Marik Dessan
Half-orc 3rd-level fighter/1st level expert
Marik is a male half-orc merchant who has just recently moved to Market Ward on the back of his profits. He does not trade much, but he makes a great deal of money when he does, as he is the city's only supplier of Tarenian Ruby wine.
Despite his rapid rise from freelance guard to prosperous merchant, Marik seems to have avoided the normal problems of the nouveau riche. His clothing is sober but well-made, and his home is clean, un-ostentatious, and attached to his business structures. He maintains relations with his former colleagues, and employs the more reliable ones to guard his shipments. He sees Jurd Shipman as a role-model, and desperately wants to follow him into the Merchants' Guild. Marik himself is remarkably ugly, even for a half-orc, with a prominent snout, uneven fangs, and wiry hair that he cannot keep under control in any way at all.
The city's previous source of Tarenian Ruby was Uellyamar Sannatiss, a brown elven merchant renowned for his fastidious manners and arrogant attitude to all other races. Marik worked for him as a guard on many occasions, but everyone was astonished when he took over the supply of Tarenian Ruby when the elf decided to return to his forest home. They would be even more astonished if they knew the truth.
Tarenian Ruby is made by kobolds, and they refuse to share the secret. Uellyamar could only take the most trustworthy guards to meet his suppliers, and over the course of several journeys he decided that Marik fitted the bill. Uellyamar decided to leave without talking to the kobolds, and certainly without worrying about those in the city who liked the wine, and so Marik decided to try to continue the business. He scraped together all the money he could, and headed off to talk to the kobolds.
The negotiations were tense, but Marik convinced them to sell him as much of the wine as he could afford. He paid them up front, which reassured them somewhat, and returned to Marchion. There, he went to Doclivet's to sell the wine. Naturally, he was laughed out of the shop. Marik, however, is much more intelligent than people expect of a half-orc, and he waited at a tavern frequented by the employees. They looked askance when he approached the table, but cheered up when he offered to provide the drinks. The drinks provided were, of course, Tarenian Ruby. Marik was quickly hustled back to the shop, and a deal made to buy his supplies at the same price as Uellyamar had been paid.
Marik has been carrying the trade on for almost a year now, and is starting to think about expanding beyond the wine. He suspects that the kobolds have other things to trade, and that trade with other kobold tribes would be equally profitable, but he isn't entirely sure how to go about opening up relations.