Gray Merchant of Asphodel

In spite of the fact that they experience only a pale reflection of the life they once had, the Returned do everything they can to fully live their unlife. As more and more Returned surface from the Underworld and their population grows, they have evolved from lone wanderers to scattered groups, they have evolved from lone wanderers, to scattered groups, to small villages, and finally to live in their own poleis.   There are currently two major poleis for the Returned- Asphodel and Odunos- and both are home to thriving populations, which go about their business and they would have when alive. While the citizens of both poleis are separated by philosophical differences, there are stills strong trade routes between them, controlled by an economic class known as the Gray Merchants.   Ties Between Worlds The Returned that choose to live in Asphodel are usually loathe to go beyond the walls of their city, and out into the world. The land of the living holds nothing for them, and while existence as a Returned is better than death, there is usually nothing but pain waiting for them among other mortals. The citizens of Odunos, meanwhile, rarely leave their polis except to wreak havoc and rain punishment on whatever living creatures they can find.   But because no polis can provide everything its citizens need, the Gray Merchants exist. Like Anthreos, who ferries the dead between Theros and its Underworld, the Gray Merchants ferry goods, supplies, and money between the two poleis. The Gray Merchants pay for goods at one polis, make the long trek between them, and sell their wares at the other. Unlike the merchants inside of the poleis, the Gray Merchants deal in coins as well as the traditional clay funerary masks the Returned prefer to use. Exactly what the Gray Merchants do with their often substantial collections is unknown, but when the Gray Merchants leave one polis burdened with a sack of gold, they never arrive with it at the other. The coins seem to disappear somewhere along the route, perhaps funneled into some secret which other Returned are never bothered to discover.