“What is locked can be opened. What is hidden can be found. What is yours can be mine.”
Garrett is the protagonist of the Thief Series – a cynical master thief who wishes nothing more than to be left alone to steal in peace, but who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a series of epic events.
Navigation
I. Personality
II. Early Life
III. The Dark Project
IV. The Metal Age
V. Deadly Shadows
VI. Relationships
VII. Criminal Record
VIII. Abilities
Personality
Garrett exhibits a strong sense of survival and self-interest. While on the surface Garrett is callous and cynical with loyalty only to himself, he does seem to have connected with Artemus, the Keeper that recruited and trained him, Basso the Boxman, and Cutty, his fence.
In extreme cases this seems to extend even to past antagonists such as Viktoria, although that may be a result of Garrett’s own self-interest.
Garrett also possesses professional pride as a thief. He refuses to kill while on the job, claiming to be a thief, not a murderer, though Constantine and Karras died as a result of his actions.
Lotus was a mercy killing, as he begged for death due to the inhumane conditions that Garrett found him in. Other than that, Garrett has not killed any humans in the Thief canon.
Early Life
Orphaned from an early age, Garrett spent his youth on the streets surviving as a pickpocket and message runner. One night, he saw Artemus walking on the street as people, ‘just passed him by like he wasn’t there’.
Thinking he had some valuables, Garrett decided to make a grab but was caught. Artemus, impressed with his ability to see a Keeper, offered Garrett a new life and recruited him into a secret organization known as the Keepers.
Not much is known about his time as a Keeper, except that he was trained in the arts of stealth and subterfuge. He quickly found that it was much more profitable, however, to make use of these skills as a thief and left.
The Dark Project
Before the game begins, Garrett works as an independent thief in the City, making contacts like Basso the Boxman, Cutty, and Farkus. His first known large score comes from stealing an expensive scepter from Lord Bafford. Shortly after he breaks into the Hammerite prison to spring his fence, Cutty.
This leads him into old Hammerite catacombs looking for treasure. Shortly after this thugs working for Warden Ramirez attempt to kill Garrett, but he escapes and goes on to humiliate Ramirez by looting his mansion.
This brazen display of skill attracts the attention of Viktoria, a somewhat mysterious independent fence. She contracts Garrett to steal a magical sword from the eccentric nobleman, Constantine.
Upon returning from Constantine’s bizarre mansion, Viktoria reveals that she and Constantine are old associates who were testing Garrett. Constantine then offers him a fortune to retrieve a gem known as the Eye.
Getting to the Eye means Garrett must venture through the walled-off Old Quarter of the City to find a ruined Hammerite Cathedral. A mysterious catastrophe rumored to involve great fires and the Undead caused the area to be abandonment decades ago.
Garrett finds the cathedral sealed, but the Eye itself tells him of an old Keeper library hidden nearby. Writings there tell of where the elemental talismans that open the cathedral are hidden and how the Keepers almost revealed themselves in order to assist the Hammerites and Hand Brotherhood in containing a great evil.
The Fire talisman was located in the Lost City, the ruins of an ancient civilization buried beneath the City that’s entrance was hidden by the Keepers.
To get the Air talisman, Garrett entered a Hammerite temple in disguise and to retrieve the Earth talisman infiltrated the Hand Brotherhood. Lastly, he found the Water Talisman inside an Opera House above a network of caves.
Successful, he returns to the cathedral, collects the Eye, and escapes the Undead with help from the ghost of a former Hammerite priest.
Garrett then visits Constantine to hand over the Eye and collect his payment. Instead of paying, however, Constantine reveals himself to be the fabled Trickster, a god worshiped by the Pagans, and Viktoria, his consort. They bind Garrett in vines and Viktoria plucks out one of his eyes, uses it to activate the stone Eye, and leaves him for dead.
Some time later two Keepers find and free Garrett. The Keepers then leave Garrett to escape by himself through the caverns beneath Constantine’s mansion where he encounters some new and strange beasts.
Once he reaches the surface Garrett decides the only thing to do is visit the Hammerites and tell them about what has happened in the hopes they could provide assistance.
