with a dagger in the low part of town if he will kill for you. This is the easiest way to contact an untrustworthy and/or incompetent assassin.

The ability to contact a trustworthy and competent assassin who will trust you enough to do business with you, however, is rare, and extremely valuable.

The assassin needs to know that you aren't working for the law. Or worse yet, for the family of her last victim.

So you need to already have contacts in the underworld.

No, not organized crime - disorganized crime.

You've stolen several things. Any of them that aren't money need to be fenced. And the fence needs to trust you, which means when a thief PC comes to a new town, he is close to helpless in that regard. But eventually somebody will see you picking a pocket. If you're lucky, it's somebody who wants to share your loot, not arrest you. And voila, you have an underworld contact. This person probably knows a fence.

But since there isn't a Thieves Guild or other organized crime, that's only two contacts. And the odds are that neither one is assassin.

All in all, it's easier to have the assassin contact you. She is in the business of finding clients for her services. My recommendation is to mention that a certain person is a serious problem for you. Mention this only once, in a dark tavern, in a very low voice, to a close friend.

The assassin you want is the one so good that that's all it takes.

Alternatively, just wait. Some night you may discover a dagger at your throat. Congratulations! You've found an assassin; she's standing right behind you. Talk fast.

Beleriphon
2017-03-02, 06:08 PM
The more evil place will just have an assassination office, where you can just hire the guy like any other job. They might even advertise..

Or have an openly operating guild, and the leader of the city is a former member ejected from the guild for being a bit to radical in his ideas like not dressing in all black and sneaking around to sneaky music.


I was wondering when someone would bring up the hashishin. The followers of Hassan i-Sabah were not contract killers, which is what we're talking about here. They were a separatist political/religious sect that engaged in asymmetric warfare because they lacked the manpower for a standing army. We're talking the IRA and Basque separatists here, not Carlos the Jackal

And they're also the basis of Assassin's Creed. In all of its silliness they don't pose a bad model of how an Renaissance era organization would actually operate. They operate largely independently from each other in each city, and don't seem to have more than a dozen formal members. That said they possess are large circle of operatives.


Yes, there was. It wasn't organized in the way you're suggesting unless it was part of a national effort (a trade war between nations or something). When we talk about organized crime, we're talking about a model that really only exists circa Prohibtion and afterward, because there just isn't enough money in it otherwise. In a feudal medieval setting, the middle class simply isn't big enough or rich enough to prey off of, and it isn't possible for career criminals to exist without occupational specialization, a robust middle-class economy, and a legal system that makes crime as a profession reasonably profitable. Keep in mind that for most of English medieval history, at least, the criminal penalty for just about everything was death. Maybe mutilation if you were lucky.

As I said before, most fantasy settings RPG and lit are anachronistic mashups anyway. There's no small amount of current pulp fantasy that mashes Stephanie Plum-style crime fic with D&D tropes.

Organized criminal enterprises have always existed, as long as there is a way for a group of like minded criminals to make money. Realistically all organized crime prior to the early 20th century is going to be smuggling of some kind, or officially sanctioned by one government again another. Pirates as a rule would be organized criminals, but they're more akin to gangs of thugs than the organized crime one thinks of as the Mafia.

In many ways the prohibition era gangs weren't that different than pirates, at least in structure and organization. Don't forget that many organized crime sydicates trace their history back centuries. The yakuza has a history dating back to the 11th century.

As a thought Interpol defines organized crime as more than 2 people, motivated by money, and what they're doing is illegal; otherwise it requires any six of the following:


more than two people;
their own appointed tasks;
activity over a prolonged or indefinite period of time;
the use discipline or control;
perpetration of serious criminal offenses;
operations on an international or transnational level;
the use violence or other intimidation;
the use of commercial or businesslike structures;
engagement in money laundering;
exertion of influence on politics, media, public administration, judicial authorities or the economy; and,
motivated by the pursuit of profit and/or power


Its really easy to to apply that to a group in a medievalish setting and have it make sense.

daniel_ream
2017-03-03, 02:35 AM
As a thought Interpol defines organized crime as more than 2 people, motivated by money, and what they're doing is illegal; otherwise it requires any six of the following:

(list deleted for space)

Its really easy to to apply that to a group in a medievalish setting and have it make sense.

Since most of those items require things that either didn't exist in a medieval setting or would be so prohibitively expensive they would be restricted to greater nobility, I suspect it would be rather more difficult than you're assuming. And as an aside, I would argue that any definition of "organized crime" that can be stretched to include pirates is so broad as to be useless.

