B13 Macor’s Merchant House

The Gem of Verbobonc

Nestled in the dense cobbled lanes just off the Trader’s Market, Macor’s Merchant House is known as “the Gem of Verbobonc”—the city’s premier broker for ores, refined metals, and cut gemstones.

From this house, Macor has built:

• Longstanding contracts with Kron Hills mines and Greenway Valley gnome factors.
• Lucrative ties to Kron nobility who hold mining rights and expect timely profit.
• Occasional, high-value arrangements with Lortmil dwarves, who rarely trade their best metals except through partners they trust.

Macor’s success—and his willingness to pay near full value for gems—has made his house a cornerstone of Verbobonc’s economy and a focal point of political tension between human merchants and the Free Alliance of the Kron Hills, who fear exploitation and unequal tariffs.

Exterior & First Impressions

From the street, Macor’s house presents a four-story front of dressed stone, its corners buttressed and its ground floor guarded by visible, mail-clad watchmen.

Tall windows look onto:

• The gleam of stacked ingots—iron, tin, silver, electrum, and gold.
• Glimpses of glass cases where gems catch the light in orderly rows.

A brass plaque by the door reads:

MACOR’S MERCHANT HOUSE – ORES, METALS & GEMSTONES – WEIGHTS TRUE, COIN HONEST

Approaching Macor’s House

Inside the Merchant House

Stepping in, you enter a world ordered around weight, purity, and value.

Ground Floor – Ingots & Ledgers

• Racks of ingots and ore sacks labeled by type and mine:
• Iron ore, tin ore, silver, electrum, gold, stacked behind counters.
• A long counting desk where clerks check manifests, record weights, and guard the ledgers that track every shipment through the house.

Typical posted bulk prices:

• Iron ore – 5 gp / lb
• Tin ore – 7 gp / lb
• Silver ingots – 50 gp / lb
• Electrum ingots – 100 gp / lb
• Gold ingots – 500 gp / lb

Second Floor – Gems & Jewels

Here the air cools and quiets. Tables and glass cases display:

• Malachite – 50 gp
• Chrysoprase – 100 gp
• Chrysoberyl – 150 gp
• Dark green jade with turquoise swirls – 200 gp
• Brilliant black opals – 1,000 gp
• Emeralds – 2,000 gp

Macor’s reputation rides on his gem trade: he buys gems at nearly full value (95%), a rare generosity that makes his house the first stop for serious sellers.

Third Floor – Workshops & Appraisal Benches

Dwarven and gnomish gem-cutters work at sturdy benches, lenses and tiny hammers gleaming beside neat trays of stones.

• They grade, cut, and reset stones for noble clients, guilds, and foreign buyers.
• This floor also hosts closed-door negotiations with Kron Hills factors and occasional Lortmil envoys.

Fourth Floor – Secure Storage & Offices

The top level is a warren of:

• Strongrooms with iron-banded doors and heavy locks.
• Macor’s private office: maps of the Kron Hills and Lortmils, mine-output charts, and letters from noble patrons pinned to a large board.

Here contracts are signed, disputes settled, and fortunes quietly arranged.

Special Metals & High-End Trade

Macor’s house has about a 50% weekly chance to have:

• Mithral – 500 gp / lb
• Adamantine – 600 gp / lb

These shipments come primarily via:

• Select Kron Hills mines whose gnome owners prefer dealing with one large, predictable buyer.
• Rare, carefully negotiated contracts with Lortmil dwarves, who treat mithral and adamantine as near-sacred resources and will not sell to “just anyone.”

Macor guards these consignments fiercely; even rumors of their arrival can stir thieves, rival houses, and foreign agents.

Macor – Master of the House

Macor is a broad-shouldered Oeridian merchant-lord, weathered by years of road travel before he rose to owning his own house.

• Personality: Robust, pragmatic, proud but not cruel. He values fairness and quality, preferring fewer good deals over many questionable ones.
• Motivation: Keep his merchant house at the top of Verbobonc’s metals trade and secure ever better terms from the Kron Hills mines.
• Political Position:
• Caught in the middle between Free Alliance gnome merchants, who resent tariffs and unequal wealth, and human houses who want maximum profit.
• Uses diplomacy and firm pricing to avoid open feuds, but he knows every discount or surcharge sends a signal.