He heads for the temple but discovers that the Trickster’s minions have gotten there first. Venturing inside he finds the remaining Hammerites in a hidden sanctuary located in an underground cavern.
With stealth being the only hope against the Trickster’s army, the Hammerites provide Garrett with a false copy of the Eye. Garrett descends into the Trickster’s realm, where he finds the Woodsie Lord performing a ceremony with the Eye.
Garrett stealthily swaps the Eye for the duplicate, which then explodes and strikes down the Trickster as he attempts to finish the ritual.
The coda shows Garrett walking back to town alone through the snow. Life appears to be returning to normal. Artemus approaches and warns Garrett, telling him of a book he should read, and that he can’t run away from life. Close observation reveals Garrett now has a mechanical eye.
Garrett rejects his help, says to tell the other Keepers that he’s done with them, and then walks away. Artemus answers quietly “I will tell them this: nothing is changed. All is as it was written. The Trickster is dead. Beware the dawn of the Metal Age“, foreshadowing the sequel.
The Metal Age
Garrett’s role in the Metal Age begins innocuously. Garrett provides a favor to an old acquaintance, Basso, helping him rescue his love Jenivere, so that he may retire from thievery and elope. Next Garrett breaks into the dockside warehouses to get some extra cash for rent.
It soon becomes clear that the City Watch, lead by the zealous Sheriff Truart, is waging a war on crime, brutally persecuting thieves and conducting nighttime raids on the poor neighborhoods with the intent of rounding up criminals. Truart stages a sting operation in an attempt to assassinate Garrett, but he escapes by using a flash bomb.
With the newly strengthened police force making burglary more difficult, Garrett begins to wage a personal war against Truart, attempting to blackmail him into loosening his grip on the City by exposing his corruption.
In the process, Garrett acquaints himself with the Mechanist Order, a splinter faction of the weakening Hammerites led by the charismatic Karras, whose robotic security devices have begun to guard the City’s wealthiest businesses and residences.
In addition, he discovers that the Mechanists are manufacturing some sort of weaponized “Servant,” made from a human body and emitting a substance known as Rust Gas, and that Truart has agreed to round up vagrants under false pretenses to be used for the project. When Garrett confronts Truart, he finds that Truart has been slain by a strange creature.
Trying to unravel the conspiracy, Garrett reunites with Viktoria deep in the Maw. Viktoria identifies the Mechanists as the true enemy, and the two form a tentative alliance.
The combined skills of Viktoria’s Pagans and Garrett’s stealth reveal that the Mechanists are gifting Servants to the City’s Nobility, and that they’re working on a secret endeavor known as the ‘Cetus Project’.
The Cetus Project turns out to be a gigantic submarine, the Cetus Amicus, and that the Mechanists are using it to access the remains of the Lost City in search of ancient artifacts.
By interrogating the head of the Cetus Project, Brother Cavador, the pair discover that the Mechanists have recovered an object known as a Cultivator, and that they have already begun mass-producing them and installing them inside of the Masked Servants.
While Garrett stakes out the Gervaisius Estate and steals a mask and the prototype Cultivator, Viktoria’s agents observe Karras hermetically sealing Soulforge Cathedral.
The pair conduct an experiment with the Cultivator, revealing that the Servants could be commanded to release Rust Gas, which would react violently with the plant matter inside of wealthy nobles’ gardens, wiping out all life in the city, with Karras safe inside of Soulforge Cathedral.
Viktoria then proposes a plan: Garrett must gain control of the beacon controlling the Servants to command them to return to Soulforge and trick Karras into releasing the gas, while Viktoria fills Soulforge Cathedral with plants to wipe out the remaining Mechanists. Garrett says the plan is suicide and re-affirms that he works alone.
As he leaves, a Keeper informs Garrett that Viktoria has begun an assault on the Cathedral herself. Garrett hurries to the Cathedral but is too late to save Viktoria as she is attacked by an onslaught of Mechanist forces. Her dying action is to fill Soulforge Cathedral with plants, as promised.
