Merchants - Торговцы

Over the 1200s, 1300s, and 1400s DR, the mer¬chant class rose steadily in size, wealth, and influence. This class includes the crafters, shop¬keepers, traders, and shippers who produce food and desired items and get them into the hands of buyers. The influence of nobles and kings has waned, except in such cases as they can back up their authority with wealth. This situation has led to some unusual alliances and “sellings-out.” Wealthy merchants have been elevated to the no¬bility and received lucrative court posts. And in Waterdeep in the late 1400s DR, noble titles were sold on the open market to settle the crushing debts of old-blood nobles.
Over the years, some mercantile terms (such as “coster”) have broadened their meanings, and others (such as “priakos”) have fallen out of favor and almost disappeared. 
However, urban merchants still fall into several broad categories, to wit:
First are the crafters, who make things; in rural areas, crofters dominate this group.
Second are shopkeepers, who sell you what you need, often brought from afar and gathered “handy” in their shops.
Then come traders, who buy and sell, negotiat¬ing prices and determining what shippers covey around the Realms. Some say traders also ma¬nipulate markets to create false shortages, so as to raise prices.
Finally there are the shippers, who are the sea captains and caravan merchants.
The lines between these categories have always been blurry, thanks to peddlers and caravan mas¬ters who sell as they travel, traders who are also shippers (many of whom call themselves costers if they want clients to know they do both), shop¬keepers who are also crafters, and so on.
If you find a sign beside a door that opens onto a stair leading to upper-floor offices, and that sign has the word “Trading” on it, you can be confident you’ve found a trader. That trader is someone who finds particular merchandise for clients, or finds buyers for a client’s wares and  arranges for a shipper to deliver them—whether halfway across Faerun or down the next street. Some examples of these businesses are Faulkon’s Trading in Beregost, Sorkilt’s Fine Trading in Everlund, and Donnatur’s Trading in Port Llast.
All four sorts of merchants might have ware¬houses, depending on how large the business, how large the things it sells, and how swiftly those things get moved into the hands of buyers. For instance, shipping is hardest and rarest in winter, when some roads become impassable and most ports in the Heartlands and more northerly areas are iced in. So in winter, crafters work long hours producing things for sale in the next season—or to trade with someone nearby for firewood or food to last them until spring. This season is also when shippers are most idle, and many of them hire on as help for crafters, or “turn crafter” themselves, making items such as harps, crates, barrels, furniture, weapons, or tools as a sideline.
Slavery declined from the 1200s DR through 1400s DR everywhere except in Thay. As a result, with the growth of the merchant class and the ever-increasing demand for items and produc¬tion of items, labor costs have risen. This state of affairs led to cutthroat competition in some places—as well as more piracy, smuggling, and trade wars between rival merchant cabals. And these trade wars are not price wars, but include real violence. In other places, it led to protection-ism in the form of the rise of guilds and their influence. Some places, such as Waterdeep, are large enough to contain both strong guilds and cutthroat daily trade dealings. An entire land, Sembia, has risen from being a prosperous farm-ing breadbasket to a glittering, bustling land of riches and mercantile pride. From the early 1300s DR onward, Sembia was known impolitely across Faerun as “the land of fat rich merchants.”
This prosperity and growth pushed farms out of the land immediately around growing towns and cities, which in turn made for ever deeper carving into the wilderlands to create new farms. Wild beasts are fewer, foraging is harder, and forests cover less area than formerly. Druids are losing power and influence, predatory monsters come into contact with humans more often, and as news travels ever faster, people all over the Realms perceive dangers as becoming more numerous.
Hence the rise of two professions: factors and adventurers.
A factor is a trade agent employed as a sales¬man, paymaster, and buyer for someone else. In rural areas, a factor might be hired from afar, and might be employed by many people. Factor is a profession that didn’t exist before about 1270 DR, except in the largest noble or royal households or courts. It’s a high-stress, travel-intensive job that ages and devours many who hold it—unless they grow very fat and successful, or succumb to a slayer’s knife or some other misadventure. The most infamous factor is Sammereza Sulphontis of Waterdeep, who spent most of his life travel¬ing far from the city, making deals and working intrigues to shore up rulers who were friendly to his trading—and to tear down those who tried to play tyrant at the expense of merchants, the un¬hampered flow of trade, and the purses of their citizens. The Realms is familiar with his type, if not him personally, thanks to oily characters in many plays, and to the factors who represent no¬bility in markets everywhere.
A few factors have risen to become kingpins— such as the infamous Mirt the Moneylender, who came to employ dozens of factors of his own—but most spend their careers wearing out their boots and backsides in endless travels, competing with ever more and ever younger rival factors.
Adventurers are nowadays increasingly prized or considered useful, where they were once widely regarded as lawless nuisances little better than outlaws—an attitude encouraged by rulers and many temples, who disliked the competition to their “lawful authority.” People have increasingly more coin to hire adventurers—and at the same time more need to hire adventurers to protect their coin.
Factors and up-and-coming merchants need bodyguards—or at least want bodyguards to im¬press others and to discourage snatch-and-grab “toughs” (thieves). The rise of guilds and the ac¬companying inevitable rules, regulations, edicts, and competition have frustrated many who see such things as barriers to getting revenge on those who have bested them. Adventurers, those who “step outside the law or proper behavior, where I dare not,” are seen as the best way to settle scores or recover stolen (or at least contested) items or even people (kidnappings are rising, too)
It was once fashionable among nobles to hire adventurers to do their dirty work so they could portray themselves as loyal to the throne and too civilized to threaten social order and etiquette by getting personally involved in disputes. (“Have your champion meet my champion, and we’ll set¬tle this with their swords and blood—as we watch, over wine.”) Now, it’s fashionable among wealthy, rising merchants to hire adventurers to show that they’re practically nobility. And of course, such patrons want to see their adventurers doing dashing, adventurous deeds—both for entertain¬ment, and to reassure those patrons that they’ve hired capable, true adventurers. Some nobles and wealthy merchants even hire bards to script pre¬tend or “play” disputes, which the adventurers of both sides (all sides, in some of the more confus¬ing cases) act out roles in, complete with moonlit raids, swordplay along balconies, thrilling chases, and grand confrontations. It’s lucrative work— and a few adventurers even like it. In recent centuries, the unpredictability of mercantile matters has meant busier and more complex lives for most people, and ever more coin in circulation, driving increasing greed, need, and opportunities.
As the merchants’ prayer puts it, “All thanks to Waukeen that we live in such interesting times!”

