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Thoughts on... The Inventors Guild


Melchior

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Often discussed...never seen. The 'elusive' INVENTORS GUILD. Is it really a Guild? Or a Federation? Some Corporation or Conglomerate just named 'The Guild'? Or there Guild chapters everywhere? Is it like a Franchise? or there competing Not-Inventors "Guilds"? Surely they have competitors...

What are their members like; what kinds of uniforms do they wear - are their guards specially trained? Things any taffer should know before, any plans are made.

My ideas; The Guild 'members' comprise 3 tiers (non-guards):

  • Factory Workers, Clerks, Managers / Administrators, Labourers
    • [Just like regular people, mabey a specific uniform/coverall with guild logo & colors]
  • Journeymen (Apprentice Engineers, Intermediate Crafters, Jr. Draftsmen) & Technicians
    • [Always in Guild issued uniforms/coveralls; they often carry the tools of their trade on heavy belts...never a good idea to bother them while working unless you want a face-to-wrench meeting]
  • Craftmasters, Engineers (not the steam train kind!), Guild Elite (Executive level Admins)
    • [The people who keep the guild on top...by any means available. You'll know when you seem them - special badges & ranking-member rings ~ of gold(!)]

The Guild, (mabey) holding a virtual-monopoly on "high"-technology needs to keep out nosy visitors & industrial spies; So it has its OWN Internal Security force, perhaps named; 

  • Guild Sentries
    • [Call 'em a bobby, ex-copper, flatfoot, or hired-muscle; these are often former-city watchmen in Guild uniform with GUILD ARMs like the WHISTLE! and clubs!!]
      • The Whistle: One of the most commonly feared of Guild devices; its simplicity and effectiveness are unmatched - when a guard has been alerted they blow on the Whistle device: it emits an EAR-PEAIRCING squeal, heard for many blocks...sending their allies and everyone running, ruining many a taffers day/night/life...
  • Guild Sentinels
    • [ The better ranks of Guild Enforcement; their spiffy uniforms arn't just for show... they have special tools as well]
      • Shock-Rod: Described as a Iron-Rod a arms length with bronze pins sticking out the ends and a thick wooden handle with rubber pomel & hand-guard, when jabbed into a hard-surface; the metal pins at the end deliver a high-voltage shock...with stunning results that have shocked and enlighten-ing'd many a grounded-man...
  • Guild Guardians
    • [ The Elitest of Guild forces; some say they have augmented hearing helms & special eye-wear gadgets; a steam-punk James Bond]
      • Repeating Crossbows: The rapidity of fire from the fastest bowman, combined with the armour penetration of heavy steel bolts...not a good look for a taffer to end up skewered like roast swine
  • Exterminators
    • ['guards' Kinda; especially equipped with rubber gas-masks, suits & fumigator devices and arn't afraid of stinkin' up the joint with noxious gasses meant to eradicate spiders, rats, burricks, taffers, and adventuresome burglars...naturally they are immune to GAS arrows with that gear]
      • Fumigator & Gas-Mask: Think Gas Arrow but at point blank range but delivered with a pump-sprayer, comes with complimentary Gas-Mask (so the user isn't affected by their own fumes...)

 

But that is just the Human inhabitants of the Guild; Their Machines - play a major role too...

 

  • Electrified Locks:  In a word: EVIL. The worst a normal taffer ever expects from a lock is for it to jam or break the pick itself. Not with these diabolical mechanisms - no the average burglar gets a NASTY mabey even _fatal_ electric shock when using standard metal lockpicks on this guild-speciality... mabey Insulated Picks exist?
  • Beam Sensors: Often missed - by unwary everyday thieves; A almost invisible beam of light emits from a projector into a sensor module mounted a few paces away (on walls) - ANY solid object breaking the 'beam' activates this triggered alarm/trap/re-locker/gate, or siren...mabey a carefully positioned mirror could help?
  • Intercom: Yet another special Guild Invention - it seems so innocuous - until your blackjacking campaign has been noticed by the complete lack of guards 'checking-in' a floor, which causes more patrols to be sent by central... Also; an alerted guard can scream into the voice pickup for help - unhelpful!
  • Alarm Stations: sure you think you've seen these before in Upscale Mansions...not like this one! It has an integrated Alarm Klaxon, Alert Zone indicator & BIG RED BUTTON™ now the guards know where you were last seen!
  • Metal Detectors: the Coup-de-grace for an armed thief; any metal swords, broadhead arrows, or lock-picks even could trip this infernal machines sensors - usually connected to something loud and obnoxious! What am I supposed to use Harsh Language?!?

