Jerubel Weyland

Jerubel Weyland doesn't look like much. A pudgy bald man, he dresses plainly and keeps his offices in the same warehouse off the docks that he started using thirty years ago. He lives on High Street, on a block filled with the opulent houses of The City's Noble Families, but his house is not particularly distinguished. He loves his family, his wife Odila, his sons and daughters, dotes upon them. He's also the richest man in The City, wealthy enough to buy every building in The City twice over, people say. When Weyland snaps his fingers, powerful men jump to do his bidding.

He was born a slave, escaped, became a smuggler then a legitimate merchant and finally, the greatest of the so-called "Merchant Princes" - the men and women that own the merchant fleets that bring the wares of the known world to the center of civilization, The City.

It's common knowledge that Jerubel Weyland remembers slights. Years after he escaped slavery, it's whispered that he hired some men to kidnap his former owner, who was whipped 1,457 times - the exact number of strokes Weyland received while a slave. Weyland keeps count, they say, and he balances the scales perfectly. "Fair trade," Weyland says, "benefits everyone." That may be, but Weyland always seems to come out on top.

A few years ago, Mikkal Fendisthe, a hanger-on of one of The City's Noble Families, dismissed Weyland's wife at a social dinner, calling her "that tarted-up strumpet, wife of a slave, with hands as dirty from lucre as her husband/pimp's." Weyland smiled at Fendisthe, then offered a toast to better times for The City. Three days later, someone began putting the squeeze on Fendisthe. His annuities dried up, the mortgages on his properties came due within a matter of weeks. Fendisthe's prize-winning show horse was hamstrung by an unseen assailant. His wife left him, cleaning out the art and silver plate in their house. The house burned down and Fendisthe was last seen begging in the street outside Weyland's offices. Shortly thereafter, he disappeared. Some say he drowned himself, others that he struck out northward, hoping to find his wife. A few - only a few - whisper that Fendisthe was seen being bundled on to a slave ship bound for Pisaydh, full of slaves for the pleasure-pits of His Most Radiant Majesty, the King Of Kings. No one insults Weyland or his family now. Weyland keeps count.

Weyland's oldest son is of marrying age, and Weyland has decided that there is one more commodity he hasn't purchased - Noble status. He's studied and found three Noble Families with daughters of the proper age and more prestige than actual income, and has quietly bought up their debt. Large sums are being offered in some circles for information about the families, specifically damaging or embarassing information. Weyland is negotiating with each family, and his son is deciding which girl appeals to him the most. If the girls' family isn't interested in marrying for wealth, they'll do it to avoid ruin.

Weyland will succeed, because Weyland always comes out on top.