Wealthy Traders

There are two sorts of merchant princes. The first is very rare in the Realms—royal princes who happen to be successful and busy merchants. One such royal prince and successful merchant is the self-styled Prince Erendor of Highspires, a new and tiny kingdom in the eastern Border King¬doms. Another is “Prince” Galarth Hevedryn, the son of a bastard son of King Azoun IV of Cormyr, who has lived all his life in Ormpur, comfortably far from the Dragon Throne, as a wealthy trader using his inherited-but-self-augmented riches to live like royalty.
The second sort—common-born merchants who have amassed enough wealth to live like princes, often acting imperiously and having more real influence and reach than a real prince—has become numerous indeed in the Realms.
The exalted uppermost ranks of merchant princes are the fabulously wealthy, whose worth outstrips any need to engage in ruthless, energetic daily trading, so they can—if they wish—fully in¬dulge their every whim.
The current Faerunian term for a fabulously wealthy person is “coin mountain,” and here are five such coin mountains, all of whom are inde¬pendent individuals, not rulers.
Stort Melharhammer of Mirabar: This shield dwarf, a former soldier, is a black-bearded, honey-voiced, well-groomed trader who acts as a moneylender, a money changer, and a go-between for dwarves and visiting ship captains, smoothing out negotiations. He often engineers false short¬ages so as to increase gem prices for the dwarves, and always takes a cut of any increase he orches¬trates. Stort is completely amoral and doesn’t drink, and his only forms of enjoyment are watch¬ing elf maidens dance and listening to harp music. He lives and breathes to scheme, manipulate, and win the next deal. When he runs out of space in his underground abode for his accumulated coins and gems, he pays trusted young dwarves hand¬somely to go and buy him some more property in Neverwinter, Waterdeep, or Baldur’s Gate. As a result, he’s now a landlord of more than a dozen buildings in each city, though he’s never seen any of them. If he didn’t spend money to influence politics in Luskan and Ruathym so as to prevent widespread warfare, he’d be even richer than he is—unless, as he judges, said warfare would have hurt trade through Mirabar, and thus cost him more.
Elmraeda Gondoalyn of Iyrynspire: Gon- doalyn is the quiet, elegant, shrewd, and aging rich widow of three wealthy Chessentan mer¬chants, all of whom she loved and none of whose deaths she had anything to do with. Now gaunt and frail, she protects her person with some pow¬erful items of magic, mainly rings—though tales vary as to which sorts, because she has a large col¬lection. Gondoalyn dwells in Iyrynspire, a castle in the Chessentan countryside built for her by her first husband, the shipping merchant Yarlos Mel- rorn, with a devoted staff and a strong bodyguard of “knights.” This bodyguard force is a sixty- some-strong private army of full-plate-armored veteran fighters. She entertains herself by watch¬ing others live their lives through her crystal ball (a magic item that can detect others’ thoughts). She lavishes money on her people but spends little on herself. Her steward, Deln Maerintor, is a powerful wizard who is devoted to her. Her wealth increases steadily through the rents from properties in a dozen cities, and (through several trading costers) the ownership of over forty trad¬ing caravels. It’s rumored (correctly) that one of the towers of her home is in truth the only pri¬vately owned Halruaan skyship in Chessenta.
Fuorn “Fallingstar” Avilanter of Elventree: This moon elf sorcerer is a seller of spells and enspelled gems of his own making, who trades discreetly with rich Sembian buyers through trusted adventurers of the Dales. A re¬clusive master of disguises, Fuorn wears teleport rings and makes himself impossible to find for those who come seeking him. Fuorn spends all his profits buying up city properties in Yhaunn and Saerloon by way of agents and largely ficti¬tious Sembian trading companies. He also owns a few buildings in Suzail and in Teziir, and spends his free time magically spying on certain humans he has found by accident. He likes to watch their intrigues, achievements, and pratfalls, enjoying their lives vicariously as entertainment in much the same way that Elmraeda Gondoalyn uses her crystal ball.
Burnyl Talongar of Phsant: Talongar is known to most Theskans only as “the Lord of Gems.” This unusually tall and thin, taciturn gem cutter and appraiser secretly acts as a bank and a sponsor for many merchants throughout Thesk. His loans and deals are single-handedly responsible for slowing the spread of the Shadow- masters’ influence in the region, but that group tolerates him because certain senior priests of Mask owe so much to him that the deity has per¬sonally ordered the Shadowmasters to “keep him untouched—by anyone.” Talongar is unaware of this fact, and simply goes about his business, which is to make fair deals with everyone and to adhere to those deals strictly, dealing always with politeness and honor. As a result, he is trusted by everyone, gets a lot of business, and grows steadily wealthier. Operating through sea cap¬tain clients, he regularly invests this wealth in farms and warehouses in Impiltur, Alaghon, and Westgate.
Nalune Tassarat of Ormpur: Tassarat is an aging former escort who throughout her early life invested her earnings in shady smuggling, slaving, drug-dealing and thieving. Her invest¬ments earned a lot of coin that in later life she put into building luxurious pleasure houses and palatial city towers that she split into rental hous¬ing, floor by floor. The palatial rentals proved a huge hit with Ormpurrians who weren’t quite wealthy enough to own and maintain large man¬sions, but wanted luxury and haughty addresses. “Old Nalune” always wanted hidden tunnels and chambers in her buildings, and made much side¬line coin aiding individuals who needed to go into hiding for a time, or who wanted to meet pleasure partners discreetly. Now, in the twilight of her years, she is increasingly investing in clever trad¬ers from Tharsult and Lantan, sponsoring them on fair terms—and raking in coins as a result. It’s said she sleeps on a bed of cabochon-cut, smooth- polished rubies, and that she is beginning to consort with necromancers with an eye to achiev¬ing undeath.