But again, whether the crime boss' organization makes economic sense is probably the least outrageous assumption in any D&D campaign.

Knaight
2017-03-03, 03:31 AM
Since most of those items require things that either didn't exist in a medieval setting or would be so prohibitively expensive they would be restricted to greater nobility, I suspect it would be rather more difficult than you're assuming. And as an aside, I would argue that any definition of "organized crime" that can be stretched to include pirates is so broad as to be useless

You seem to be significantly underestimating the prevalence of a middle class in cities during the late medieval period - yes, they're heavily outnumbered by the agrarian poor (what with societies being maybe 15% urbanized on the highest end, and that remaining 85% being largely poor), but if you look at the size of some of the cities involved there's enough there for almost all of these. Pulling up the list:



more than two people;
their own appointed tasks;
activity over a prolonged or indefinite period of time;
the use discipline or control;
perpetration of serious criminal offenses;
operations on an international or transnational level;
the use violence or other intimidation;
the use of commercial or businesslike structures;
engagement in money laundering;
exertion of influence on politics, media, public administration, judicial authorities or the economy; and,
motivated by the pursuit of profit and/or power


Point by point:
Fits
Fits
Fits
Fits
Fits
The nation-state wasn't really in place for the most part by the medieval period, but the beginnings of them were there, and it's not like there's a meaningful difference to operating across nations and operating across other large political structures.
Fits
Fits
Doesn't fit.
Fits
Fits

Racking up six of those is easy enough.

Kitten Champion
2017-03-03, 05:55 AM
According to my brief research, organize crime was a pretty big issue in Medieval Europe. Due to the general inefficiency (and corruptibility) of the legal system in dealing with such operations, and the ubiquity of cyclical poverty and war to create lots of discontent people willing to do socially unacceptable things to survive. There were criminal families, in the literal sense of family-run banditry and the like. In budding urban communities the more sizable guilds unsurprisingly had a seedier violent underbelly. Then there were the precursors to juvenile street gangs which were relatively well-organized and terrorized communities and one another in places like England and France.

As with most fantasy settings, these sorts of things can get embellished creatively.

JenBurdoo
2017-03-03, 06:07 AM
If there is an assassin's guild, other guilds, nobles, and major factions will all have quiet links to them, and some members of other groups (crime syndicates, say) may cross over with assassins. In one of my favorite fantasy series, there is a Companions' Guild - an organized group of trained courtesans who provide (ahem) sexual favors to the nobility. Here's the thing though - because they have such close ties with the nobility, they double as a spy agency (you learn lots of secrets between the sheets). They triple as bodyguards (it helps to be limber) and quadruple as assassins, and they have links with all three of those latter factions when needed. When a prince decides someone in a foreign land needs to die, he can "suggest" to his Companion that someone should contact that country's assassin's guild. And the fact that the nobility is rich enough to hire Companions means they are also rich enough to hire assassins.

Of course, this can also become problematic, as when a Companion has fallen for his client and belatedly realizes his own guild is considering having the client assassinated to protect the guild's interests.

Berenger
2017-03-03, 07:49 AM
operations on an international or transnational level;



The nation-state wasn't really in place for the most part by the medieval period, but the beginnings of them were there, and it's not like there's a meaningful difference to operating across nations and operating across other large political structures.

This is not about assassins, but I know for a fact that during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period "organized crime" in the form of brigand bands heavily relied on the fractured political landscape in germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei) to escape persecution, lie low and then resume their criminal activity in an area where the authorities were not forewarned. So if you count this as transnational, there is plenty of precedence. The emphasized geographical mobility of criminals is also a major reason for the prejudice and suspicion against vagrants and strangers of all stripes that became rampant these days but wasn't as common earlier in the Middle Ages. Also, what Kitten Champion said applies.

Jay R
2017-03-03, 11:08 AM
This is not about assassins, but I know for a fact that during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period "organized crime" in the form of brigand bands heavily relied on the fractured political landscape in germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei) to escape persecution, lie low and then resume their criminal activity in an area where the authorities were not forewarned. So if you count this as transnational, there is plenty of precedence. The emphasized geographical mobility of criminals is also a major reason for the prejudice and suspicion against vagrants and strangers of all stripes that became rampant these days but wasn't as common earlier in the Middle Ages. Also, what Kitten Champion said applies.

Lee's remember that any statements in this thread are made within the context of the question "How would you contact an assassin?"

