The Greatest Thieves in Orm

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Thieves Guilds

Whether it be petty larcenies, street side flimflam, or complicatedly executed heists: all crime in Ur-Dun's population centers are run through the local thieves guild. While none reach the grand scale of the syndicate that once regulated all criminal pursuits in the nearby seat of the Empire-That-Was, these operations can still operate with a masterful secrecy and ruthless efficiency matching even the most storied guild of days passed.

The guilds of Ur-Dun vary greatly in internal custom, style, and work culture but they do share several traits across region that allow thieves and other criminals to practice with craft smoothly and the guilds to maintain their parochial power bases. Some of them include:
  • License of Operations- Anyone seeking to work within the territory of a guild needs to pay a monthly cost of 2d10gp per month. Anyone caught operating but not having paid for license quickly find themselves on a guild hit list.
  • Thieves Cant and Code- All guilds in the region share a spoken cant and written code secret to members of the criminal class. This jealously guarded system of communication enables thieves to discuss business, mark territory, and relay important warnings to members of the community. Each guild possess their own unique symbol making it easy for traveling rogues to know when they have entered their territory.
  • Safety- If a thief possesses membership in a guild, they can find a safe space among any guildhall for a night. No questions asked.

The Crooked Hand

Apologies to Jack Kirby.

Crime in Orm is run through the Guild known as the Crooked Hand whose guild hall mark rests in the door frame of the Lamplighters Guild located just east of the Monument of the Old Gods. The Crooked Hand is a mostly unfriendly lot but will do the following services for player characters if they pay:
  • Fencing- Items can be fenced on the black market of Orm via Flower. She collects a 10% of sale price fee and demands no questions about where the item goes be asked.
  • Spying- For a 100gp fee, the guild can deliver general intelligence, such as the observations of someone in a non-critical roles, on a target of interest. The intelligence gathering will take (1) week.
  • Loans- The Crooked Hand can offer an alternative line of credit to player characters in the guild's good graces. up to 1000gp. The guild requires no collateral but takes 25% compounding interest per week. If the debt is not paid off in (2) months, the debtor earns a spot on the guild's hit list.
  • Locks-The guild's resident yeggman, "The Duke", will attempt an lock possessing no active traps for 100gp. If "The Duke" ends up having to deal with any traps, by intention of the player characters or not, he will require a one-on-one knife fight to resolve this violation of his cardinal rule.
  • Membership- Player characters (thieves, theft acrobats, or a similar class) looking to join the Crooked Hand must use downtime activities to Cultivate a Relationship with a guild member. Only after advancing the clock on the relationship (3) ticks to Friends will the Crooked Hand member (known as a finger) will recommend the player character to undertake the rights of initiation granting true membership among the ranks of the Greatest Thieves in Orm!

Outstanding Business with the Crooked Hand

At the time of this post, two player character possess outstanding business with the thieves guild in Orm:
  1. Fräänk Shäärk seeks to begin the steps for membership into the Crooked Hand. Fräänk player, Avi, must select a guild member to Cultivate a Relationship with and post in the comments below how he desires to start such a process.
  2. Bindle is currently on the Crooked Hands hit list after a botched burglary in Orm. The guild offered Bindle to opportunity to square things for 400gp but Bindle had to turn them down due to having a anemic coin purse. Bindle's player Joe must either post in the comments how the Level 1 Thief attempts to lay low while th heat cools or compose a reply resolving the issue some other way.

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