 

Last but not least...the Guild has working Automatons - but not much is known outside their halls; perhaps with good reason, mabey their contraptions have some high maintenance costs or serious flaws, one can hope?

 

A Taffers Tool'd up, toolkit:

  • Soot (Smoke) bomb: just like cleaning out 200 chimmneys at once - not only is everyone with eyes blinded by the soot & a lungfull of instant smog- it even affects some sensitive equipment as well, or how well do camera lenses work after being coated in black crud? A: They don't.
  • Periscope: you'd like to see the Future coming, or mabey just around corners... or over knee high obstacles without giving away your hiding spot.
  • Rubber Boots: Ugly footwear - that both softens steps & offers "Electrical Insulation up to 3KV!" - says a guild label
  • Grappling Hook: Where the rope arrow can't work: over Stone & hard ledges, Pipes, tops of Brick walls - too bad its SOOO noisy when used.

 

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Interesting you should mention the Inventors' Guild. I recently started work on a new map that will feature them heavily. I envision their facility to be sort of a cross between a university campus, a tinkerer's workshop, and the HQ of an 18th century Learned Society. I'm thinking there will be a moderately sized lecture theater, more than a few laboritories, and a really nice library.

My missions:           Stand-alone                                                      Duncan Lynch series                              

                                      Down and Out on Newford Road              the Factory Heist

                                                                                                  A House Call

                                                                                                  The House of deLisle                                                                                                  

                              

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  • 1 year later...

Here's the latest Informant report; Unbelievable...! Have I been taken for a fool?! These crude drawings - HOW can the guild have FAR more gadgetry than even a most imaginative school-child dreams of! I think my payments been swindled with a deception - clearly no Guild Engineer could build such things; this is the work of a crooked artist, clearly!🧐 Pfoof!

latest_intel.jpg

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2 hours ago, tib said:

well, i really do not understand, why the inventor's guild did not invent a basic b.p. firearms in the 17' century when the most of tdm missions realized but did a fancy lasers, cameras, detectors etc.

Cannons actually EXIST in TDM; they show up in about 3 missions. One I recall actually gets FIRED - as part of the objectives. (nothing animated,  blast-a-hole-in-a-wall gimmick) More obviously MINES too... so B.P. (or something LIKE it ) exists in-world.

So either the Empire has banned all civilian firearms, or more likely: Nobody cared to create one as its not part of classic Thief/1,2,3... series game-play or Worse; I don't think any modders here even possess the knowledge to model, animate, script, code, texture, sound-engineer, script-more and create all the associated  kinematic animations as well...need a real Doom3 expert for that.

Also; Everyone forgets old Air Guns exist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle

The early ones even LOOK 100% steam-punk, with weird iron & brass spheres for pressure - fancy nickle-iron skeletal frames galore.

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Words fail me, this the 2nd (and last?) page of exfiltrated Guild material - came at great personal risk to my Informant, he regrets only being able to lift a single page of a larger catalogue - of Inventions.

What does the word "Windebusch" Mean?

catalogue_page_unk.jpg

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On 6/26/2023 at 1:41 AM, Kurshok said:

Has the Inventors Guild invented toilets yet, or are they still shitting in buckets?

Mabey they have. I've yet to see ANY Guild themed facilities - at all, in any mission for TDM.

Case on point, Many-a-map is themed around;

  1. Ancient Multi-Hundred year old Castles - (no plumbing evident of ANY kind).
  2. brick Industrial Warehouses, City back-alleyways...
  3. rediscovered Ruins, often below a Church/Temple/Mausoleum/Graveyard...
  4. huge old Mansions - rarely even updated to TOWN-GAS Lamp lighting, let alone 'modern' plumbing...

This does leave out;

  1. Civil Service offices
  2. Watch Stations / Prisons
  3. High-class Merchant shops & stores
  4. Multi-Tenant Apartment / Hospital / Hotel (ect...)
  5. Factory / Office buildings

The 'modern' design we are all familiar with was only perfected by 1877. Yet the 1st version was patented in 1778~ (ish). So here's a old plumbing catalogue page from 1884.

 

Will anyone model & skin a Water-closet I wonder?

resize_num3Apparatus.jpg

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It is odd, they haven't created a mission where the only way into a Fort Knox style Gold Bar Repository is to swim through the sewers up the pipe and crawl out of the toilet. Wasn't there a sewer in the very first level of Thief The Dark Project?

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