Monday 22 May 2023

d100 Demands of the Crime Guild




































So as high-level fighters become nobles and get to meet kings and stuff thieves gangs increasingly grow. A gang might start with a few followers in a city block and grow to include whole towns or even cities. As you scale up you become in competition with new bigger gangs. Bigger gangs might include multiple settlements and will have vassal gangs who pay them to exist. There should be kingdom-wide gangs or alliances and even international ones. Quite possibly a guild might become a legal authority or a spy agency or even secret police. These tables are nasty crimes not fun crimes so you might need to find creative ways of resolving these if your a fun swashbuckling criminal. Maybe with some help from a wizard. Its ok to kill off a cult for wanting to buy sacrificial victims. Its ok to defy orders and deal with the situation or who tried to make you do nasty stuff.

These are odd jobs some higher-up or ally needs from your high-level gang leader or guild leader. They might also be presented to the boss by their main advisors and followers. If your adventurer crime lord is a good guy they might have to come up with nicer solutions to the mission and that is fine. Powerful gangs have to balance the fact they must prey on their own kind so they learn to live with it but not so much everyone unites to destroy crime.

As a thief rises in levels it also improves their street cred from a single block or street gang all the way to the inner circle of a crime family. Lawful gangs are more hierarchical often with families, chaotic are more fluid and change more. Lawful gangs like the state and want to use its apparatus preferring the status quo. Chaotics are like when the system fails and breaks under pressure and change. Evil gangs are more malicious, neutral gangs are more interested in survival and self-interest, and good gangs usually are trying to help and are less concerned with violence and profit

d12 Typical Crime Organisation Types by Alignment
1 Chaotic Evil bullies favour armed robbery, banditry and vice. Such gangs often burn out with street violence or uniting everyone to finish them off. Leave no witnesses and spread terror
2 Evil malicious, sadistic thugs favour assassination, kidnapping, slavery and extortion. Hated and feared by everyone but occasionally employed for those skills
3 Lawful Evil favours secret influence, bribes, corruption, blackmail, ransom, gambling and moneylending. Like to have influence over trade, business and nobility. Prefers debtors to slavery and operates black markets
4 Chaotic Good revolutionaries redistribute wealth from rich to poor and reject the crown, crimes that harm the elites often banditry or luxury goods, or returning stolen produce of the poor. Destabilising the state to replace it is a long-term goal to establish a new system or ruler but these details are a bit fuzzy
5 Good operates as a secret aid organisation helping the downtrodden and persecuted perhaps even aiding non-humans or outlawed cults, they steal and commit crimes to aid their desperate cause and avoid being noticed or harmed, preferring to rob those responsible for harming their cause. See themselves as above other criminal motives
6 Lawful Good are cult-like and rejects the current system, imposing its own more severe code, necessity sometimes dictates secrecy, law-breaking or violence for the cause
7 Chaos are high-risk ungovernable favouring illegal gambling, fraud, coin clipping, numbers rackets, and rigging sports results. Destabilising the state helps their methodology. Tolerate mutants and many outcastes
8 Balance seeks to moderate strong influences of excessive law or chaos. By methodically performing their crimes to sustainably profit and many operate as crooked merchants who skim wealth but not enough to notice. Will engineer markets and shortages one day and the next will report rival guild secrets to the state 
9 Law is a rigid cult-like secret society whose purpose is to root out corruption, incompetent officials and threats to the state that the current rulers don't see. Criminal actions are always dedicated to harming their enemies or chaotic influences they don't approve of. They obey a more perfect order than grubby flawed humans can impose so will commit crimes of necessity more than greed. They may seek power and influence but as a means to an end not its own sake or pleasure or self-interest. The money taken from enemies is for the cause, not the self
10 Neutral really just wants money to avoid getting caught or noticed and prefers smuggling, burglary and pickpockets. Many base members are beggars and street urchins who can act as informants. In some ways, they are one of the most common types but cashed-up members tend to move to another type 
11 Mix two different results from above roll a d10 
12 Mix three different results from above roll a d10