Left with no better plan, Garrett proceeds to assemble a new guide beacon and redirects the Cathedral’s signal towers back to the Cathedral itself. The plan succeeds and Garrett locks the servants inside. When the Rust Gas is released, Karras is killed and Soulforge Cathedral is left in ruins.
Garrett returns to the Cathedral after the reaction is complete and is met by a Keeper, who explains that the events of the Metal Age transpired exactly as written, and that the prophecies contain even more predictions. Garrett, previously skeptical of the Keepers’ mysterious ways, reluctantly requests to know more.
Deadly Shadows
Garret apparently lost his interest in the Keepers but is contacted by Artemus and begrudgingly rejoins them. He is asked to steal the Jacknall’s Paw from the Pagans and the Builder’s Chalice from the Hammerites.
After gaining their trust he learns of and recovers two other objects, the Glyph Key in the Sunken Citadel and the Compendium of Reproach in the Overlook Mansion. Learning of a prophecy inside of the compendium he decides to sabotage the Stonemarket Clocktower to find out who the evil ones are but ends up collapsing the entire tower.
Meanwhile Interpreter Caduca is murdered and Garrett is accused of her death and put on trial. He escapes and decides to search First Keeper Orland’s room for evidence of his betrayal but instead finds an old women that talks to statues which leads him to Inspector Drept, a paranoid Hammerite who’s spent his life trying to find this crone.
Following his advice he ventures into the Shalebridge Cradle, an abandoned asylum and rescues the ghost of a girl that was killed by the Hag.
Upon aiding her it is revealed that Translator Gamall used the image of the girl to hide her true identity – the Hag – who then kills some of the Keepers and takes the artifacts to her lair in Auldale.
Garrett finds the artifacts and uses them to activate the Final Glyph, ending all glyph magic and erasing all glyphs from existence, beginning what the Keepers refer to as the Unwritten Times.
In the process the symbol of a keyhole is marked on his hand, a symbol of the Keepers. After activating the final glyph, Garrett returns the artifacts to their rightful owners. He is then set upon by a young female thief, mirroring the events of how Garrett became a Keeper.
Relationships
Being fiercely independent, Garrett is wary of relying on others for anything. Because of this, he rarely shows any overt romantic interest in any character, with the only exceptions being Viktoria, a wood nymph who he showed an unusual amount of concern for.
At the start, there is little trust on Garrett’s part and mutual resentment, given the events of the Dark Project. Yet over the course of sharing a mutual goal, it becomes clear that she is able to gain Garrett’s respect. In turn, she grows warmer towards him.
All this is demonstrated even to the point of Garrett being willing to defend her directly, immediately rushing to her aid upon hearing of her assault on Soulforge, and being noticeably upset with the result. In the end, Viktoria even refers to him affectionately as ‘my good thief’.
Criminal Record
The first time Garrett went to a prison was Cragscleft in order to break out Cutty and get his pay for Lord Bafford’s Scepter. Cutty unfortunately died before he could be freed, and Garrett took the opportunity to rescue Basso the Boxman. The second time, Garrett broke into Shoalsgate Station in order to frame Lieutenant Hagen.
The third time is completely voluntary, but does offer up loot and equipment; in Thief: Deadly Shadows, if Garrett dies within the City (between missions), he will be transported to Pavelock Prison, regardless of how he was killed.
Garrett’s criminal charges include Burglary, Possession of Stolen Goods, Thievery, Pick pocketing, Resisting Arrest, Assaulting a City Watch Officer, Verbally assaulting on an officer, etc.
Once there, Garrett can reclaim his gear and escape. Note that if Garrett dies again, he will not be sent to prison.
Abilities
Enriching the overall gameplay are abilities that Garrett acquires along the way. He has a scar around his right eye, the result of having the eye plucked from its socket by Viktoria during the Dark Project.
The eye has since been replaced by an experimental mechanical prosthetic given to him by the Hammerites in the aftermath of the Dark Project.
Garrett also has a wide array of Equipment to assist him in his thievery. Some items must be purchased or found, like Potions or Bombs, and some are default weapons like the Blackjack, Sword and Bow. The Bow is perhaps the most versatile tool in his kit, making use of a variety of arrow types.
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