Dockside Cutters¶
Contested
This page is named in the open question Hobard's captors and property.
"If you are caught or killed … we don't know you. You are just some third rate street crew who bit off more than they could chew." — a Cutter's terms for would-be initiates (S062)
The Dockside Cutters are the thieves' guild of Spillwater, the docks-and-warehouse district of Proturas. They are "an old guild with a well established name that been around more than 100 years", working Dockside and parts of Stepside (S103, S104). Their streets are lawless by arrangement, their ranks are fixed by a long charter of promotion, and their leaders answer to things that live underwater beneath the district.
Also called: the Cutters.
Organization¶
The guild's ranks are set out in its own chart (S029).
| Rank | Role |
|---|---|
| Guildmaster | "The head of the guild, works with the Underbosses to run the criminal organization. Has the final say in most matters." |
| Underboss | Runs one of the guild's businesses: "essentially administrators, accountants and spymasters" who gather information on targets and assign jobs to crews. |
| Nightmaster, Daymaster | Work out of the guild hall handing out and coordinating the day's and night's assignments, "to make sure that all the operations dont step on each other." |
| Lieutenant | Runs a guild crew of four to six, "all experts/professionals able to take on complex jobs." |
| Master Guildsman | Works alone or in a small crew, "often employed as 'Fixers' and counter-agents." |
| Guildsman | "A typical guild member. Thief, Assassin, Spy, Enforcer, Warlock, etc." |
There are four Underbosses, each over one trade (S029):
| Underboss | Business |
|---|---|
| Dockmaster | Port and warehouses |
| Trademaster | Markets and merchants |
| Spymaster | Brothels and blackmail |
| Coinmaster | Fencing and smuggling |
Promotion runs on rails. "When one of the Underbosses retires, the Nightmaster -> Underboss and Daymaster -> Nightmaster. New daymaster will be from a lieutenant." A guildsman rises to Master Guildsman for tradecraft or to Lieutenant for leadership; to become a guildsman at all takes at least a year as a footpad "with a clean record" (S029).
Outside the guild¶
Below and beside the guild proper stand three non-guild ranks (S029):
- Freelancer: "a tolerated non-guild thief who knows not to make trouble for the guild and who may be hired out for some jobs", who must have been a footpad for at least two years. The relic dealer Hobard was one.
- Footpad: the foot soldier, who "typically works with a single Guildsman (who wants to be a Lieutenant) as their one and only contact." A footpad may stay one forever, or go guild or freelance.
- Associate: works for the guild "in one of the their legitimate or non-illegal activities", as do some commonly hired experts.
Initiation¶
Footpads "require initiation … these are often weeder/burner missions that are too dangerous/risky for guild members. Success/survival means they have joined. Failure and they are disavowed/abandoned" (S029). Two such tests are recorded. One sent recruits to recover a stolen token from the Pale Pit: "The Stone Syndicate stole something from the Cutters", a bluish-silver coin with the Proturan Bank symbol, "part of their two-factor authentication system for their most secure vaults", which Berek Beetleslayer had hidden in a minotaur's cage (S029, S062). The other, which would make the recruits Associates, was a raid on a merchant house that had refused to pay for protection: "Destroy the Guards … do NOT kill any citizens", for a citizen's murder brings the Proturan Wardens, and "if you fail, get caught or have the Wardens breathing down your neck … don't bother coming back to Spillwater" (S062).
The Tolassovores¶
The Cutters' leadership is not human. "The Cutters are run by Tolassovores who demand sacrifices to feed their young" (S028). "Nobody knows this name … or even what these are." About fifty years ago "a small pod migrated into the Spillwater basin from cracks connecting it to deeper waters": humanoid amphibians "with fish-like features, including four webbed hands and two very large legs, with gills, scales and a turtle-like ridged plate across their spine", four bulging eyes and "a mouth full of sharp shark-like teeth", "highly intelligent and native eldritch spellcasters" and "the children of an Elder God", Dago'Talass. They once possessed technology "rivaling the Dwarrow" and still hold some of its artifacts (S028).
