Rabal Greenthrone

Born to a halfling family of merchants he learned early on how to find what customers wanted. When the family business was threatened by rival competition and their markets taken away he learned that just having products was not enough. The day they ran out of his sister’s favorite treat right before her birthday was a shame that burned within him. Rabal took to investigating his family’s rivals. What he found set his determination in stone. He took the information he learned and acted before anyone in his family, or the rival could change their plans. Seemingly overnight his family swallowed that rival’s business. The swiftness of the change triggered outrage with the other merchants. As accusations flew, so did Rabal. By this time he already had an extensive network. It was simple to bring each of the great merchant houses to their knees. It wasn’t long before Rabal’s family held the monopoly of trade and the other houses were reduced to franchisees. Word reached the King’s Council and a Count was tasked with discovering why Greenthrone Coster was taking over all the trade in the region. Taxes were much reduced with fewer merchants doing business. The Count was tasked with restoring the flow to the kingdom’s coffers. Despite all the Count’s spies and efforts, he was never able to uncover what it was that Rabal had over the other merchant houses. Instead, he discovered himself under watch by Rabal’s operatives. One by one the Count’s own spies failed to report and went missing. One day the Count was seen on a horse and riding hard out of the kingdom. No one connected the disappearance of a nephew to the King to the Count. When soldiers searched the Count’s manor for the reason of his flight, they found the boy in the dungeons surrounded by torture implements. He was insane and carving the symbol for Greenthrone Coster into his leg with a branding iron. By King’s decree, the Greenthrone Coster was to be seized and the Greenthrone family arrested. When the soldiers went to the Greenthrone warehouses, they were empty, the stores vacant, the employees missing. The entire Greenthrone merchant empire seemed to evaporate. Nothing but rumors remained. That is until a story about the Greenthrones taking over the black markets came from certain loose-lipped rogues well into their cups.