HYPERBOREA / Resources for thief-centric ideas/scenarios

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 5/17/2021 10:47 am

So, in one of my campaigns there are 2 thieves in the party (purloiners) and they joined a rival/upstart to the main guild (lamia's heart from Rats in the Walls and Other Perils if you care about motivating details).

Most parties usually only have 1 thief and I can handwave guild stuff, but my 2 players are fairly motivated and doing a decent job trying to be "good" thieves.

So, any good resources or places to steal ideas for making interesting stuff for thieves to do?

I have some ideas for the interguild drama, but I'm going to let that playout a little naturally based on what the players do/are asked to do by the rival guild head.

Currently they are in a funhouse-ish dungeon so I have a little time to set up some possibilities.

Thanks.

**Posted by gizmomathboy** 5/17/2021 1:54 pm

Folks in other corners of the internetz have suggested Gygax's "The Canting Crew" (which is amazingly expensive and I can't find a place to buy pdf), Adventurer Conqueror King (which does have a pdf and has a few interesting pages/ideas).

There is also stealing from The Goodfather, Goodfellas, and Casino, among other sources.

**Posted by Ghul** 5/17/2021 6:08 pm

Canting Crew is a great book, indeed. Mine is beat to hell from use. I also like using stuff from Lankhmar (original 1e set) and Thieves' World boxed set, for inspiration. I wasn't very impressed by the AD&D 2e "Complete Thieves" splat book.

**Posted by Derek_the_Hunter** 5/18/2021 9:05 am

Try Thieves of Lankhmar (2e AD&D), it details the Lankhmar Thieves Guild, info on rival guilds, adventures, etc. You should be able to find it fairly cheap.

Last edited by Derek_the_Hunter (5/18/2021 9:18 am)

**Posted by grodog** 5/18/2021 10:58 pm

Some other excellent thievery-related resources you should check out:

- In addition to the Thieves World boxed set and it's TW Companion (both from Chaosium), FASA published several licensed adventures BITD; see https://web.archive.org/web/20071013014934/http://www.thievesworld.info/roleplay/supps.htm and https://web.archive.org/web/20070920002858/http://www.thievesworld.info/roleplay/sources.htm if you're looking for other TW-related RPG books (prior to GreenRonin's d20 stuff)
- Thieves Guild (and Haven) from Gamelords; now OOP but still owned/sold by Tadashi at Different Worlds: http://diffworlds.com/gamelords.htm and http://diffworlds.com/haven.htm
- Gary's early-years Gord novels (Saga of Old City from TSR, City of Hawks and Night Arrant from New Infinities) offer a nice view into city life from a thiefly POV; some good resources were mentioned at K&KA in the GH board recently, but if you need pointers let me know
- Leiber's stories, of course, are wonderful, and I recently got a copy of the DCC Lankhmar boxed set which was quite good too; my favorite Lankhmar gaming books are the 1e book and the incomprable Nigel D. Findley's Thieves of Lankhmar (which details the guild), but you can salvage stuff from CA1-2 too: https://www.tsrarchive.com/add/add.html#Lankhmar
- Oliver Dickinson's Griselda stories are also fun, and showcase the lowlifes of Pavis and The Big Rubble; see https://www.chaosium.com/the-complete-griselda-pdf/ (and I think that it was available for free on Kindle too at some point, or perhaps from Oliver's web site??)
- "Assassin's Run" by Ed Greenwood in Dragon #64 is a very-cool gauntlet that you can easily adapt as part of the cityscape and/or guild environs; "Barnacus: City in Peril" (Dragon Magazine #80) paired up nicely with "Can Seapoint be Saved?" (Dragon #75) if you want to mix some pirates/slavers in with your thieves (and could tie in nicely to the A-series or U1 if so inclined); Dragon #66 also had a series of articles on thieves, including a Thieves Cant dictionary (and reading The Great Train Robbery by Michael Chrichton is also inspiring on that front!)
- Gabor's various cities, city states, and such in his Echoes from Fomalhaut zine offer lots of good ideas for intra-city and inter-city guild rivalries, alliances, and such (#7 detailed quite a bit of the regional interactivity, and I've not read #8 yet)

I've dreamed of running a thieves-"only" campaign over the decades of my gaming, and hope to do it one day =)

Allan.

Last edited by grodog (5/18/2021 11:02 pm)

**Posted by Spider of Leng** 5/18/2021 11:24 pm

And of course Goodman Games currently has the Lankhmar license and they've produced a lot of content you could mine with minimal modifications if you're more into something shiny and new and/or don't want to try to track down OOP stuff.