The Beggars' Union

When BeggarmasterTheobald, King of Junk, precipitated the war between the Thieves' Guild and the Beggars' Union some fifteen years back, and the beggars were ultimately crushed, it seemed as if the Beggars' Union was finished as a credible entity within the Free City's power structure. The Beggars' Union under Theobald had become too greedy, the activities of the union had encroached on the activities of the Thieves' Guild, and the thieves were less than happy.

Following the disappearance of Theobald when the Thieves' Guild attacked the Palace of Trash, Gaspar took control of the union and sued for peace with Arentol, who was then the Guildmaster of Thieves. Together they drew up a new, mutually acceptable charter for the operation of the union- acceptable to the thieves because they got what they wanted and gave up only what they cared to lose, and acceptable to the beggars be cause they were in no position to argue.

This charter effectively gave control of the Slum Quarter to the beggars, allowed them to perform a small degree of pick-pocketing and pilfering, but expressly forbade them from indulging in any of the activities claimed exclusively by the Thieves' Guild (effectively all manner of organized crime). The tradition of cooperation between the thieves and the beggars was to be revived, and the beggars were to recieve a 1% share of the haul from any thieving operation in which the beggars assisted.

The beggars' main role in the city now is to act as the eyes and ears of both the Thieves' Guild and also for anyone who pays them for gathering information. Beggars flock around all the main city gates and around the wharves and in all the markets, and are thus ideally placed to observe the comings and goings of potential targets for the thieves. Relay teams of beggars can expertly shadow individuals all across the city and covertly convey information back and forth using the beggars' secret sign language.

When private clients are involved, the beggars' services do not come cheap. Gathering information is a complex affair involving many beggars in many parts of the city, and each participant must receive a share of the fee. For PCs trying to locate a particular individual with the aid of the Beggars' Union, a charge of at least 5 gp will be levied and the information could take a day or more to be communicated back to them. (Obviously, the DM has complete control on exactly how much help the Beggars' Union can be to a PC group.) In addition, many groups and individuals pay the union to spread misinformation. and reports of PCs who have paid for investigations could well be passed on by the union to those individuals the PCs are seeking. The members of the Beggars ' Union are not running a public information service-they only do it for the cash!

Members of the Beggars' Union also act as guides for groups willing to pay them the requisite sum to do so, and the beggars have intimate knowledge of the city's streets and alleys. Members of the union are also skilled at moving through the city without attracting attention. The union also maintains numerous secret paths that allow its members entrance to all the city's quarters, should the City Watch turn them away from the gates.

Street urchins at the city gates will throng around adventurer bands and merchant caravans entering the city, offering to lead them to inns and gaming houses or other such places of entertainment, and advertising many of the services and businesses in the city. The less mobile and older beggars crowd around, rattling their begging bowls and pleading for alms in the name of just about every god and goddess in the known world. Adventurers should be especially careful here; being too generous and making too ostentatious a show of wealth and good fortune will mark them down as good targets for the Thieves' Guild, while giving the beggars nothing will spur the union to alert the thieves anyway, to cure the visitors of their meanness.

The activities of the Beggars' Union are centered around the Palace of Trash in the Slum Quarter (location S3). This large, imposing building, a relic from the Old City's age of greatness, contains several large apartments for senior union members decorated with an astounding collection of old ornaments and furnishings scavenged from all parts of the city, dormitories and cubicles for junior members, training rooms , and an enormous dining hall and kitchen. The Palace of Trash has many secret entrances and exits that lead into the sewers from its cellars, and the building even has its own well in case of siege.

Gaspar maintains (as have all previous Beggarmasters) his own personal retinue of indentured beggars who are based at the Palace of Trash. These beggars are by and large children who have been sent to the municipal workhouses and then later "liberated" for sale to the Beggarmaster by unscrupulous guards. These beggars are intensively trained by the Masters of the Beggarmaster's inner circle and are destined to become the union's senior representatives and agents within the Free City. During their apprenticeship, these indentured beggars must donate every last copper common to the Beggarmaster. They are taught Beggars' Cant (the secret language of the Beggars' Union) and the beggars' secret signs. Their minds are trained to recall the most minute details about people and places and to instantly recognize and assess potential targets for the Thieves' Guild. They are taught to contort themselves and look pitiful to play on people's sympathies, and the most promising students are taught to read, write and draw.

The membership of the Beggars' Union includes bona fide beggars (either genuine down-and-outs, or those crippled by disease or injury) as well as those who see being a beggar as just another profession and as good a way to eam a living as any other. The latter group tends to be the union's main activists, and a very few of the more skillful have respectable homes and families and eam a considerable income, donning their rags at dawn and returning home at dusk to change into more comfortable clothes and relax by the fire.

Individuals can apply for membership at the Beggars' Guildhall (the Palace of Trash in the Slum Quarter), where they are issued the wooden hand symbol which all union members must wear at all times around their necks. Members are expected to give 50% of all their earnings to the union, although the actual collection of this fee is a rather hit-or-miss affair. Senior members of the union (the strongest and toughest beggars ) mill around with the crowd wherever beggars congregate and grab the union's share as the beggars earn their money. In return, the senior union members get to keep half of what they grab and the rest goes to Simeon Hellwater, the Union Treasurer, to swell the union coffers.

The activities of the Beggars· Union are directed by the Beggarmaster's inner circle, which consists of Gaspar, Haarkon Diardra, Simeon Hellwater, and Diarmid Hesperion.