The Merchant Bank of Port Ffirst

There is no sound, safe for the scratching of quills on paper. The air is dead - no gust dare disturb these hallowed halls. The minimum of light necessary creeps in through small, high windows, their thick bars casting cross-hatched shadows across the shining checkered black and white marble floors. A set of huge marble busts stare smugly down from on high: great merchants and financiers of Faerunian history: Criminals made heroes by colossal success.

Rows upon rows of clerks attending identical desks loaded with identical heaps of papers, each with a huge leather-bound ledger open before them. All manner of men and women, with all colours of skin, diligently working away over the all-commanding ledgers. The only prejudice here is in favour of those who could turn the fastest coin. Pens rattle in ink bottles, nibs scratching on heavy paper, pages crackling as they are turned. Merchants standing in clumps and haggles, conversing in whispers. Nowhere is a single coin in evidence. The wealth here is made of words, of ideas, or rumours and lies, too valuable to be held captive in gaudy gold or simple silver. Menace smiles at the sight of it.


Carl, the assistant, looks on wide-eyed. “This is amazing, boss. The work that went into this… but are you sure this place of paper will make back the money you invested? Will people really bring their own gold here?”

Menace throws Carl a fatherly smile. “My boy, this place is to hold the future of Kantas! Let me show you…”


He walks through the banking hall, gesturing at the solid walls. “The bank’s walls are at no point less than twelve feet in thickness. There is only one entrance, guarded by a dozen of Ishmael’s well-armed men during the day, sealed at night with three locks, made by three different locksmiths, the keys kept by three separate employees.Two parties of men continuously patrol the exterior of the bank until morning. And even then the interior is kept under watch by sharp-eyed guards of my own choosing.”

“They are locked in?”

“All night.”


They continue past armed guards and into a small room panelled with oppressively dark wood, ostentatious yet uncomfortable, tyrannized by a desk the size of a poor man’s house. Behind it, set into the solid stone wall, menaces a massive steel door that draws the looks of anyone in the room. It stands ajar, as clerks move sacks of coin and bundles of papers into the vault, gears and levers of dwarven design clearly visible on the inside of the vault door.
Menace smirks. “A solid foot of Vorsthold steel! Truly, this is the safest place in all of Kantas!”


Carl casts his look about the cavernous vault. The stacks of paper are far higher than those of gold. He throws a questioning glance toward the boss, and Menace picks up on it, giving his apprentice an affectionate squeeze of the shoulder.
“Smart boy. Come!”


They leave the bank, heading out onto the busy market square of New Town. There is a cold wind blowing over Port Ffirst. It carries the whiff of… opportunity.
Menace observes the ongoing construction, as well as the comings and goings of his staff. This is going to be his masterpiece; his legacy; his magnum opus.


“Carl, this isn't a simple repository of coin. This is an engine of growth! We will support the economic development of Kantas, of it’s trade connections, and we will take a cut of all it’s business. The Merchant Bank of Port Ffirst will invest. We will own this land, and all that is produced on it.”


His smirk widens into a grin as the crane slowly lowers the ostentatious name plaque over the entrance:

“The Banking House of Teneveer & D’Argent”.



Carl scratches his head. “That all makes sense, but… who is Teneveer?”

Menace sweeps the question away. “Someone who died a long time ago.”