The Knaves

Sandpoint's original thieves guild has existed for many generations, shifted leaders many times, and even survived changes in public opinion about them.

History
Countless rumors spread intentionally by their members and cultivated by the story-sharing drunks and bards of The Rusty Dragon Tavern has made the true past of the Knaves a mystery.

Their current leader is a man without surname named Gathrian, who came to power by the usual route of backstabbing and slander-spreading. Under his command the Knaves slowly stopped feeding information to the City Guard and rather than having any sort of code to the trademark craft of a thieves guild, they began indiscriminately robbing and murdering anyone who crossed paths with them. It got to the point where Salmon Street, their base of operations, became one of the most dilapidated and feared sections of the town.

Arrival of The Protagonists
Somehow, at one point or another Gathrian had become affiliated with a man named Kastagir, who had hired him and the Knaves to smuggle mysterious magical crystals into the city, in exchange for the power needed to overtake it completely.

They used various means to get the crystals into town, often by duping hapless adventurers into taking the gems into the town for them. This however, would end up being the first step towards their undoing.

The Knaves operated largely on their own except for a A Succubus sent by Kastagir that relayed information to the bandits, while posing as a barmaid at the Rusty Dragon. She ended up leading a trio of heroes who had previously been used to smuggle gems into the city to the store of Roderick The Fence, which resulted in a fight that saw Roderick use one of the magic crystals to transform into a half-demon. Despite gaining deadly new power, the transformation pains were too much for Roderick, and after a grueling fight he was defeated.

Those same heroes took from his corpse a letter that led them to the Knaves' headquarter in Salmon Street, where by the use of bluff, magic and a lot of luck, they successfully infiltrated the guild and met Gathrian.

Thinking they were mere recruits, he revealed the location where Kastagir had gathered most of the bandits of Sandpoint and was preparing to empower them with a blessing that would let them use their own crystals without dying, and thus be able to overcome the City Guard in a swarm of half-demons.

But the three heroes intervened, and by activating all the crystals early, the bandits transformed and died, severely crippling the Knaves as a whole and reducing their numbers significantly.

They survive to this day however, doing battle with The Raccoons, another thieves guild started by one of the adventurers named Rook. The Knaves still have superior numbers, but the Raccoons have the favor of the City in the struggle for control.