On the Thieves Guild

The Thieves Guild follows a highly organized structure which some say is loosely based on the ancient diarchies of the Vyrum.

At the head of the guild is the Guild Master or Prince. He is often a nobleman with both feet in legitimate society. Few people know the source of his illicit income or rackets, which are continually washed through actual enterprises.

The Guild Master has four lieutenants: the Hand, the Eye, the Heart and the Hand. The Hand is the Grandmaster Assassin and head of the subsidiary Assassins Guild. The Eye is the Spymaster and head of the subsidiary Guild of Whispers. The Heart is the Great Dame and the head of the Trollop's Guild. The Mouth is the Guild Master's chief lieutenant through whom he directs the rest of the thieves in the guild.

Reporting to the Mouth are the Arch Thieves or "Old Men", each of whom runs a "family" of four to seven Master Thieves. They principally earn their income by loansharking and extortion, and by collecting the tribute purses paid by those beneath them. Each of them has an enterprise, a thin veneer of respectability, which is run more or less poorly and frequently relies on other unsavory sources of income to augment its survival.

The Master Thieves are the so-called "Uncles." They coordinate the dirty work of the guild. Each is an accomplished thief of some specialty and each of them runs a crew of four to eight "Lads" who. The Uncles plan jobs and give out assignments, but also supervise and train the real earners earners of the guild. 

The Lads and their probationary associates do the actual pick-pocketing, wall climbing, lock-picking and pilfering that keep the entire organization afloat.