Hello my name is Johnny. I'm looking for a DM and a group for a different kind of adventure. I'd like to have a character who is essentially a traveling merchant and simply roams around town-to-town pedaling his wares. (Mostly using trade goods on pg. 157 of the PHB. Example: Let's say he buys twenty 1 square yard of cotton cloth pieces for five silver pieces each in Neverwinter. He would take them to say, Phandalin, and sell each there for six silver pieces. Netting him 20 SP.) He'll need mercenaries to protect him and his caravan from the dangers of the world. The merchant would buy wares in one town and sell them in another. Hopefully for profit. Depending on what's available he'll have to make decisions on what could be in demand or allows him to recuperate his investment on. He'll need to pay for his crew to accompany him, a poor - comfortable lifestyle, and any mercantile guild dues. It sounds kind of boring at first but the idea is to have a stable source of income and a cart full of goods will always be a target for thieves and starving goblins so that goes double for experience as well. The merchant can also 'help' in combat but will be a complete sleazeball about it. If he thinks the group can handle it themselves he'll stick to just protecting his stuff. And charge the group for healing. "That's coming out of your pay." he'll say if anything gets stolen or broken. The evolution of the characters happens as they get better equipment and experience from defeating enemies. The evolution of the merchant happens as he accrues more wealth and can upgrade from a horse drawn cart to say an elephant or an entire convoy of traders and workers. I'll have to work with the DM a bit on how to precisely make that work but it's doable. Maybe he could even invest at certain levels to have different skilled workers join his trade caravan? Like a potion seller or blacksmith? Multistream revenue. The twist is that the merchant should be 'Doomed' from the start. Maybe he rips off a fortune teller and she curses him? Anyways. His days are definitely numbered and he should get some sort of "Comeuppance" for being so greedy. Whether he dies, or gets polymorphed into a chair is up to the story, but the party should be rewarded with his massive fortune for putting up with his rudeness, cheapness, and penny-pinching ways. I'd say a DM and 1-3 PC's would work well. I usually use discord for my current game. I'm usually free on Sundays so if anyone is interested I'd love to hear some ideas from you all. I'll also throw a brief character description below as a template for the merchant character: Name: Artorius Moneybags Age: 32 Race: Lightfoot Halfling Class: Trickery Domain Cleric Alignment: True Neutral Background: Charlatan or Urchin STRENGTH: 8 DEXTERITY: 15 CONSTITUTION: 10 INTELLIGENCE: 12 WISDOM: 14 CHARISMA: 16 Deities: Kol Korran or Garl Glittergold Feats: Healer or Lucky Backstory: Artorius grew up in the slums of a large city. He had to steal and swindle to survive. He always had a way with people and used that to his advantage. He was always unnaturally lucky and upon winning a large purse in a game of chance he began investing in his future. He bought a horse and a covered wagon and began selling goods. He joined the mercantile guild and travels around looking for an easy way to make a quick buck. He's a Greedy, silver-tongued snake-oil salesman, and mostly a fraud. Beware buying any magical weapons or items from him.