Cabals

Most folk of the Realms will never meet or be crushed by the actions of a coin mountain. Their foes, manipulators, and governors of what they can buy or sell and at what prices, are far more likely to be merchants of lesser power. That is, local families and trading companies or just hand¬fuls of ordinary shopkeepers who meet in back rooms to divide up local markets (“Azreth can sell all the apples he wants, so long as he leaves the parsnips to me!”), fix prices, set availability, and decide which fellow merchants are welcome, and who should be ruined and forced out of the community.
These cabals can be benevolent, but—human nature (which is really the nature of most demi- humans as well) being what it is—they are more often ruthless. Until one is uncovered and some¬one sees a way to shatter its power or goes to the trouble of taking it away, a cabal can be very effective.
Cabals give jobs to each other’s sons and daughters and “slow” relatives, cooperate to buy up land or vacant shops, and generally arrange matters to their mutual benefit. Few cabals do any harm to caravan traders who stop for a night and sell pots more cheaply than their own mem¬bers do—other than to explain away the price disparity by saying, “Those are stolen wares, of course—or scavenged from the homes of folk who died of terrible diseases!” Yet if an outlander pot maker tries to settle locally and sell his pots, or a crofter takes to often walking into town to sell pots, something bad will happen. The interloper gets beaten up and robbed by masked “outlaws” who are really cabal members or their hirelings, and if that doesn’t settle things, the pot maker’s shop or the crofter’s hut catches fire and burns down.
All across the Realms, day by day, such sor¬did, local behind-the-scenes dealings govern life for many. Family ties, secret pacts between merchants (“Boots? Ah, I don’t deal in boots no more; ye’d best see young Eldro Aldraunth, down yon street, if it’s boots ye want!”), and the illicit acts of cabals rule the lives of common folk more often and more firmly than do distant kings or lordlings.
All of which leads to more work for adventur¬ers, of course—either as hired thugs working for a cabal, or as the only way those under the thumb of a cabal can strike back at their oppressors.