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Thieves Guild Exam - Part 1

Welcome to Alandrel, a huge city on the continent of Crathor (completely out of my imagination). The city itself is fairly peaceful, and well populated with humans, elves, half-elves, gnomes, dwarves, half-orcs, and halflings. The city has been marked out into very specific sections over the years, and each indivdual group respects the borders.

Eventually I'll scan the maps.

500 years ago the thieves guild of Alandrel, The Black Feather, began to see an uprising of no-talent thieves trying to make thier way in the world without the guild's consent. These urchins were given the opportunity to either join the guild or leave the city. In accepting these ruffians, however, the guild left itself open for a reputation of being messy in their work. The guildmaster of the day, an elf by the name of Erros, decided to get his two brothers together and design the "exam" that all thieves would have to pass. He then ran through it himself, making sure that it was neither too difficult nor too easy, and making sure that nothing was too deadly within the trap. He wrote up a basic list of equipment that would prove useful, and began to send all the thieves in the guild through it. Those who could not pass were run out of town, those who did were accepted into the guild with open arms and asked for opinions on how to make it even better. So that 450 years later Roland Crand, a human thief with a reputation for ingenuity, took the exam and passed it so well he was put in line as next guildmaster. He has been running the guild for the last 55 years, since he turned twenty. In that time, he has perfected the exam to a work of art, including his familiars in it (he is a high level mage, on top of being a decent thief).

Now it's the player's turn. The following is the basic flavor text I start my characters off with when running them through the exam. (Note: the largest party to go through together with me was three, I wouldn't advise taking more than two through, though.)

You're sitting down in an inn on Chevan Street, the Thieves Guild safe street. The inn is fairly quiet. You've been living in Alandrel all of your life, so you know about where you can stay and where you can't safely, since you've been training as a thief under different members of the guild for about a year. As you take a bite of the hearty stew in front of you, you watch a slip of paper fall down in front of your face (DC 20 = spot check to see who dropped it, random member of the guild).

It's about 6:00 in the evening when they recieve the note, so they've got about three hours to kill before the exam officially begins. Allow for some player creativity at this point. I've had characters spend that three hours doing all sorts of interesting things.

  1. Sit outside the guildmaster's window to hear as much as they could about the upcoming test.
  2. Search for older thieves to ask questions about the exam (none of which were helpful).
  3. Take a two and a half hour nap so as to be rested for the exam.
  4. Enjoy a great meal, arrive early enough to try to gather a little information and/or cash on the way by talking to beggars or stealing on the way to the exam.
  5. Pick on the city gaurds by sneaking up on them and tying their shoelaces together when they weren't paying attention.
  6. Steal a feather in the market to adorn their own hat, then lead the previous owner on a merry chase through the market.

At the beginning of the exam there is an NPC waiting for the character, to introduce them to the beginning of the test. This can be anyone who you want, just make up someone with a very definite personality. I chose an NPC named Reja, an old elven thief with an attitude problem. Unhappy about her job of having to introduce students to the exam, she tries her darnedest to scare/intimidate them into making mistakes when they're in the test, strictly for her own amusement. She only smiles on rare occasions, and the player(s) are made aware of that fact early on in the conversation they have with her. She leads them into room one, gives them a quick speech, and then leaves, closing the door and sealing them in the exam.

Room 1:

A wooden room 10'x10', with an 8' ceiling. The walls, floor, and ceiling appear to be planked wood, and they all appear to be solid, with no obvious way out. There is one secret door out of this room, and the door they entered through is sealed magically once it closes, only openable from the outside. Searching the room for ways out: DC 16 unless Elven or Half-Elf, who then get DC 12. (I made it a standard rule that Elves and Half-Elves got a +4 bonus when looking for Secret Doors, then I didn't have to worry too much about how the rules worked. DM descretion, of course.)The door appears to be wooden, and further investigation (Spot, DC 14) reveals a small notch in the wall, near the edge of the door. It appears to be just big enough for the tip of a dagger to enter, which is what is needed to activate the switch inside (small rope, needs to be cut to open the door). The door swings inward, and any characters standing directly in front of it should make a Reflex save DC 20 to avoid getting hit by the quick door as it swings. Damage done is subdual, it just smarts alot.

Hallway:

Tiled in alternating green and blue hexagon shaped tiles, the hallway extends for forty feet before reaching a large 10'x 10' blue square tile, that fills the whole corner. There are six torches in the hall, burning brightly in sconces. These tiles are not trapped, but players who do not take precaution should be scared a little with perhaps a Leomund's Trap spell or a Ghost Sound, just to put them on edge. Thirty feet into the hallway, there is a tile that just doesn't seem to match the others (Spot, DC 18). It seems almost octagonal in shape, though it somehow still fits in the rest of the floor. Characters that investigate should figure out (Int, DC 14) that the tile pops up, and under it is a emerald in a hole the size of the tile, four inches deep. The emerald is worth 50gp, and the hold is not trapped. Have fun watching characters mull over whether or not to just grab the gem, they'll sometimes discuss it for an hour before finally just picking it up.

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On to the second part of the exam