ideas for a thieves guild adenture, lets make a campaign

[bad badger]

Hi everyone,

want to build a thieves guild adventure for a local gaming group, the idea is simple, i want everyone to be part of a struggling and young thieves guild and want to take over the underground of a moderate town and then expand to the larger city and then possibly influence the region, form alliances with corrupt royals ect....

I want the guild to send players on jobs of various theft and skullduggery, only to be later tricked into doing something that would cause a world changing event where they must then become heros or the entire world plunges into darkness. sort of a zeros to heros campaign.

I sort of want them to be at first opposed to various other guilds fighting for turf. then something happens where the various guilds must band together or die.

I have a bit of writers block and would like to see if anyone else has some ideas.


thanks for any contributions

[brian 333]

Many members of a thieves' guild are not thieves. Guilds need enforcers, bodyguards, and muscle, they need informants, healers, fences, alchemests, and magic users.

Your PCs should be of every class, brought together by a 'made man' who sends them on their first job.

1. The Knight's Seal
A local lord has a seal used to validate official correspomdence. It is partially magical and cannot be duplicated simply by forgery. Get the seal from the knight's study along with some sealing wax, then return it four hours later once the forger is done.

The absence of the seal will be noted so it will be harder to return it than to take it. Perhaps the PCs can claim they took it from the real thief and are doing their duty by returning it for a reward? Or perhaps the lord will see through the lie and chop off their hands...

2. Rivals have been moving in and extorting businesses that already pay extortion to your guild. Some businesses even claim they can no longer afford to pay!

Fix the problem. The rivals must be made to know they cannot muscle into our turf, and the businesses must know they can't reneg on our agreement.

3. A countess has purchased an estate and the guild needs to place several members on her staff. She will likely be looking for such infiltrators, so your group is needed to be tge obvious plants. Try to steal her jewels or something before she catches you and tosses you off the staff, but don't get caught because the guild may not be able to buy you out of jail.

Turns out that the countess is a fake countess. She is really a cleric of an S&M cult, and many minor, and a couple of major, nobles make use of her services. This is knowledge more valuable than her jewels. Can the PCs distract her from the real plants and make it look like the guild failed to infiltrate without causing her to pack up and go elsewhere?

4. The rival guild has begun recruiting from our ranks. We need to get them under control. You must go to their stronghold and convince their leaders of the advantages of a merger or at least of drawing clear lines between the guilds to avoid conflict. If cooperation is not possible, a war between the guilds is inevitable.

The rival gang will try to recruit the PCs, then to intimidate them. After hard, (and hardball,) negotiations an agreement will be reached.

5. For three generations the Horn of Hasbraught has been kept as a holy relic by the Knights of Braggthon Heights. It is actually a horn from the corpse of Qirallathanresk the Wild Queen, who was an elder green dragon. A kobold priestess wishes to remove the curses the paladins have laid on her mother's horn and free her trapped spirit.

The kobold will pay in magic items and gold from the queen's hoard, including a 'ring' which is enchanted with the power of shadows. (It's a bracelet.)

The horn is seven feet long and weighs 100 pounds. It hangs above the dining table of the great hall of the castle.

[KragBrightscale]

Considering the setting, what if you have a system of notoriety which determines how much effort the city guard puts into finding and arresting you, or if they try to kill you on sight. Something like a bounty? Certain jobs could raise or lower that value. Also affected by whether or not anyone notices or suspects your involvement.

At its highest the city guard could go nuts, locking down gates, enforcing strict curfews, employing magic means such as scrying and searching every home.

Bribing someone in authority or removing/discrediting witnesses could lessen the heat.

Some task ideas:

1) Earn some goodwill amongst other gangs by dealing with several overly enthusiastic city guards that have been foiling smugglers attempts at earning their livelihood.

Many methods possible here with various consequences: assassination, framing, blackmailing, corrupting, persuading.

2) Acquire the building plans for the castle, city walls, merchants’ guild, or other noteworthy establishments from the masons’ guild’s archives. Can be part of a multi-step task such as robbing the crown.

Methods: infiltration or breaking in, then copying or stealing original, bribing the keeper of the archives or the janitor, etc.

3) a certain official is pushing for reforms that will make things difficult for businesses such as yours and your clients. Air their dirty laundry and ruin their reputation to put that to a stop.

4) Find a backer. There is never a shortage of people amongst the nobility and those involved in politics looking for ways to gain more influence and foil competitors attempts at the same. Most of the powerful gangs already have some powerful backers, to truly stand at their level you need some too.

Gather information, learn about the local movers and shakers and find ways to gain their favor. Acquire something they have been wanting, help them get weapons for their personal troops, help them get a promotion by defaming their rivals, silence a witness to their corruption, lots of options here.

5) help the unfavored child of a recently deceased count defeat their siblings to claim the title, property and wealth he left behind. Don’t let your client be associated with anything illegal however, or they might be disqualified and disinherited.

6) Some of the businesses who pay you protection fees have been targeted by thieves. Are rival gangs undermining your authority? Or has a new player arrived in town? Either way, it’s time to set an example

Deal with the thieves violently, or make use of your connections to have them arrested/and or disposed of.

7) one of your important underlings have been arrested and will soon be put on trial. The others are concerned and it is imperative that he does not expose your operations.

Again several options:
-bust them out! Jailbreak!
-Leave no loose ends! Have the liability silenced before they blab.
-free to go. Make use of your connections and bribery to have your man deemed innocent by the authorities and released from their preposterous incarceration.