11 and 12 may represent different major factions and if factions to different they need a reason to cooperate

d20 Other 
Crime Organisation Features
1 Reputation with the people d2 1=feared and shunned 2=reveared and helped
Some members are influenced by a dangerous cult
3 Have links to an institution d4 1=merchant clan 2=noble family 3=temple 4=school
4 Have a secret smuggling route for gang secret projects
5 Owns and influences many legitimate businesses 
6 Have international trade connections and allies 
7 Have a vast network of spies and informants among commoners and servants
8 Employ secretive feared assassins with a famous calling card
9 Employs network of bards for influence and information
10 Employ alchemists for guns, drugs, booze, bombs, potions and poison
11 Many are members of a recognised religion that helps thwart enemy divine divination by meeting and plotting in shrines and making crimes the business of their god 
12 Works with outlaw wizards and magicians
13 Gang members have oaths of obedience to some 
supernatural entity and have unusual boons including abilities and items
14 A spirit aids the gang d4 1=protects stash of loot 2=haunts house entry to hideout 3=poltergiests protect hideouts 4=spectral guardian of secret doors
15 A petty godling has an interest in the gang and keeps tabs on them
16 Some gang members are not really human d4 1=doppelgangers 2=changelings 3=outer planar being 4=undead (ghoul graverobbers?)
17 Friendly with some species of animal or monster useful as a guard or pet
18 Friendly with some humanoid species d4 1=goblinoids 2=abhuman beast folk 3=orcs 4=demihuman (d4 1=elf 2=gnome 3=dwarf 4=
19 Has agents and allies in the Underland and know secret passages to the deep
20 Has allies in a secretive aquatic species who help you move goods across water unseen

d10 Commands Types
1 Expand operation
2 Black markets
3 Extortion
4 Law & order
5 Gang Factions 
6 Cult conflicts 
7 Diplomacy
8 Gang war
Comunity values
10 Incredible heist

