Thieves' World

Thieves' World is a dark urban fantasy Shared Universe created by Robert Asprin in 1978 and mostly focused on the city of Sanctuary. It drew in authors like Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Andrew J Offutt, C. J. Cherryh, Janet Morris and Marion Zimmer Bradley to contribute, and generated a buttload of books (12 short story compilations, 8 official novels, some graphic novel adaptations of the compilations and role-playing adaptations from the likes of Chaosium and FASA) before it went on hiatus in 1989.

Then in 2002 Lynn Abbey published a new novel in the universe, Sanctuary which re-started the series several decades later. Two additional anthologies were published, as well as D20 books from Green Ronin.

The stories by in large focus on the poorer and nastier inhabitants of Sanctuary, a desert town on the edge of the Rankan Empire. It is implied that a good amount of the conflict in many of the stories is the result of the struggle between the warlike Rankan gods and the Ilsigi ones they displaced when they took over. Later in the series, the city is reconquered by a new group - the snake-worshiping Beysib - which adds another faction to the divine squabbling already going on.

See also the fan site.


 * The Archmage: Hazard mages.
 * Art Initiates Life: A great mage gave one of the recurring characters this ability but most of the time it proved rather inconvenient.
 * Aura Vision
 * Blessed with Suck: Tempus,
 * That's a mix of divine contract and being cursed by a mage. Along with his sister.
 * As one of Spoony's Counter Monkey's stories show, this can suck even worse than one would expect.
 * Blood Brothers
 * The City Narrows
 * Conditional Powers: The powers of the blue star adepts require them to keep a Dark Secret about themselves and they lose their powers if that secret becomes known.
 * Crapsack Only by Comparison: In "Looking for Satan", Sanctuary is seen as especially awful by to a group of people who come from a Utopia.
 * Crapsack World: Sanctuary is not a nice place to live unless you are very rich. If you are very rich, most of the rest of the population want to kill you and take your stuff. And they may try -- unless some rival will manage to get rid of you before, that is.
 * Curse of the Ancients: "Crow"!
 * Darker and Edgier
 * Disposing of a Body
 * Eat the Evidence
 * Fantasy Pantheon: Fantasy Pantheon turf wars no less!
 * Good Thing You Can Heal: Tempus.
 * Have You Seen My God?: Most of the Ilsigi gods, most of the time.
 * Jerkass Gods: Most of them, most of the time.
 * Low Fantasy
 * Magic From Technology: Kemren the Purple Mage with his Mana generating waterwheels.
 * Morality Adjustment: Jubal after realizing it's his own fault that he got the crap beaten out of him and then had healing Gone Horribly Wrong was still a crimelord, but more wise, considerate and even willing to spend efforts for common benefit, e.g..
 * Mugging the Monster: Wess vs. Bauchle Mayne and an accomplice in the story "Looking For Satan" in Book 3 Shadows of Sanctuary. Ischade due to her curse seeks such incidents.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: Prince Kadakithis was nicknamed "Kittycat" soon after he arrived and publically expressed a naive intention to clean up the city but it didn't take long for Sanctuary to beat the naivete out of him. Afterwards he chooses to pretend he's still a weak-willed wide-eyed aristocratic dilettante. He never stops trying to improve the city; he just gets more subtle and realistic about it.
 * Power At a Price: Magic-users inevitably turn out to be either cursed or paying a price. Sometimes bordering on Blessed with Suck.
 * Power Tattoo: The Blue Star Adepts.
 * Psychic Powers: At least three different traditions - S'Danzo seers (precognition), Bandaran adepts (Aura Vision and other sensory powers, self control) and barbarians (body enhancements like Super Speed and other useful tricks).
 * Reassigned to Antarctica: The governor of Sanctuary is the Emperor's idealistic half-brother, sent there to get him out of reach of any political conspirators wanting to make use of him.
 * Redheaded Hero: Chenaya Vigeles, "Daughter Of The Sun".
 * Idiot Hero / Royal Brat: Generous, powerful, clever, beautiful... and extremely immature in some respects. Divine blessing from such a young age spoiled her even more than her high status possibly could.
 * Heroes Want Redheads: And it's frequently reciprocated. The ones who get to know her closer tend to change their opinion quickly, though. Whether due to her... rather unusual habits, acting batshit crazy at times or ego bigger than the prince's palace.
 * Ritual Magic
 * Roma: S'Danzo. Colorful, famous for fortune-telling and infamous for curses... Though in this region mostly settled.
 * Shared Universe
 * Summoning Artifact
 * Tarot Motifs
 * Welcome to the Big City: In "Looking For Satan" by Vonda McIntyre.
 * Wretched Hive