Category:Assassins' Guild

An assassins' guild is a criminal organisation that treats death as a commodity. It sees itself as being in the business of murdering for money. It also a place where an individual hoping to enter the assassin prestige class can hope to find the necessary training.

The typical assassins' guild affords its clients a reliable and confidential service. It is intolerant of competition within its market segment and usually strives to establish a monopoly within a given territory. It does not offer cut-throat pricing but rather a high quality service.

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.

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

Although assassins' guilds exist in the Land of Mists, none is particularly large owing to 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 work. The third simply 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. They are agents of the state rather than a for-profit criminal organisations. Consequently, it is impossible to contract a murder with either.