He respects gnomish thrift and dwarven stubbornness, and is one of the few humans whom Lortmil smiths will greet with something like warmth.

Staff & Family

Macor does not run his empire alone. Four key people keep the house moving:

1. Arvend Macor – Eldest Son & Ledger-Master

• Role: Oversees the ground-floor ledgers, weighing shipments, verifying mine seals, and checking that every ingot tallies.
• Personality: Quiet, meticulous, with his father’s eye for fraud but less of his charm. He would rather argue over weight and purity than politics.
• Notes: Gnome factors trust Arvend because he never rounds against them and will quietly send word if another human house tries to undercut Alliance prices.

2. Sela Macor – Daughter & Gem Steward

• Role: Manages the second-floor gem hall, cataloguing stones, escorting clients to appraisal benches, and coordinating the gnome and dwarf cutters upstairs.
• Personality: Sharp-tongued, keen-witted; she enjoys bargaining and has a knack for reading whether a stone—or a person—is truly what it seems.
• Notes: Sela is Macor’s chosen heir in matters of high-end trade; she often travels to Kron or the Greenway Valley to inspect shipments on site.

3. Borren “Stonecart” Dales – Human Ore-Mover

• Role: Foreman of the ore crew, overseeing wagon unloading, hoists, and storage on the ground floor and in the cellars.
• Personality: Big, scarred, and gruff, but fiercely loyal to the house; started as a day-laborer, now trusted with keys to the ore cellars.
• Notes: Former caravan guard in the Kron Hills; still has friends among hill miners and can introduce PCs to rougher contacts.

4. Dori Flintshoulder – Lortmil Dwarf Laborer & Liaison

• Role: Senior manual handler for high-value metals; personally supervises mithral and adamantine movement and storage.
• Personality: Stoic, wry sense of humor, uses few words but listens to everything.
• Notes: A distant cousin to a Lortmil trading clan; his presence in Macor’s employ is a visible sign that at least some dwarves trust this house. When a dwarven envoy comes to town, Dori is the first to know.

Web of Trade Relationships

• Kron Hills Mines & Gnome Merchants: Macor’s main supply of ores and gemstones flows from Free Alliance–aligned mines, via gnome caravan factors. He pays well by human standards, but the Alliance still pushes for better terms and safer roads. Disputes over tariffs and profit shares make him a key figure in ongoing negotiations.
• Kron Nobility: Certain noble houses with mining charters rely on Macor to convert raw output into coin and to represent their interests in city markets. He dines at their tables, but remains careful not to be seen as their creature alone.
• Lortmil Dwarves: Dwarves of the Lortmils seldom sell mithral or adamantine, and when they do, it is through a very short list of houses—Macor’s among them. These deals are rare, heavily guarded, and bound by oaths that matter more than coin.

Adventure Hooks

• Ore on the Road: A major shipment of silver and jade from the Kron Hills, purchased in advance by Macor, has gone missing. Gnome factors blame human bandits; humans whisper of gnome skimming. Macor hires the PCs to find the truth before relations break.
• Mithral Dispute: A rare mithral consignment from the Lortmils arrives underweight according to Arvend’s ledgers—but Dori swears the dwarf clan sent the full measure. Are the scales tampered, the crates switched, or is someone in the chain cheating both sides?
• Gems of Questionable Provenance: Sela quietly shows the party a clutch of black opals and emeralds whose markings suggest Temple of Elemental Evil provenance or Suel grave-robbery. Macor will not touch them until he knows where they came from; the PCs can earn a rich finder’s fee by tracing the seller’s trail.
• Alliance Pressure: Hardline Free Alliance voices demand their caravans stop selling to Macor unless he publicly denounces certain tariffs. Prince Jimm asks the PCs to help broker a compromise—or to uncover whether rival human houses are quietly stoking the quarrel.

Use B13 Macor’s Merchant House as the metal-and-gem heart of your Business Quarter: the place where the party turns ore into coin, feels the strain between Verbobonc and the hills, and learns that in this city, every ingot has a story and every stone carries someone’s hopes.