Guildmembers and The Rest
The base percentage of thieves who will be members of the thieves' guild is 75%. The following modifiers are applied to this number:
+10% if social alignment is lawful
-20% is social alignment is chaotic
+10% if the attitude of law is persecutory
+10% if merchants are submissive or infiltrated
+10% (+5%) if guild rulership is strong (fairly strong)
-10% (-5%) if guild rulership is weak
(fairly weak)
What of the other thieves (assuming there are any)? What is the attitude of the guild to the residual freelancers? Table 16 gives a die roll for determining this attitude, which may also be taken to reflect the guild's attitude to outsiders who stray onto its patch. Thus, a guild which is punitive to indigenous non-guildmembers ("join up or we'll cut your hands off") will likely be hostile to outsiders as well.
TOWARDS GUILDLESS THIEVES
|
d20 |
|
|
Roll |
Dominant attitude |
|
1-5 |
Hostility and persecution |
|
6-10 |
Hostility |
|
11-15 |
Neutrality |
|
16-18 |
Co-operation |
|
19-20 |
Special relationship |
Hostility means that the guildmembers will make it very clear to a non-guildmember working in the guild's territory that he isn't welcome. They may rough up the offender, send him threatening messages, play an unpleasant and only half-joking practical joke on him, and the like. The message is, join up (or get out of town), or else. If Persecution is added to this, the offender will be given an even starker choice: Join up or die. Neutrality means that the guildmembers may try to persuade non-guildmembers to join up, but they will tend to stress the benefits to all concerned rather than using threats. A determined freelancer will probably be left to go his own way by such thieves, but they will certainly not assist him or have any fellow-feeling for him. The guild will not sell equipment or offer training to the freelancer, except perhaps at exorbitant prices. If a guild is neutral to foreign thieves, it may allow them to work on the guild's patch providing that only small-scale operations are involved and a fee is paid to the guild.
Cooperation suggests that freelancers may work with the guildmembers, maybe on a special-case basis. The guild may take the attitude that if these people won't join, it's better to keep them friendly. Equipment and training is charged at a premium, though. Special Relationship suggests some unusually close link between guildmembers and outsiders. The example of the Thieves' Guild of Mallain gives an example of how this can be scripted by the DM.