He is sluggish and is not exactly crazy about work. But he is good-hearted and couldn’t harm anybody, not even a sheep.īert - Bert is always hungry, which is why not getting enough to eat is his greatest concern. Lucky - Lucky is a bit slow and, thus, more of the naïve type. However, if his own interests are threatened, charity begins at home. As an introduction, I would like to familiarize you a bit with the robbers’ personalities.Ĭhef - The gang boss is called “Chief.” Chief is a sly leader who takes care of his group as long as it works to his advantage. Now the idea of telling little stories suggested itself – stories that would make the daily routines of the robbers on Catan come alive. The robbers had matured, and each of the three cronies had been given his own distinctive character. Since then, they are available for everyone at the Catan Shop. The game piece “Teuber’s Robbers” was very coveted therefore, in 2006, I decided to rework it and commissioned a German manufacturer of pewter figures to cast and paint the pieces.
Later they were given away for free at various events. Based on my wax model, several thousand pieces were cast in plastic and painted in China. I materialized this perception in 1997, when I created the game piece “Teuber’s Robbers,” as it was called later. Actually, I always saw him as a group of three harmless, maybe even likeable robbers. To me, the robber never was the villain many people see in him. Some robbers experienced a hot finale in the fireplace, and others were simply lost. Children, not knowing anything about his importance, apparently threw him into the toilet and sent him on a long journey through the sewer pipes. Many e-mails sent to Kosmos Verlag during the past years that were bemoaning the loss of the robber reported a bitter end for the fellow in black.įor example, it seems that he was swallowed by dogs, which surely happened because he was touched with hands still sticky from clasping burgers and fries. What happens is that the robber doesn't always end up safely in the box after a game. He is pushed around from terrain hex to terrain hex, unable to escape his sometimes quite harsh destiny. The truth is that the robber is a harmless fellow who is merely taken advantage of by the players, for the sake of their own benefit. Even marriages are purported to have broken up because of him. If credence can be given to what people told me in e-mails I received during those years, it was a time when the robber caused more than just raised tempers. Until 2002, he used to appear in the shape of a black, lathe-turned game piece, to plague the terrains of Catan and stall their resource production. No doubt, Catan players have held him in his hands countless times - the robber. None truly know who the Robber is, but it is certain that the base of the Robber lies somewhere deep in the Catanian desert, a place that settlers have long avoided because of its harsh soil and dangerous climate.Ī Brief History of the Robbers of Catan However, when the first barbarians invaded the land, robbery returned and, it is said, the Robber of old returned once more to ravage the lands of Catan. Either way, the original threat of the Robber disappeared once the cities of Catan were established and settled. Others state that the Robber came only later when the rival powers came to divide the island. Some say that the Robber established a base in the desert soon after the very first settlement, Candamir, was built on Catan. 2 A Brief History of the Robbers of Catan.