Maelstrom Campaign - The True Faiths: The Merchant

The Merchant teaches His followers the value of aspiration and hard work. It is a common misapprehension that they prize wealth. In actuality, His followers value success in all fields of endeavour. The Merchant is often portrayed as a tiny bird carrying a vast branch with which to make a nest. It is however true that many of the followers of the Merchant are merchants, traders or craftsmen. The devotees of the Merchant know that hardship is the price that must be paid to justify the trappings of success without guilt. Those who have faced hardship, and been defeated by it, do not deserve to reap the benefits of the success that has eluded them. The priests of the Merchant believe that if everyone strives to accomplish everything they are capable of then all hardship and evil will be banished from the world; while if everyone ceases to work and strive, then the world will fall into idleness and ruin.

While there are few followers amongst the poor and impoverished there are even less amongst those born to power and wealth. It is almost a truism, however, that wherever you find ambitious and hard-working individuals you find followers of the Merchant. Some soldiers follow the Merchant, and His priests tell stories of children born as slaves who earned their manumission by following His teachings. Churches to the Merchant usually own land, or concessions from which they draw their wealth, and such holdings are always worked hard. If some followers are ostentatious with their wealth, building great houses and other monuments to their success, it is because the trappings of success must be celebrated openly so that they can inspire others and not be preserved to pass on to heirs.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the centre of worship of the Merchant is in Alkyon. Almost every Volery contains a shrine to the Merchant. Khalid Mhaines is the High Preceptor of the faith and, with the vast resources of the Church throughout Alkyon at his disposal, he is one of the wealthiest people alive. In recent years, worship of the Merchant has increased dramatically in Freiboden and there are suggestions that the faithful in Alkyon may have had an involvement in events there.

The Commandments of the Merchant

Work hard and accomplish everything you are capable of.
Do not steal or cheat, the right to achievement cannot be taken from another.
Charity is false. The right to achievement cannot be given to another.
Celebrate success that has been hard won.
Disdain success that has not been earned by honest toil.

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.