Editing Discworld (section)

===The Assassin's Guild===
''"Nil Mortifi Sine Lvcre"'' ("No Killing Without Pay")

Assassins with a Capital-A on the disc are more than just petty thugs hired to kill people for a few dollars. They are cultured and educated Ladies and Gentlemen of proven ability who are on occasion commissioned by other well-connected parties to eliminate their rivals, for a whole lot of money. The Assassin's Guild is allowed to operate in the open and its activities are legal for several reasons. First of all, the Assassins are very well connected (Vetinari was a member) and not the sort of people you want to get on their bad side. Secondly, they run one of the best schools in the City. Many nobles and wealthy people send their sons and daughters there, even if they are academic tracks within it where you don't partake in the stabbier part of the curriculum. Thirdly, the Guild has rules of conduct and a code of honour and while it is engineered to serve their purposes they are normally quite strict in following it. 

For those alumni of the Assassin's Guild school who wish to "take the black" and become licensed Assassins themselves, there is a fairly high attrition rate. As well of the inherent dangers of an Assassin's career, the final exam for would-be Assassins is a live fire sink-or-swim affair where instructors are all too happy to let careless students make fatal mistakes. Not all guild members are rich, at least at the outset. Like many guilds, the Assassins will take in promising foundlings and give them an education on scholarship, largely agreed to be a winning strategy. While noble connections are useful, so are people whose only family is the Guild who got where they are by dint of extreme skill and carefully cultivated professionalism. Of course, given that even lower-priced guild contracts can be in the area of hundreds or even thousands of dollars, if they survive they'll be wealthy soon enough.

On that note, since any non-contract killing would be services provided gratis as well as being dishonourable, Assassins focus their efforts exclusively on their targets (or "clients"). Occasionally they might take out some guards (though bypassing and incapacitation is preferred), but with a few exceptions (that they themselves find distasteful) you don't get much collateral damage. Similarly they don't rob people and have no truck with torture. They consider themselves sportsmen and there is no glory in doing in (or "Inhuming") a poor girl with a limp and a baby working at a mustard factory near the Shades. Not that many people hate random factory workers so much that they'd pay the substantial fee for a Guild contract against them, and even then the contract wouldn't be taken unless the person in question is considered able to defend themselves, either directly and physically or possessing the financial mans to get someone to do that for them. Mostly Assassination is a game by the Rich against the Rich which keeps them from going into an all-out war with each other. Given that it's the right of the nobles in Anhk-Morpork to "Raise the Regiments" (recruit, arm, armor, train and retain forces of soldiers to serve the city) you see can why this is the lesser of two evils. Assassination is, in all respects, significantly cheaper and more socially acceptable than civil war.

As the books progress, the Guild's interest in maintaining the stability of Ankh-Morpork evolves. They cultivate a short, exclusive list of targets that they refuse to take contracts on, with Vetinari and Vimes being the key examples. Assassins are all about the game, and they recognize that killing certain people would be the equivalent of knocking over the game board.  

Despite being mostly occupied with rich people trying to kill each other, Assassins are very clear that killing people is their business and they would not suffer any competition. While low-life thugs killing each other in gang wars or brawls generally fly under their radar, any licensed Thief or Seamstress Guild bouncer who accidentally applied too much force and killed their "client" would be "invited to have a word with an Assassin". Which usually does not involve words, but does involve daggers. And any freelancer actually killing people for money WOULD be made an example of, unless they're good enough to stay under Guild's radar, which is a really high bar (though not impossible one). In such a way Assassins actually prevent more murders than the city Watch does, much to the chagrin of the latter.

The Assassin's Guild mostly serves as a moderately antagonistic force in the book as well as a background for various characters. As mentioned Lord Vetinari and many of his Dark Clerks are alumni of the guild and a few other supporting figures. That said, they generally don't initiate skullduggery in the books on their own, largely because their work is done on other people's behalf. There are a few exceptions, but these go against the grain by being fucking nuts and are often, in the aftermath of their plots, agreed by the rest of the Assassins to have been "a bad sort," their memory relegated to the lectures of professors wishing to instill in their students a good reason not to contemplate things like, for example, killing characters out of folklore or restoring the monarchy using possessed firearms
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