Ingaret - The Queen of Thieves
Ingaret is the goddess of Thieves, Charity, and the poor, particularly those who reside and operate in urban areas. An orphan who grew up in the slums of Watfordford, she started stealing in order to feed herself and her fellow street children, but it quickly became a way for them to get back at the nobility who regarded them as nothing but street trash. By the time of her ascension, she had more than earned the title of 'Queen of Thieves', and her crowning achievement was the theft of the Bommbergonian crown jewels. One would think that most of her followers would be thieves, and while thieves who are more "community minded" certainly do worship her, she is extremely popular among the poorest residents of the Shattered Continent. Slum dwellers, street children, and beggars all offer regular prayers to The Queen of Thieves in the hope that charity and good fortune are headed their way.
Mortal Life
Early Life
Born into abject poverty in the slums of the Bommbergonian city of Watfordford, Ingaret's parents were hung for stealing food that was destined for the kitchens of the ruling Bommbergon family when she was barely a toddler, and she grew up bouncing between orphanages and the streets. At a very young age she learned that if she wanted a full belly, she had better get good at snatching food from carts and dodging the swipes of the vendors. The injustice of bommbergonia's class system was apparent to her even as a child, and the fact that stealing from those who could most afford it earned the highest punishments ate at her.
She was far from the only street child in the slums of Watfordford, and the orphans in the slums tended to stick together for safety, sharing food when they could acquire it, spreading word on where food or shelter could be safely found. Ingaret soon proved to be the most skilled among her peers at getting big hauls of food and other useful goods, where another child might grab a loaf of bread or a couple apples from a stall, she would seek out the location where the delivery carts were loaded or unloaded and snag whole crates of food, cloth, or other goods while the workers were elsewhere. She would often pay other slum dwellers to be on the lookout for things like this, paying them out of her haul, and the rest would be distributed among the other street kids.
Rise of a Queen
With their bellies filled and clothes on their back, the other children began to look to Ingaret as a leader, asking her to teach them how to do what she did, and soon she ran an entire network of child thieves spanning the entire length of the slums and beginning to spill over into nearby neighborhoods. As they began to move past basic survival and make money, she had the older kids begin to rent buildings so they had proper places to eat, sleep, and store their illicit goods. Her people spread across the city, able to look like anything from a filthy urchin to a wealthy child lost in an upscale market, and her intelligence network spread with them.
As the years passed and she honed her skills, and with the children of the slums no longer depending soley on her for their next meal, she began deliberately going for bigger and bigger scores and hitting higher profile targets. The wealthy and powerful, particularly those who made themselves stand out by either being particularly cruel to the less well off or by abusing their social status at the expense of others were her preferred victims, and she had no lack of them. With these bigger paydays they began outright buying buildings, and the first thieves guildhouses were born, eventually expanding to a broad network of warehouses, hidden safehouses, and guildhouses, but their success brought unwanted attention.
Royal Indignation
Rupert Bommbergon, First of his name, Crown Prince of Bommbergonia, had been hearing rumors of a growing thieves guild within Watfordford for some time, and it ate at him that such scum could thrive in his beloved city and the seat of his power. As word of a 'Queen of Thieves' who stole from the upper class and distributed her ill gotten gains among the common rabble began to circulate he was pushed into action, the sheer gall of some gutter-scum daring to adopt a royal title while she robbed and disrespected her betters driving him to a seething rage. He ordered the city guard to increase their patrols of the middle class and better areas of the city, and directed the bommbergonian directorate of intelligence to root out the scurrying vermin who so defiled his great city.
As the guards and spies spread out across the city searching for the Queen of Thieves, they found little help from their usual sources. The various beggars and street urchins, all of whom looked particularly well fed and remarkably content, begged ignorance of any thieves guild, as did the operators of all of the orphanages and poor houses across the city. It wasn't until they began to question the various criminals, thugs, and gang members who had been recently arrested that they cought a break. The criminal element of the city had been having problems recruiting as of late, finding that with the children of the slums well fed and supported by the thieves guild, it was far harder to coerce or threaten them into a life of violent crime. These assorted thugs were more than willing to reveal all they knew about the upstart thieves guild, and with this source of fresh information, the campaign against the thieves guild saw it's first successes.
Escalation
In the early hours of the morning, more than a half dozen buildings across Watfordford found their doors kicked in as groups of city guard and bommbergonian soldiers raided establishments associated with the thieves guild. These raids resulted in dozens of presumptive thieves guild members being arrested, but almost no stolen or illicit goods recovered. The crown hadn't been subtle in their investigations and many of the people they had questioned had reported directly back to the guild about it, and so in the dead of night the thieves had moved any incriminating evidence from their more public holdings to safehouses and secret boltholes. The authorities had little evidence against the captured individuals other than the word of thugs and criminals, but the crown prince was pressuring them for results and so they declared a half dozen of their prisoners to be the ringleaders. By the evening, the so called ringleaders were swinging from the gallows in Watfordford's main square.
The bodies of their friends swinging in the wind turned what should have been a victorious moment into a bitter one, none of the thieves had believed that the authorities would go so far without clear evidence. Ingaret was enraged by the blatant injustice of the executions but unwilling to see more of her family killed, and so she told her followers to lay low before going on a rampage through the properties and posessions of the rich and powerful. Lords found their private ledgers and journals with incriminating or embarassing information made public, Ladies unmentionables were hung from public statuary with rude and suggestive statements written on them, and entire noble families found their wealth spread across the cobbled streets of Watfordford. No safe, no lock, and no number of guards would deter her, and the still locked but empty rooms that Ingaret left behind pushed her legend to even greater heights.
