— On hiatus; recruitment has been closed! —
I knew I was wrong, and yet I persisted. I had not spent one hour in the company of an honest person. I had lived in an atmosphere of larceny, theft, crime. I thought in terms of theft. Houses were built to be burglarized, citizens were to be robbed, law to be avoided and hated, stool pigeons to be chastised, and thieves to be cultivated and protected. That was my code; the code of my companions. That was the atmosphere I breathed.
J. Black, You Can’t Win (1926)
Who are the Sixty Thieves?
The Sixty Thieves consist of a wide variety of crooks and criminals, coming from different backgrounds and walks of life. While many thieves are in it for the money, some regard their profession as a way of striking back at a society that so cruelly discarded them, and a rarer few have a more heroic attitude, of relieving the rich of their money to help the people of the slums (or perhaps just themselves in particular). Either way, the thieves live their life by blood and silver, and every coin is a victory to be treasured.
The gang is held together by a mutually beneficial relationship. It provides protection, shelter and companionship for its members, as well as resources and aid in pulling off bigger heists. It also offers a place to form bonds of trust – a rare luxury in the criminal underworld. The thieves need to be able to trust each other to survive, and so each thief safeguards the secrets of his fellow, knowing full well the damning evidence against him his companions could provide, should he betray his oaths. Friendship and trust are encouraged between members, and a family atmosphere is endorsed, as members are most often outcasts with no family or home of their own. The Sixty Thieves look after their own.
What do they do?
The Sixty Thieves commit a variety of crimes as they work towards their goals. These acts include (but are not limited to) petty thievery such as pickpocketing, mugging, and burglary, as well as less hands-on acts such as blackmailing, scamming, and dealing various narcotics and stolen goods on the nightly city streets. Similarly, the thieves are infamous for pulling off numerous bigger heists, targeting anyone and anything rich enough to sate their ever-growing greed. In the past, many higher-scale burglaries and caravan raids have been attributed to the Sixty Thieves.
Although some of its members’ rather violent nature is recognised by many, it is known that the family prefers to refrain from inflicting unnecessary bloodshed. Corpses draw attention, attention brews trouble, and trouble heralds more corpses – a vicious cycle that the gang likes to avoid. With this in mind, the Sixty Thieves are willing to carry out a variety of contracts given to them by outsiders – granted that they’ve got the coin – whether it is to do with roughening up an old rival or retrieving or transporting items of interest. The gang is up for near everything that is within the boundaries of their code and skillset, as long as a promise of gold is involved.
How to find them?
The gang’s presence would seem most apparent in the towns of Ratchet and Booty Bay, which offer plenty of opportunities for those walking the path of crime, owing to their neutrality and ever-so-busy ports. Thus, those interested in becoming a part of the family, would probably try to seek them out there. However, the gang’s influence reaches to the far corners of the world, and it is almost as likely to bump into a thief in any of the racial capitals, though in these places, they tend to go into greater extents to conceal their identity.
A member of the Sixty Thieves can also be recognised by a scar or brand in the shape of a cross – if one knows to look for it –, which stands somewhere on their flesh as a symbol of their undying loyalty and contribution to the good of the family. A bit more rarely, a thief might be seen clad in a brown piece of cloth with a printed golden cross across the chest, shameless and unafraid to show their affiliation with the Sixty Thieves, for good or ill.
How would one go about joining them?
Upon contacting the Sixty Thieves with the intention of joining their ranks, the potential initiate is brought to the most skilled and able members of the gang, who act as its leading figures. They will scrutinize the skill and trustworthiness of the individual, deciding whether they have a place in the family. Obviously, the gang is more inclined to recruit lowly slum dogs with nothing to lose, and who will therefore dedicate themselves most enthusiastically to the family, and to thievery in general.
Whilst joining the Sixty Thieves opens plenty of opportunities for those walking the path of a criminal, applying can also mean closing certain doors. It should be kept in mind that though the gang cannot always keep track of everyone’s doings, seeking to abandon or betray the family is heavily frowned upon. Many of those who have attempted such, have seemed to – perhaps rather discouragingly – disappear with naught but rumours speculating their possible fate. Loyalty and security are valued above all else.
How does applying work in practice?
If we’ve caught your interest, we ask you to write an application on our forums (link provided below), following the instructions given there. Should the application be approved, matters will be taken IC, potentially leading up to a trial period during which your character gets the chance to prove their worth.
Guild rules:
We are a criminal guild and expect our members to partake in criminal RP. All members are expected to partake in the guild’s key activity: committing crime. Most of our roleplay revolves around concepts of criminality, and thus we require a certain level of commitment to the theme from each of our members.
Do not metagame/poweremote. Keeping IC and OOC apart is increasingly important in conflict roleplay, and thus we have little tolerance towards metagaming of any kind. We, the players, are usually privy to a lot more knowledge than our characters. Similarly, it is forbidden to write any emotes that dictate the outcome for your target, denying them the chance to have an impact on the situation. All emotes are to be attempts, unless agreed on beforehand.
Do not break the game’s lore. Every member is expected to stay true to the game’s setting, following the official World of Warcraft lore. However, we acknowledge that the lore contains a number of grey areas, and so if you have any lore-related questions, do not hesitate to discuss it with the officers.
Be mature and respectful of others. Members of the guild are expected to behave maturely towards one another, keeping up a polite and friendly atmosphere. Respect everyone’s opinions, and the good-will will be returned. We have little tolerance for toxicity, and if personal arguments pop up, do try your best to keep them private.
Always stay in-character on /say, /emote, and /yell. We handle all of our out-of-character chatter through /guild or /whisper in-game, or our Discord channel out-of-game. Be respectful towards other roleplayers, and do not aggravate them or break their immersion by involving OOC chat in channels where it does not belong.
Pay consideration towards others when committing serious crimes. Respect their wishes and strive to ensure you have your target’s consent for heavy consequences such as death, extreme physical harm, or humiliation. Conflict roleplay can be intrusive and disruptive, and thus it is considered polite to whisper your victims beforehand.
Committed crimes must happen in actual roleplay. Any crimes that affect the gang’s finances and other businesses must happen either through events or random roleplay. This is both to promote roleplay with the community, and to ensure that the hard-working members that put time and effort into their crimes can stand out and be justly rewarded for their contribution. Any behind-the-scenes work is to be kept to the minimum.
We frown on cybering. While we don’t want to control what our members do via private channels, we do not tolerate public ERP of any kind, nor language suggestive of such towards minors. Any reports on breaking any of those premises will be thoroughly investigated by the officers, as will any indications of related abusive behaviour, or unwanted ERP solicitations towards other players.
All members of the Sixty Thieves should be ready to take consequences on the same level as the people we roleplay with. This means, for example, that we don’t need to be killable to opponents we do not deem to be such either, and in turn will not try to enforce severe consequences on other players if we’re not ready to receive the same consequences ourselves. In guild events, we expect unkillable characters to try avoiding situations in which the only sensible consequence to befall on them is death.
Officers to contact: Thalindor, Laerynna, Zria
Guild Forums:
http://tinyurl.com/sixtythieves
Argent Archives:https://tinyurl.com/sixtyaa