Category:Assassins' Guild

An assassins' guild is a criminal organisation that treats death as a commodity. It is in the business of murdering for money. It is also a place where an individual seeking to enter the assassin prestige class could secure the necessary training.

An assassins' guild consists of assassins' guildsmen and is led by an assassins' guildmaster. A botched murder is the work of a drunken thug. A mass slaughter is the stuff of mercenaries. An assassins' guildsman is neither. Assassins' guildsmen meet their obligations intelligently and efficiently. They are professional murderers who may well be, although not necessarily are, members of the assassin prestige class.

The typical assassins' guild affords its clients a reliable and confidential service. It does not offer cut-throat pricing but rather a high quality service. It is intolerant of competition and usually strives to establish a monopoly within a given territory, be that a city or an entire land.

Judicious assassins' guildmasters decline commissions, which due to the stature of the target, risk precipitating unfavourable changes in the legal or political environment, in particular the replacement of the iniquity, indifference or ineptitude of existing authorities with the virtue, commitment and competence of more motivated or better men. Figures of sufficient stature include, but are not limited to, temporal leaders, spiritual leaders, and darklords.

Although assassins' guilds do exist in the Land of Mists, none is particularly large owing to the unfavourable demographics. Canonical assassins' guilds are to be found in Barovia, the The Ba'al Verzi, Borca, the League of Nine, and Port-a-Lucine, the Circle Sinister. The first two are 'pure' assassins' guilds with no other lines of trade. The third traffics in professional murder among its many and varied illicit activities.

Both the Kargat and the Falkovnian Ministry of Intelligence employ assassins but neither is an assassins' guild. Each is an agent of the state rather than a for-profit criminal organisation. Consequently, it is hardly possible to contract a murder with either. Indeed attempting to do so could be tantamount to suicide. It is certainly conceivable, however, that the training necessary to enter the assassin prestige class could be secured through employment with these agencies. But it could subsequently prove to be quite difficult to resign one's post without forfeiting one's life.

Assassins' Guildsmen

Assassins' Guildmasters