Yes, there are many things that could fit the definition of "organized crime". Until we have a clear, unambiguous definition of "organized crime" that we all accept, there's no way to determine when it began. I could make a case for any raiders or invaders, for instance. Or for the French nobility. [Other nobility as well, but the French were worse than most.] But none of these are useful for the purpose of contacting an assassin, and therefore they are all irrelevant for this discussion.

The first "organized crime" I can think of offhand that includes assassins is the followers of Hassan-i Sabbāh in the 11th century, which lasted until 1275. They were miscalled Hashshashin by their enemies, and this is where the word "assassin" comes from. The actual assassins were actually named the Fida'in. But this is useless for the purposes of this thread, because they could not be hired. They were zealous followers of Sabbah, and only killed for his (or his successors') political or religious purposes.

daniel_ream's original statement about organized crime was made in the context of the ability of somebody to contact a crime boss who would be expected to have a way to get an assassin moderately easily. Organized crime of that sort doesn't really exist in earlier times.

Yes, of course the idea of organized crime goes back far beyond the stories of Robin Hood's Merrie Men, back at least to the pirate ships in the Mediterranean in 14th century BC. [Yes, a pirate ship is organized crime.]

But organized crime in the Mafia or Tong sense that we usually think of is a (mostly kinda sorta) 19th century invention.

GolemsVoice
2017-03-03, 01:11 PM
If you want to just kill a guy, there's always the variant of just finding somebody with nothing to lose, a person who cares little if they get caught. It's not a particulary subtle way, and they'll likely give you away as soon as law enforcement brings out the instruments, but they at least can throw themselves at somebody and stab them with a knife, repeatedly. Such people are found wherever life is hardest, seedy bars, slums, ghettos, or other hard-luck places.

JustIgnoreMe
2017-03-03, 06:13 PM
If you're a noble, you either have your own assassins, or trustworthy people who will do what you say, or you have a person who deals with your secrets (a secretary) who will know who to contact.

If you are a noble without your own assassins, without any trustworthy people, and with no secretary to assist, then you can always ask a friendly noble for assistance. Of course, you will owe your friend a very expensive favour.

If you're a commoner and you need someone dead, you go to the person you know with the most criminal experience. Or the most military experience. Everybody knows someone. And then you ask them, carefully, if they know anyone looking for work. Quiet work. Well paid, quiet work. They may know someone, or they may not. They might be offended that you even suggested such a thing. Or they might smile.

darkdragoon
2017-03-04, 05:16 AM
While illegal drugs may have caused the expansion and notoriety of certain groups they existed well before then, and of course having resources and manpower helped spread such things in the first place.. And really, a lot of the tactics of various groups like drug cartels and terrorists aren't as different as their motivations and/or ideology may be.

Most likely you will have gangs and other sort of groups. Some of which may not be entirely criminal or at least deny they engage in such activity. However those probably aren't going to be very professional, at least beyond maybe some sort of calling card.

So you'd have to look at whoever else might be armed. Maybe some of the local guardsmen aren't too happy with their day job. Corrupt or dishonorably discharged members of the militia etc. Rebels. Mercs.

Jay R
2017-03-05, 01:57 AM
Reasonably often, if my character wanted to contact an assassin in a D&D game, I'd look across the table at That Guy, and ask, "Hey, why don't you have your character go kill Lord Prootwattle?"

Tetsubo 57
2017-03-05, 08:12 AM
Like in the real world. You know a guy who knows a guy.

Bingo. Have your character find the most disreputable person they know. Have *them* find the most disreputable person they know. By the time you hit the third level you should have a person willing to kill for money.

Jay R
2017-03-05, 03:28 PM
Bingo. Have your character find the most disreputable person they know. Have *them* find the most disreputable person they know. By the time you hit the third level you should have a person willing to kill for money.

... and whose competence and trustworthiness are complete unknowns, since your only character references are a sequence of ever more disreputable people.

Kitten Champion
2017-03-05, 03:46 PM
Reasonably often, if my character wanted to contact an assassin in a D&D game, I'd look across the table at That Guy, and ask, "Hey, why don't you have your character go kill Lord Prootwattle?"

I like that. I mean, if you're in a game where assassinations are not tonally out of place, having at least one PC who can fulfill that role adequately and thus giving the player a time to shine is better than finding some seedy NPC in the proverbial back alley.

Beleriphon
2017-03-05, 05:05 PM
... and whose competence and trustworthiness are complete unknowns, since your only character references are a sequence of ever more disreputable people.

There's a reason murder for hire plots tend to end up in the person willing to pay actually talking to a police officer in a sting operation.