#1 Thorton Hill

| November 1, 2011 | 0 Comments

This is my first character of this month, technically a reconstituted old one, but I gave him a rather large overhaul and a place in my new setting.

Thorton Hobbleton Schwartzwort Hill

Thorton was born to an impoverished branch of the Hill family of merchants, but through a lucky inheritance from his uncle Swindert Hill and his own ambition and ruthlessness, he clawed himself to the position of Merchant Prince for his city.
Nowadays, Thorton is an indolent amateur archeologist who studies the two walls that guard the Merchant Protectorate whenever he’s not getting shitfaced with some prostitutes or gambling away his sizeable fortune. Thorton is ruthless and ambitious, but not unkind to those who are in need, remembering that his own good fortune is equal parts luck and effort. His girth has grown immense in his old age, and he is usually borne on a palanquin carried by strong manservants.

When Thorton was much younger, he travelled a lot, often solo, to secure important deals in person or to explore ruins thought to hold treasure. As a result, he is proficient in the use of sword and quarterstaff, though his bulk does not allow him to demonstrate his skills anymore.
Much like in his adventuring days, Thorton favours a cleanly shaven head and a simple traveling garb in off-white and brown, though he has learned the value of ostentatious clothing at the negotiating table.
Most of Thorton’s surviving relatives despise him almost as much as they despise his deceased benefactor, Swindert, for naming Thorton as heir te begin with.
Thorton produced five sons with several women, which he each gave equal responsibilities, and then pitted them against each other to see who would be his heir. Two sons remain now, one a succesful trader of exotic goods brought in by sea. The other son took to the life of a mercenary captain, a very lucrative avenue of business in the bandit-infested woods of the Protectorate.
Thorton has selected the merchant son to be his heir, but made him promise to make sure that his brother would always have work on his hand.
Now that his financial empire’s future is secure, Thorton is mostly resting on his laurels and has authored the descriptively titled “Annals Of A Bored Merchant Prince”, of which there is an excerpt below.

Eastwall, 121th year after the liberation, 6th month, 3rd day of the 2nd week

Having secured the lucrative wool trading deal that would provide the influx of cash I required,
I decided to visit my pet project on the way home. The walls are always magnificent in autumn, bedecked as they are in brown and yellow leaves, and the dim sun and clouds speckling it with a most artful pattern. I have oft said that I do not believe the walls were made by the Old Empire, though there are few in my field, professional or amateur, that will even hear me out when I present my arguments and findings. The evidence is overwhelming, though, and it is only through willful ignorance that they could possibly be dismissing what I am discovering here.
Along the length of both the eastern and western wall, collapsed sections overgrown with the vines characteristic to our fair forests reveal that portions of the wall are in fact hollow.
Statues line the interior of these chambers, and in the middle rest great stone tablets covered in a writhing scrawl which I cannot translate, recognise or even associate with any modern script.
This visit, though, I am bringing a skilled (and very nubile and attractive) young woman who is proficient in the arts of caligraphy and stonehewing, a most fortuitous combination of abilities.
I will have her copy portions of the scrawl onto paper, tangible proof that I can then present to my “peers”, too caught up in the delights of fine food and tobacco to go out and see what I have to show them as they are.

From Annals Of A Bored Merchant Prince, by Thorton Hill

Category: 2011, Fantasy

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