Their young must eat intelligent brains, and "there is a ritual cave below Dockside where victims are dropped in the water for their young to feed." The Tolassovores live deeper, in a flooded dwarf-clan hold, working in air in the old temple quarters above the waterline and sleeping, working and eating below it by a dim blue magical light (S028). Rumour among the rank and file has it that "the leadership worships a god that requires ritual sacrifices": Necatus and Namaka are the popular guesses. Victims are held apart and taken to an underground temple, a converted dwarvish shrine, "off-limits to anyone not already paired with a Tolassovore". "Cutter leadership is initiated in the temple by other leaders … where they are paired with a Tolassovore" (S028).
The guild's headquarters "is located in an old dwarf quarry which is accessible from several tunnels below Spillwater" (S028); the Dwarven Roads beneath the city connect "to the Sewers of Spillwater and the Cutter's Den" (S042).
Business¶
The sacrifices come from trade with the Warrens. The Cutters "run a human trafficking op with the Drowned Ring … mostly to pick up stray orphans and other undesirables/useless people who won't be missed" (S028). Above ground, the guild buys protection: one of Spillwater's three City Councillors "is suspected to be on the Cutters payroll", and the only watch officers who last are those "with political connections with all the right people + Cutters" (S103, S104). One of its Master Guildsmen says "the Proturan government is off limits in Spillwater" (S051). The Blue Ram, a tavern of the Upper Stairs, was chosen for a secret meeting because it lies "outside of Cutter territory" (S042, S044).
Relations¶
The Cutters' friends are dangerous ones. The warlock Valtor, of the Circle of Eternity, "uses [his mansion] to coordinate with the Cutters (his allies)" (S042), and in the campaign's plotting the Cutters stand in an alliance of the Tenebrians, Valtor and the White Hand, "working for Circle (mercenaries + expansion?)" (S039). Berek Beetleslayer's seer told him only that "the Cutter leadership is controlled by someone (he assumes its warlocks)" (S028), and Berek warned recruits away from "dem Cutters … and whoever they are really working fer" (S062).
Against the Stone Syndicate the guild was a rival and, at its fall, a predator: with the Syndicate weakened, "both the Drowned Ring and the Cutters are making moves on their territory" (S039). One Syndicate crew boss who went to ground in Spillwater did so "under the protection of the Cutters", and a Cutter sub-boss, Pellik, visited the rebel Dunstan at his refuge outside the city, the estate of a retired Cutter thief (S039, S040).
History¶
When Hobard's crew fell apart, the Cutters took what was left. Hobard's partner Anita "signed over all Hobard's property"; the guild took everything "and installed their own people", and the party's old associates joined and urged the party to follow: "whats the difference? Same job, different boss … besides these Cutters actually have cred and connections … nobody messes with us" (S028, S062). Anita herself "now works for the Cutters" (S068).
In 834 AL, after the annexation of the Warrens, the Master Guildsman Lysellion sought outside help. "He says there is something rotten at the core of the Cutters and he needs someone he can trust to help him weed it out": hidden deals, cultist ties, human trafficking, or "deals with Proturan Authorities with no benefits for the Cutters, but which tie their hands." His first job was to rob the payroll of the Warrens regiment of the Silver Wolves, three thousand gold, inside the Warrens, "so that it can be blamed on remainders of the Stone Syndicate" (S051).
In Play¶
The Cutters are the guild that the Proturan Campaign's party, Hobard's former crew, was expected to join; Lysellion offered to make them footpads without "stupid initiation rites" (S051).
Earlier accounts¶
The earlier story-arc notes say that Anita, after signing over Hobard's property, "is nowhere to be found … she has skipped town" (S028); the later cast list has her working for the Cutters (S068). The same notes have the Drowned Ring negotiating with the Cutters, "who REALLY want him", for the captured Hobard (S028); the later session notes put him in the hands of the Stone Syndicate (S061). See the open question named above.