Thieves

Thieves are those who make their way in the world through stealing or robbing valuables from others. Whether called cutpurses, brigands, rogues, bandits or highwaymen, these criminals have long stalked the cities and roads of Sosaria, Britannia, Earth and the Serpent Isle - seeking out their fellow man that they might prey upon him. Various iterations of these scoundrels appear throughout the Ultima series, both as enemies and as allies.

Age of Darkness
In the wilder days of Sosaria, before the foundation of the Eight Virtues, thievery was not uncommon, and bore less of the stigma it would come to carry in later ages. During the events of Ultima I and  III, thieves featured as a playable class, and the possibility exists that the Stranger who later became the Avatar once numbered among these rogues.

Some number of murderous thieves did, however, scout the wilderness and the dungeons of the land at this time, content to take both the equipment and the lives of those whom they encountered. During this dark time, an adventurer traveling the ancient world had to take care when engaging these cut-throats, as they were quick to rob men of their unattended arms and armour - even in the heat of battle.

Towards the end of this age, by the time of the incursions of Exodus, thievery became a widespread enough trade to warrant the formation of a guild, and several shops catering to such illicit practices emerged throughout the land.

Age of Enlightenment
After Lord British's founding of Britannia and the renaissance of virtue, art and learning which followed, thievery naturally fell into disrepute, and as such was no longer a playable class. The Stranger, whatever sins they committed in the past, set on the road to Avatarhood, and the Guild of Thieves withdrew from most major cities, driven to such shores as those of Buccaneer's Den by the force of law.

Over the years, however, the guild continued to grow in secrecy, weathering Blackthorn's Oppression and the wars with the gargoyles. By the time of Ultima VI, a number of guilded thieves operated throughout Britannia in secrecy. So far was their reach that the Avatar eventually came to join their number, needing the aid of certain seedy characters that the quest to bring peace to the realm might be fulfilled.

Age of Armageddon
Over the next two centuries of relative peace, however, the guild once more appeared to fall into obscurity, although this by no means signaled the end of the profession. With most commonplace provisioner's now offering  lockpicks and similar tools on the open market, the demand for guild shops faded, and a great deal of organized crime came to fall under the auspices of the Fellowship. While highwaymen still prowled the major roads of the land, the "thieves" of this era proved more often than not to be corrupt officials and practiced mountebanks, rather than common pickpockets.

After the fall of the Fellowship, however, traditional thievery became a rapidly reinvigorated trade. Within a year of the beginning of the Restoration, a thief even had managed to loot Castle Britannia via a secret tunnel from Buccaneer's Den, and over the next several decades the guild returned in force, taking its place as the public governing body of the piracy-filled isle by the time of Ultima IX. During this late era, bandits, thieves and  pirates were near as thick as they had been in the days of Mondain, with the corrupting influence of the Guardian's columns paving the way for this spike in criminality.

Thieves on Earth
In the alternate time stream of Earth's history which was produced by the intervention of Minax, thieves were a common sight, and could be frequently found prowling the cities and wildernesses of the Stranger's homeworld. During this bizarre period, such cutpurses were known to frequently abscond with a number of useful artifacts of the age, such as blue tassles,  strange coins,  mapping helms, various  magical repellents and  keys.

Within this version of Earth, a Thieves Guild could be found within the castle Shadowguard in the Time of Legends, implying that the enchantress herself was in some way responsible for proliferating this criminal profession.

Notable examples

 * Budo: head of the Guild of Thieves during Ultima VI; posed as a mild-mannered shopkeeper
 * Phoenix: the guilded thief in Ultima VI whom the Avatar was forced into competition with for guild membership
 * Fissif: a thief in Ultima Underworld II who managed to enter Castle Britannia via a secret tunnel from Buccaneer's Den
 * Stefano: a lesser Moonshadian  mage in Ultima VII Part Two who made his living by stealing artifacts from various adepts; was eventually thrown into the Mountains of Freedom for his crimes, where he escaped with the help of the Avatar
 * Purlonio: a merchant and thief of the Serpent Isle; responsible for the death of the sorceress Drogeni
 * Aria and Dunston: thieves in Ultima IX; engineered the theft of a silver serpent from the Cathedral of Love