The Family Jewels
As chaos spread through the ranks of Watfordford's nobility, the long ailing king of Bommbergonia, Albert Bommbergon, passed away in his sleep, elevating the crown prince to the throne and providing Ingaret the ultimate goal of all, The Crown Jewels. Fearing that the thefts that had plagued the nobility of his beloved city would spill over into his coronation, Rupert ordered the number of guards in the palace tripled in the days leading up to the main event and brought in a large number of soldiers to ensure that order was maintained. The crown jewels were kept under a locked case under constant guard behind multiple layers of locked doors and guards, and all precautions were taken to ensure that nothing would ruin the coronation.
The night before the coronation, all of Rupert's preparations paid off and Ingaret was cought just outside of the final set of doors leading to the crown jewels and after leading the guards on a chase through the palace was cornered and captured. Rupert declared that her public execution would be the first thing that he would preside over as king, and that gallows should be built at one end of coronation square outside of the royal palace. After an uninterupted coronation ceremony, King Rupert I of bommbergonia lead the members of the royal court out of the palace to view the execution of 'the false queen'.
Ascension and Humiliation
Once the nobles were settled into their seats and the public had assembled before the gallows, the prisoner was brought into the square at spearpoint, a triple line of soldiers seperating her from the crowd. She was clad in rags and blindfolded, and bruises could be seen across most of her exposed skin as she limped her way to the gibbet. As she was prodded into place on the gallows and the noose was placed around her neck, King Rupert stood and began to speak about how his first act as king was to bring "this pretender, this criminal who dares claim a royal title while terrorizing her betters" to justice when he was interrupted by a strong, clear voice which could be heard clearly across the entire square.
"You speak of justice, clad in your silks and your jewels, when you know nothing of it."
All eyes turned to the gallows where Ingaret stood, her blindfold gone and her eyes locked on the king.
"You sit there with full bellies and fuller wallets, uncaring that the people of the slums go hungry, their spirits crushed under the burden of hardships and empty bellies. I steal for more than personal gain, I steal from those who push the common man into the dirt every day so that I might give the people back their spirit."
Ingaret threw her arms wide, no longer restrained as her rags fell away to reveal her in the same clothes she was arrested in, without a dagger or lockpick out of place. As she stepped forward towards the edge of the platform she dipped her hands under her cloak and pulled them out holding the Crown of Bommbergon and the royal sceptre.
"You call me a pretender when you were crowned using cheap fakes instead of the crown jewels."
King Rupert reached for his crown only to pull a cheap tin replica with cracked glass jewels from his head. The guards on the gallows platform lunged for her only to be knocked down by slingstones from within the crowd. She took another step forwards, placing the crown on her head and leveling the sceptre at Rupert
"I, as the Queen of Thieves, pronounce you unworthy of the crown, unworthy of your titles, and unworthy to hold yourself above the meanest slum dweller."
With this final statement, she stepped forwards off of the platform and fell, the rope connected to the noose drawing tight before a brilliant blast of golden light blinded all of the onlookers. As it faded, it revealed an empty noose swinging in the air as the crown and sceptre clattered to the ground, every single jewel missing from their settings.
Worship
The most obvious worshippers of Ingaret are thieves with a more 'community minded' bent, but the majority of her worshippers can be found among the poorest residents of cities across The Shattered Continent. Slum dwellers, street children and beggars all offer regular prayers to The Queen of Thieves in the hopr that charity and good fortune are headed their way. She is frequently adopted as the patron god of orphanges, soup kitchens, and poor houses, something that can be partially attributed to the charitable donations from The Queen's Guild.
The Queen's Guild
In life, Ingaret had built up an extensive network of like minded thieves working out of both semi-public guild houses and secret safe houses and warehouses spread across the city of Watfordford. Immediately following her ascension, her followers met up in taverns and bars across the city to raise a glass in her name and tell tales of their Queen, and by the next day they had adopted the name "The Queen's Guild". The intense crackdown that they were subject to in their home city following her theft of the crown jewels and subsequent ascension encouraged them to spread out to other cities in Bommbergonia, and today The Queen's Guild, or just "The Guild" spans the entirety of The Shattered Continent.
The guild operates under a strict set of rules as laid down by Ingaret in its infancy; only stealing from those who can afford it, never hoarding wealth when there are people in need, and no violence during heists unless in self defense being the most important. Strict adherance to these rules, particularly the lack of violence, has given The Guild a certain amount of leniency with most law enforcement, and membership in the guild isn't in and of itself a crime in most of the Shattered Continent. Between this and the extensive amount of charitable giving that the guild does, membership is seen as a relatively respectable thing, although not one that is generally touted in public.
Ingaret
The Queen of Thieves
Alignment
Chaotic Good
Edicts
Steal from the rich, give aid to the poor, be loyal to your chosen family
Anathema
Take from those who can't afford it, refuse aid to the needy, betray those who are loyal to you
Areas of Concern
Theft, Inequality, City life, Charity, family
Follower Alignments
CG, NG, CN, N
Devotee Benefits
Divine Ability
Dexterity or Charisma
Divine Font
Heal
Divine Skill
Stealth
Favored Weapon
Dagger
Domains
Family, Trickery, Cities, Luck
Cleric Spells
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