Durdlan Silverpalm, Master Fence

AC 4 (dwarf-sized leather armor +2); MV 9; T 5; hp 28; #AT 1; Dmg by weapon type +1 (usually 2d4+2/ d6+3 with broadsword +1); Str 16, Int 15, Wis 11, Dex 16, Con 16, Cha 11; THAC0 18 (17 with magical sword); AL N; SA triple damage on backstab, thief skills; SD thief skills, 60' infravision, rings of mind shielding and invisibility. Languages spoken: Common, dwarf, gnome. Thief skills: PP 40, OL 40, FRT 50, MS 15 (95+*), HS 30, DN 45, CW 50, RL 15. Experience Point Total: 19,620.

Weapon Proficiencies: dagger, broad sword, quarterstaff.

Nonweapon Proficiencies: Appraising (Int; double proficiency, checks made with +1 bonus), Forgery Detection (use Int), Gather Information (Int).

Additional Magic Item: Boots of elvenkind*.

Physical Details: Age 144 (human equivalent 52); height 4'4"; weight 162 lbs; long wavy black hair, thick beard plaited with gold threading, very large hands with thick, sausage-like fingers, strikingly bad breath.

Key Idiosyncrasies: Durdlan has an amazing number of pet animals and is very fond of them. He does use them to smuggle things inside and to send messages with, but he also simply likes animals a great deal. In cages in his back yard, attic, etc., he has pigeons, ferrets, guinea pigs, chickens (Durdlan likes omelettes), hamsters, a sleek black rat named Nasher which does tumbling tricks, small black rock lizards, and a pair of small flightless birds from Nesme which are brightly colored and awesomely stupid. Nasher is often in Durdlan's waistcoat pocket or in the kitchen hunting scraps (PCs are warned not to eat any of Durdlan's omelettes or anything else prepared here). Durdlan also has a horrible collection of pottery and ceramic halflings in a large glass-fronted display cabinet.

Cover: Durdlan has a primary cover and a secondary cover; this is a complex business, explained fully below.

Guild and Leadership: The thieves' guild of Mirabar is ruled by a single guildmaster, whose style of rulership is strong, moderately cruel, and moderately despotic. Durdlan operates independently of the guild, and is a consultant to them, so this doesn't unduly trouble him.

History: Durdlan Silverpalm is a fence who works closely with the thieves' guild of Mirabar in the northwest of Faerun (see FR5, The Savage Frontier, for details). The guild here is small—some 25-40 thieves at any given time will be in this large city—but trade through Durdlan is brisk. Durdlan owns a couple of moneylender and pawnbroker shops, and lives in a small terraced house in a street of granite houses all occupied by dwarves (there are some 4,000 dwarves in Mirabar). His primary cover is as a moneylender, and his family has long been engaged in this trade, hence their surname. Other family members are moneylenders, pawnbrokers, and locksmiths, and Durdlan has a share in several of these, including his brother Glengar's famous Rig-A-Mortice locksmith's shop. Durdlan thus has a primary cover as a moneylending small businessman.

Durdlan also has a secondary cover, a screen cover. He has been seen in disreputable company in Mirabar once too often in his 144 years, and the wily dwarf realizes that he cannot escape the scrutiny of the law all the time. So, Durdlan runs a small numbers racket (illegal and unlicensed gambling) betting on various events—rat races (literally), ship sailing rates and arrival times and the like. The authorities thus know that Durdlan is a bad sort, but believe that he is just a small-time gambler and thus don't bother him much. Durdlan's screen cover (a petty crook to cover for his real big-time crook identity) works perfectly. The thieves Durdlan meets now and then in back alleys (seen by the agents of the authorities) also see the dwarf in the reinforced cellars of his home—unseen by the authorities. There, they bring goods for sale and trade.

Durdlan's primary specialty is gemstones and jewelry. Appraising such items, Durdlan is 95% likely to have an accurate estimate of their value. His secondary specialty is barbarian relics and icons—items of antique nature, religious significance, or exceptional workmanship. With such items, from the Uthgardt barbarians of the north, Durdlan is 90% likely to estimate their value correctly. With all other items a standard Appraising test (Int+1, roll 16 or below) is made. When he is wrong, allow him an Int test. If this is made, he knows his estimate is uncertain and he will state a value some 50% of his original estimate. An incorrect estimate will be from 10-40% above the true value or 10-50% below it (perceived value= 50% of actual value, plus dice roll x10%. A roll of 0 is taken as zero).

Durdlan offers a percentage of the true value of a hot item to his supplier. This is usually approximately 30-50%, depending on the "hotness" of the item, its absolute value (it is harder to sell very pricey items in many cases), the Charisma of the seller (no more than +4% for this), and the like. If the DM is very uncertain, simply offer 30+1d20%.

Durdlan can dispose of hot property fast because he has connections with many merchant families in Mirabar who aren't too fussy about where their secret treasures come from. Indeed, the strongly competitive nature of these families means that they are often eager to have better relics and treasures than other families, or even to steal their rivals treasures and enjoy them in illicit secrecy. One of Durdlan's favorite memories is of selling a sapphire and emerald brooch from Evereska to five different families, for ever-increasing profit margins, within the space of a single year, as each family in turn commissioned thieves to steal the item from their neighbors. Durdlan made sure that when the brooch was secretly held by one family, the next rival along the social line got to hear of it.

Durdlan has many friends in the dwarven merchant community who regularly dispatch wagon trains to Luskan on the coast. These caravans rarely get thoroughly searched; the guards have scruples which are alcohol—soluble provided a few gold coins are put their way. This access to a major coastal port (where again the customs guards can easily be bought off) gives Durdlan the chance to sell his goods for export, where their identity as stolen goods will not be known.

Durdlan is also ready, for a fat fee, to trade in human cargoes. That is, he will conceal people in his home (locking them into a cellar), and smuggle them out of Mirabar (usually in barrels or boxes bound for Luskan). Durdlan is believed to have helped one or two assassins in this way in his time.

Durdlan in Game Play: Durdlan has only a handful of contacts from the thieves' guild, almost all dwarves. He never trusts elves (he denies vehemently that his boots of elvenkind are anything of the sort, claiming they are boots of silent dwarfcraft) and he avoids direct contact with almost anyone, working through intermediaries. He will try to stay invisible during a meeting if he can. He certainly doesn't like the location of his home being known.

Durdlan is a fine fence to sell many items to, and he rarely attempts to swindle his customers. He is the person to see for a fast escape from the city. He is also a moneylender, of course, and can be encountered in that guise. His love of animals or bizarre fondness for ceramic halflings could also be exploited to bring him into contact with PCs (not necessarily as a fence).

Durdlan also has connections; in wealthy merchant families, the thieves' guild, other merchants, the dwarven community, an assassin or two, and amongst officers, guards, and similar men who will look the other way if enough gold is put in their pockets. If Durdlan can't do something for a paying customer, the odds are that he knows a man who can. This makes him a very versatile walking game mechanic for any DM.

Table of Contents