d100 Commands of the Crime Guild
01 Absorb a weaker crime gang d4 1=beggers 2=burglars 3=bandits 4=thugs
02 Train a bunch of orphans to be future gang members and give them jobs
03 Kill or recruit a youth gang of street thugs or rural bandits
04 Eliminate a rival gang leader then seize their operation
05 Expand a gang chapter into a new settlement
06 Develop a new way of fleecing the rich or take over some amateur racket doing that
07 Take over local markets for d4 1=assasins 2=
08 Infiltrate or pay of civic officials of d4 1=town hall 2=prison 3=millitary 4=judge
09 Keep out a foreign crime organisation attempting to move in
10 Increase extortion revenue or threaten a new industry
11 Establish a new black marketplace and supply the muscle
12 Establish a criminal craft shop d4 1=forger 2=jewler 3=painter 4=locksmith
13 Develop a smuggling route for tax-free criminal goods 
14 Establish a front for stolen goods d4 1=pawn shop 2=scrap dealer 3=general store 4=used livestock dealership 
15 Recruit slavers for kidnapping hostages and selling people who owe you
16 Establish an exotic alchemical expert on one of these fields d4 1=gunpoweder 2=potions 3=poison 5=incendiaries
17 Bribe a civic official to work with a development scheme of the settlement
18 Get more drug pushers on the street to compete with foreign black lotus gangs 
19 Hold a fabulous feast to get the commoners on the side
20 Create a fabulous event for elites like a party or ball to get access to upper society 
21 Kidnap a person and blackmail their loved ones for money or influence
22 Kidnap a bard who keeps blabbing, a few years should silence them
23 Kill a number of gang rivals as a threat to organisations questioning you
24 Shakedown new merchants for money for protection
25 Try and entrap officials with vice then blackmail them
26 Use your gang sign graffiti all over your territory to spread terror 
27 Torture and kill someone who wronged your organisation and leave them in public
28 Blackmail a wizard into aiding the gang with magic items
29 Launch an attack on a non-affiliated gang and demand they join you
30 Capture the family of a retired gangster to make them join you
31 Kill a nosey watchman who refuses bribes
32 Kill the leader of the taxman's guards
33 Try to blackmail or influence a troublesome bailiff serving a judge
34 Place agents in the militia so that eventually they belong to you
35 Deliver beatings to various nightwatchmen off duty to show they could kill them
36 Stop a church orphanage from recruiting from our child gangs
37 Kill a priest who is to act as a witness in a court case using forensic divination
38 Kill an outspoken merchant complaining about local crime publicly to officials
39 Try to influence nobility or their bastard offspring with debt or vice
40 Eliminate a sheriff and their deputies for being too efficient and dedicated, try and help incompetent or corrupt replace them
41 A faction of your gang plot against you
42 Factions within your gang are feuding which might be a problem or useful
43 Several key followers have had a feud and are developing rival factions that need to be stopped
44 Some rival gangs have been giving stuff to some of your followers
45 One of your followers has been kidnapped by a rival faction
46 Some of your followers still loyal are also members of a cult
47 Some non-humans are interested in joining your gang as a new separate faction
48 You have reason to believe a secret policeman has joined your gang at some point and are feeding information to the crown
49 A faction of your gang has become rich and living like flashy jerks in public and lording it over working criminal classes
50 A faction of your gang complaining about loyalty and efficiency of another faction
51 A cult wants to help to steal corpses and to sell grave goods so cut a deal
52 Cultists will pay regularly for sacrificial victims for their VIP rituals
53 Cultists murdering people and some who belong to you
54 Cult becoming popular in criminal classes - eliminate or support it?
55 A murder cult offer to kill for your organisation
56 A rat cult-based gang are spreading influence and vermin and plague
57 A ghoul-based cult are scaring off grave robbers and criminals from using graveyards by night
58 A cult are stealing corpses for an undead sweatshop and even murdered a few extra people to get more bodies
59 A hidden vice club has become under the influence of a demon sex cult
60 Uncover a cult of well-off townsfolk you could blackmail or report for reward
61 Arrange a gang meeting and try to cut a prosperous new deal and truce
62 Cut a good drug deal with the mysterious black lotus nation from over the sea
63 Someone killed a member of your gang and performed speak with dead on the corpse, a necromancy cult is cutting in on your operation
64 Unite with another gang so both can destroy a gang or cult a threat to both
65 Meet with a pirate leader to spread your gang to the waterways
66 Foreign agents wish to pay you for services and want to meet you urgently 
67 Foreign gang wish to cooperate with you for a profit
68 Secret meeting with agent of the crown who will offer concessions or release prisoners if you perform a favour 
69 Meet an agent of the underland kingdoms of the deep for trade
70 Humanoid species are sneaking into urban areas to steal what rightfully is the guild and stirring up the watch. Meet them and discuss business and territory or eliminate them. They might come from the Underland
71 A rival gang burns down a building under your protection
72 A rival gang has started killing your gun members
73 A youth gang have been trying to extort shopkeepers who pay you protection
74 Rivals have a pet town councilman to  
75 Rival gang use corrupt officials to trouble your organisation
76 Rival gang want to redefine borders
77 Rival gang want a peace treaty
78 Rival gangs want to meet to talk about dealing with the law, possibly a grab for power
79 Rural bandits have been visiting the city and doing crime in your turf then fleeing
80 You catch a faction of a neutral or friendly crime guild trying to fake evidence to start a war with another guild or the law in some plot
81 Give lots of money and food to the poor to buy commoner favour vs the law
82 Put on a spectacle feast or festival or games event
83 Cooperate with local gangs to aid the population dealing with some community drama d4 1=monsters 2=plague 3=inquisitors 4=foreign gang
84 Make a donation to the church and make a big show to the mob
85 Open a soup kitchen for the poor and use it as a fence organisation and place to recruit from
86 Pay off or bribe or silence some witnesses who are about to give a legal testament
87 A judge in pay of a rival cartel needs to be eliminated but you can't get the blame or you'll get the wrong fame from the public
88 Give hams to all the local widows for popular support or some similar scheme
89 Help war veterans and recruit the best as goons for gang uses
90 Help fund an orphanage so you can find future gang members and people grateful to your mob and stop orphanages from snatching your youngest members
91 Noble has a fancy new jewel and various criminals all desire it
92 A shipload of drugs belonging to the black lotus guild has been identified, would be a shame if something happened to it
93 A growing new cult has a fabled jewel in their shrine guarded by a monster
94 A powerful wizard has made a magic item and claims it cannot be stolen from his tower
95 In the crown clan family castle there is a vault with the previous set of royal regalia and a crown in the old style but still worth a fortune
96 A evil miser died and has took all their wealth with them to the grave while commoners starve, perhaps this injustice could be corrected
97 A mountaintop dragon lair has been attributed as the location of a lost relic the church would pay a huge ransom for
98 A petty god got drunk and blabbed about a magic item they buried under the city in a trap-filled death maze
99 The church have contacted crime guild heads and wants someone to recover an item through a portal to another plane and offer a huge amount of church credit in spells 
100 A powerful wizard needs a gang of master thieves to aid him in stealing another wizards spell book because he wont share

1 comment:

  1. Reading this table just makes me think:

    PC "Every time I try to get out they just pull me back in!"
    DM "Roll 2d6 and add your bribery modifier"

    ReplyDelete

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