Guilder

The Guilders were a human tribe in the Garden of the Cursed, descended from rogues and other stealth-aligned adventurers who had been trapped within it upon accessing the Tomb of Martek.

Description
Over time the people that would descend into the guilders developed amazing abilities for larceny, equivalent to those of a master thief. However, their reduced numbers led to inbreeding, which resulted in minimal intelligence.

Territory
The guilders shared the overall Garden of the Cursed with another human tribe, known as the palan-teen, whom they referred to as the "maddogs". The guilders had a village in the Garden by the edge of a lake, having cleared a small area. There were about 15 bamboo cages by the north of the lake.

Society
Guilder society shared much of its vocabulary, and even some laws, with their neighbors the palan-teen. This included stoning as a punishment for breaking the laws upon a particular hill within the Garden, known as the Mound of the Lawgivers.

The leader of their tribe was known as the Villagemaster.

Diet
The guilders what little food was available to them within the Garden of the Cursed. This included such things as squashes and tarantulas.

Faith
The guilders viewed theft as a religion, considering that all acts of larceny impressed the Masterguilder, more so the more dangerous, profitable, or daring they were.

Guilder legend said that the Guilders and the palan-teen were there from the beginning of time. The maddogs slew guilders to prevent them from their sacred stealies (acts of larceny). One day, the Masterguilder told his people to travel to Mar-tik and work to be worthy of entering the Grandal. So they lived in Mar-tik, at the gates of Grandal; someday the gates would open for them to perform the greatest stealie of all eternity, and they would be admitted into the glory of the Masterguilder. They also believed, correctly, that the doors of Grandal could be opened by speaking the correct names for the three great stars. However, anyone speaking those names, or displaying those gems openly, was dragged to the Mound of the Lawgivers for stoning.

Population
Around the 14 century DR, the population of the guilders numbered around eighty-eight people.

History
About a week before a group of adventurers bearing all of the Star Gems of Martek arrived at the Garden of the Cursed, they had admitted the charlatan mage Trifakas in their midst along with two thieves named Pawnis and Sardok. Using deception and sorcery, Trifakas had bent the guilders to his will, convincing them and Villagemaster Bandik that he was an emissary from Grandal, with Pawnis and Sardok being his assistants. The guilders became loyal and blindly obedient to the three, almost to the point of reverence, but would turn on them if it turned out they had broken any of the sacred guilder laws.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Desert of Desolation