Academy of the Arts Sinister

Thieves' Guild

This is a secret university based in Ignarth city, Eldris. The Thieve’s Guild is called the Academy of the Arts Sinister, and sometimes the Silent Fraternity. It is wealthy and powerful, and the school’s dean serves as mayor of Ignarth’s commune. It exists in sort of closed, economic ecosystem.

Location

The university is housed in an elegant old monastery once called St. Miranda’s. It has high walls and beautiful gardens within. Its approach carefully is hidden in a tangle of streets, a maze designed to discourage visitors. Full-time attendants care for its gardens and roses. The abbey walls are sheathed in marble, hung with mirrors, and filled with caged songbirds. The Academy maintains secret postern gates into and out of Ignarth.

Students

This institution trains all the best thieves, cutpurses, panhandlers, burglars, assassins, and spies in Aorlis. There are seventy-two openings in each freshmen class, and survival rate is about fifty-fifty, with one to two students dying per week. Tuition is paid for city patrons, although the students are responsible for their own meal tickets.

Alumni

Continue to function in the city as long as they obey the rules, don’t steal from paid patrons, and sell their goods to approved fences at a triple tithe (30%).

Hierarchy

As a shadow university, the school hierarchy fits the standard university model. From least to greatest, these ranks are:

Commoner
Servitor
Undergraduate
Fellow-Commoner
Fellow
Master
Procter
Don
Dean
Vice-Chancellor
Chancellor

Curriculum

Cutpurse
Detect/Disarm mechanical traps.
Endurance Suspension—hang four extended periods from rafters, walls, or even in cramped or tortuous positions
Heightened Awareness/Attention to Detail
Motionless—Perfect stillness for hours on end
Move Silently—Even across beds of crisp leaves or twigs
Pick Locks
Rapid Climbing—Climb under a variety of conditions
Shadow Play—dodging undetected from shadow to shadow
Shadowing—Covertly trailing subjects
Surveillance—Covertly spying on subjects
Urban Survival

Patrons

In a well-developed protection racket, patrons sponsor the university with a graduated quarterly fee, granting them immunity to theft and predation from the academy, its students, and alumni. This protection money is paid willingly, because failure to comply or keep up payments results in heavy-handed theft and property damage.

Approved Fences

The university licenses all the fences in Ignarth, and they stay in business by paying a double tithe (20%) to the academy on all goods they buy from thieves.

Freelance Thievery

There is a standing kill-on-sight order for non-Academy thieves working in Ignarth. Freelance thievery is punished by losing one hand and then being worked to death on the city’s dredging barges. The thieves’ severed hands are nailed to the city gates.