Some stories ofOne Thousand and One Nights celebrated artful thieves and criminal brotherhoods with a hierarchy and code of honor.[2]The Sandalwood Merchant and the Sharpers features an old man known as the "Sheikh of Thieves" who delivered judgement on less experiencedsharpers.[2] This was based on actual thieves' guilds inCairo in theOttoman period, that were known to return stolen goods for a price, and which were managed by a sheikh.[2] These survived up until the 19th century, and were mentioned byEdward William Lane in the 1830s.[2]
A central feature ofMiguel de Cervantes' storyRinconete y Cortadillo, set in sixteenth-centurySeville, is the city's strong and well-organized thieves' guild built to the model of the medievalguild. As in any other profession, a young thief must start as anapprentice and slowly work his way to become amaster craftsman—in this case, a master thief. No one could come into a city and start on a career as a thief without belonging to the local guild (as Cervantes' protagonists soon find out), which would have been in many cases true also for a medievaltailor orcarpenter wandering into a strange city. Thieves also have their ownchurch where they go to pray (shared withprostitutes).
Lankhmar, inFritz Leiber'sFafhrd and the Gray Mouser series has an important Thieves Guild, both within the fictional setting and in its influence on subsequent fantasy works and role-playing games.
In the works ofRaymond E Feist set inMidkemia a Thieves' Guild, known as the Mockers, based in the Kingdom city of Krondor features in many of the novels, often playing a significant role in the story. The guild is run by a mysterious figure known as the 'Upright Man.'
David Eddings' series tend to include Thieves' Guilds, such as inThe Elenium andThe Tamuli.The Belgariad andThe Mallorean imply that the intelligence services of Drasnia and Mallorea are analogous to thieves guilds, particularly in the characterization of Prince Khelder of Drasnia (aka Silk, Ambar of Kotu or Radek of Boktor).
TheMarvel Comics characterGambit is a member and heir of theNew Orleans thieves guild, adopted son to Jean-Luc LeBeau, the King of Thieves. He would later join theX-Men.
In John Norman'sGor series, there is a "caste of thieves" in the city of Port Kar.
The Rattlebone Brotherhood, uniting "thieves, swindlers and cutthroats" is a major force in the society of Arvanneth—a New Orleans surviving thousands of years into the future of an Earth gripped by a newIce age, inPoul Anderson's novel,The Winter of the World.
Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons by American writerCordwainer Smith features the planetViola Siderea – a robber planet, once rich and civilized, but now reduced to a dog-eat-dog existence and ruled by the Thieves' Guild, a ruling class of highly sophisticated thieves.
InDungeons & Dragons, theGreyhawk supplement from 1976 adds thief characters and gives them the Master Thief title at the highest levels. TheAD&D Players Handbook, published in 1978, specifically mentions thieves' guilds in the thief class description.
In 1980,Gamelords publishedThieves' Guild, a role-playing game system centered on thief characters which included rules on thieves' guilds.
The Elder Scrolls series ofrole-playing video games contains a prominent Thieves Guild. The Thieves' Guild appears in all installments of the game, from the first game,The Elder Scrolls: Arena to the present releases. The Thieves' Guild is a joinable faction in-game.
Quest for Glory series has a Thieves' Guild that the player can join, and plays a major role in completing the game, depending on the player's career path.
Featured to varying degrees in several installments of theMight & Magic series of computer games, but most conspicuously inMight and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven, where the High Priest of the Kingdom of Enroth does double-duty as head of a state-run Thieves' Guild with a very similar ethos andmodus operandi to that in Ankh-Morpork as mentioned above.
