Chamber of Shadows

The Chamber of Shadows is the most powerful criminal organisation in the Midrealms and has several related names, such as the Shadow Chamber but is most commonly just called the Shadows.

The organisation has its main power base in Capitoleum, where it dominates all levels of illicit behaviour. There are individual criminals working outside of the strong arm of the Shadows, but no larger groups.

Fundamentally, the Shadows isn't a cohesive whole, but a collection of various smaller gangs of criminals that follow a common goal due to internal forcings that ultimately derive from the original organisation of the Chamber of Shadows.

History

The Chamber of Shadows was originally so named as a joke on the Chamber of Commerce, as six of the seven founding members were their connections to funnel goods on the side. It started out as the "most high-end" level of a thieves' guild in Capitoleum but has evolved over time into its current "all-inclusive enclave of everything criminal" where all other criminals are controlled by power distribution, bribes, threats or violence.

The Seven's true identities (or even sexes) are only known to the leadership of the Shadows who inherit the leadership, but their pseudonyms (internally referred to as "pseudos") are: Wolf, Stack, Pale, Hand, Lamprey, Needle, Bolt, Fox and Raven. During the next decades, the Seven became one, with a new, simpler title: The Guildmaster. Wolf gained complete power in his old age, when several other out of the Seven had died and Wolf outmaneuvered Hand and Needle. To this day, the Guildmaster generally assumes one of the pseudos of the Seven.

During the time of the Seven, they used their economical power, bribing, forced and killing to gain "enough power" to fulfill their goals. It didn't take long before the goal became to "control all variables" within the continent's power centre. Besides several gangs of outright thugs under the control of the organisation, there is also a dedicated guild for thievery, burglary, bribery, forgery, assassinations and even begging (many local chapters deviate from this, however).

During the strife to reach dominance in Capitoleum, the criminal organisation turned, slowly, into a continent-wide network and can be found with some level of influence in every major city in the Realms using a local chapter. Generally, the Shadows has more influence in the lands than pure trade influence.

Over time, the Shadows has become quite bureaucratic and hierarchic. This has helped managing the (now) large organisation, but is a potential weakness if a Stripes investigator would ever find the Shadows's ledgers. As it stands, the Shadows has never faced major issues with the law and is a quite efficient network of agents (for its size) and efforts have been made to ensure its survival. Time will tell if a true challenge will ever face the organisation.

Organisation

The Shadows is ultimately lead by the Guildmaster, and each city (in the case of Capitoleum, every area also has a Leader)

People of Capitoleum know a lot more about the Shadow Chamber than they let on. Most people know a representative, or at least "know of" one. This Shadow Chamber was originally so called as a joke on the Chamber of Commerce, and originally was just the thieve's guild, but it's now an all-inclusive enclave of everything that the Stripes do not like. Not to say that individual stripes don't enjoy a lot of the services offered in the shade, but officially they don't.

The Shadow Chamber includes the original Thieves' Guilds, the Assassin's Guild, the Beggar's Guild and many others. It's almost impossible to have a career in Capitoleum as a pickpocket without paying your dues to the Thieves guild, and adhere to its strict rules. Trust the administrative culture to turn thieving into a honest 8-5 profession...

These people work in symbiosis with the Stripes in many parts of town. In some parts there are hardly a single stripe, and there the Shadow Chamber makes sure that the populace isn't too taxed by theft and make sure that nobody dies that had not a large (enough) sum on his head first.

Among the guilds that makes up the Shadow Chamber, the Thieves' Guild is by far the most important and the Shadow Council is often synonymous with the Thieve's Guild. Though they don't themselves do forgeries, the Thieves' Guild has influence in most other shady guilds. Nobody messes with the Assassins though (the only reason they are part of the Shadow Chamber is because they are so few that it's beneficial to outsource the administration).

Any Stripes commander who tried to significantly alter the arrangement with the Shadow Chamber have turned up dying from some freak accident, so not much has changed in the last several decades.

This page is still being worked on.

Organisations within the guild

The Business

This is the name for the assassins. Originally there were particular trained individuals performing this most final of services in the city of Capitoleum and a few select other cities but the Shadow Chamber spent some considerable resources to convince them to join the guild. Even so, they have never truly integrated. It takes very special skills to work with the Business if you compare it to thugs with sticks. Besides the skill, patience, perception and precision, people don't like assassins, even crooks themselves. If anything it was a way to ensure control of these 'rogue' agents.

Regardless of the seeming incorporation of the Business into the Shadows, the group still takes jobs on ANYONE for the right price. This includes the guild masters of the Shadows themselves. Of course, such a hit would be ridiculously expensive.

Assassins are called Operatives.

DnD Rules

Use encounter lvl -1 but +1000 gold.

1 - 260 gp
2 - 550 gp
3 - 800 gp
4 - 1,150 gp
5 - 1,550 gp
6 - 2,000 gp
7 - 2,600 gp
8 - 3,350 gp
9 - 4,250 gp
10 - 5,450 gp
11 - 7,000 gp
12 - 9,000 gp
13 - 11,600 gp
14 - 15,000 gp
15 - 19,500 gp
16 - 25,000 gp
17 - 32,000 gp
18 - 41,000 gp
19 - 53,000 gp
20 - 67,000 gp

Influence

The Shadows is

The dominant thieves' guild in Capitoleum, only some areas are under the control of others.
The largest thieves' guild Gwennport, but not as dominating in Capitoleum.

Pseudos

Pseudonyms (or "pseudos") are standard within the Shadows. In a lot of cases, members have a separate "legal life" as well as their professional life in the guild. In many instances, no (or very few) other members in the guild knows of a person's "true" (or at least "original") identity.

The choice of names vary. Some likes verbs, subjectives or animals that suit them and others use real names or words that sound like names. It's generally not looked down upon to pick names of existing members, but it isn't uncommon that this will mean they also get a nickname they didn't choose themselves (to tell people apart). This isn't a huge problem, but especially younger member from the trading class or nobility tend to focus more on a "cool name" than a practical one.

More uncommon names are the same as the Seven (Wolf, Stack, Pale, Hand, Lamprey, Needle, Bolt, Fox and Raven), but they are not rare. The use of such a name is usually clear from context that the person does not pretend to be as powerful as one of the Seven (especially not Wolf).

Characters

The Seven - Founding members of the Chamber of Shadows

* Wolf, Stack, Pale, Hand, Lamprey, Needle, Bolt, Fox and Raven

Gwennport

Hamlin family is especially adverse to the Shadows

Wellbarrow

Nifty - Low-ranking runner and "hands".

Southshore

Jantina of Southshore

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Other: Tall

Roleplaying

Player character who have been or are members of the Shadows automatically learn a couple of crypts:

Shadows standard - Used for non-essential communication between guild members. Updated every year few years.
Personal crypt - Used between the member and her superior.

In addition, Shadows character can choose the following as a starting language, or learn by using a skill point in Linguistics:

Shadows sign language