Piratical Guilds

Also travelers in some fashion, a guild of thieves who spend most of their time engaged in piracy is a complex and shifting structure requiring careful thought by the DM. There will obviously not be any form of guildhouse for such thieves, although a small number of secret guild hidey-holes (caves in the cliffs, deserted coves, desolate gull-haunted islands) could exist where spare equipment and vital emergency supplies might be placed at strategic locations. guildmasters could exist, but much more likely is a loosely-affiliated structure where several senior thieves, maintaining their positions by force in most cases, are equipotent. They might well all call themselves guildmaster! Such a guild would have a very strong tendency towards chaotic alignments, and a nearly-equal tendency towards evil.

Some type of organization and regularity would have to be imposed to make this a guild at all. Meetings half-yearly, with a quorum for votes and decisions to have any binding quality at all, would be a possibility. These could take place in the major piratical port, perhaps a town or city of unparalleled iniquity (what a place to send some PCs to track down the wicked pirates and stop their evil trade in pressganging/slavery/drug smuggling, etc.). Certainly, some mechanism for obtaining equipment and training (at the least) must exist.

For a notably more structured and stable rulership of a piratical-type operation (slaving), see the adventure module A1-4, Scourge of the Slavelords.

Table of Contents