Elric Tallow

Elric Tallow is not a man easily fooled. He speaks in measured words, weighs every deal with a set of scales in his mind, and never enters a bargain he cannot walk away from. Some call him shrewd, others call him cautious but none can deny that he knows value when he sees it.

Early Life

Elric was born in Druvenia, a city where fortunes are scavenged rather than inherited, and where survival means learning the art of the deal before learning how to read.
His parents were merchants of modest means, running a pawn shop in one of Druvenia’s safer quarters; though in a city with no true law, safe was always relative. They dealt in whatever could be resold: rusted tools, secondhand garments, old books with missing pages, the occasional heirloom pawned by someone who had no intention of buying it back.
Elric grew up in this world of transaction and necessity, watching his parents barter not just for profit, but for survival.
Thus he learned quickly that everything had a price. Not just objects, but words, time and trust. A promise was only as good as the leverage behind it. A fair deal was only fair if both parties walked away knowing they had benefited. And when things turned bad, it was not the strongest who triumphed, it was the cleverest.
His father had a keen eye for value, able to spot worth in what others discarded. His mother had a sharper eye for people, knowing when a customer could be reasoned with and when it was best to quietly reach for the dagger under the counter. Elric inherited both skills.
By the age of ten, he was handling small transactions on his own. By twelve, he had out-haggled a grown man three times his age. By fourteen, he was making deals his parents never would have dared—purchasing wares from sources that asked no questions, selling to buyers who demanded no receipts.
Druvenia is a city where failure is fatal, and Elric had no intention of failing.

Family Business

No one stays on top in Druvenia forever.
One night, his father accepted a deal he shouldn’t have. A relic, worth more than one could imagine, was given to him for safekeeping. His wife urged him to return it, to walk away from whatever it entailed. But the deal had already been made, and backing out was an insult that would not be forgiven.
A week later, Elric returned home to find the shop ransacked and his parents gone. No signs of struggle. No bodies. No debts left unpaid.
Just gone.
Elric knew better than to ask questions. In Druvenia, curiosity is a death sentence. He packed what little remained and left his family home before their disappearance could become his problem too.

Fair Glarithia

He spent the next few years learning the trade on his own terms. He started at the bottom, selling scraps and trinkets in alleyway markets, working under merchants who would as soon cut his purse as pay him. But Elric was clever, patient. He watched, he listened, and most importantly, he remembered.
He kept track of which merchants were liars, which traders always kept their word, which goods were hot, and which were just plain old con artistry. He moved from one deal to the next, gaining not only wealth, but leverage. By his twenties, he had carved out a small but stable reputation in Druvenia as a man who knew how to turn nothing into something.
But Druvenia was not a place to grow old in. Elric had no delusions of grandeur, he had seen enough rising stars fall into ruin, enough promising ventures burned to cinders by men with sharper knives and colder smiles.
He needed an exit, a way to leave before Druvenia decided his luck had run out. And so, when the opportunity came to move to Glarithia, he took it.
It was a risk, of course. Every move in his life had been. But if Druvenia had taught him anything, it was that the only thing worse than a bad deal was standing still.
Elric Tallow left the city of his birth with nothing but his wits, his knowledge of trade, and a simple truth burned into his soul;
Survival isn’t about winning every deal. It’s about knowing when to walk away.

A Shop to Peddle

Settling in Glarithia was not without its challenges. Unlike the cutthroat dealings of Druvenia, where money moved fast and without the burden of bureaucracy, Glarithia had a more refined, deliberate economy. Trade was an art as much as anything else in the city of artists, where who you knew mattered almost as much as what you were selling.
Elric adapted. He started small, dealing in overlooked curiosities—old jewelry from estate sales, abandoned heirlooms, relics of lesser-known artists whose work had not yet found the right buyer. He learned the rhythms of the city’s markets, the true price of things beneath the surface. He made connections, leveraged favors and, most importantly, built a reputation.
It was during this time that he began looking for a permanent establishment. He needed a space, a shop where he could bring the trade to him, rather than wandering from market to market.
Elric had a habit of listening to conversations that weren’t meant for him. Information, after all, was worth just as much as coin. Sometimes more.
One evening, over drinks at a modest but well-frequented inn, he overheard a hushed discussion between two merchants. They spoke of an old building, a studio abandoned for years, locked away by the city’s decree.
A forgotten property. An untouched opportunity. Elric’s interest was piqued.
He made inquiries, subtle at first—then more direct. The building had once belonged to a Larion Voskar, a failed painter whose final days had been the subject of city rumors for years. A disappearance, a disturbing painting, and a studio left to rot.
It had been condemned, marked for demolition. But somehow, demolition had never come. The more he investigated, the cheaper it seemed to get. No serious buyers. No competition.
It was, by all logic, an incredible deal.
Perhaps a bit too incredible.

The Vintage Vault

The structure itself was solid—dust-ridden and abandoned, but far from beyond saving. The interior was choked with the remnants of an artist’s failure; cracked canvases, dried paint, scattered papers left untouched by time. The walls still smelled faintly of turpentine, as if the air had refused to let the past fade entirely.
Purchasing the studio was a simple process; simpler than it should have been. The officials handling the transaction seemed eager to be rid of it, and the price was laughably low for a structure of its size.
Elric signed the deed without hesitation and contracted workers to begin the renovation. Carpenters replaced the decayed wood. Stonemasons restored the outer walls. He brought in workers from all over Glarithia to transform the abandoned space into something fitting for his business ventures.

Then the workers found the backroom underneath a pile of boards and debris. Stepping into the musty space, the construction crew felt uneasy as they laid eyes upon the back wall. The wall was old, but the bricks looked newer than the surrounding stone.
The mortar holding them together seemed to glisten in the dim light, an oil-slick sheen that did not belong in an empty, abandoned room. There was a gag-inducing stench that lingered in the air, and a few of the workers quit on the spot, no doubt believing the stories about the painting.
When asked if they should take down the wall, Elric weighed the situation. He did not believe in curses or ghosts, but he did believe in cutting one's losses, and so he simply locked the backroom and pocketed the only key.
By the time the Vintage Vault opened, it was unrecognizable from the ruin it once was. The space had been transformed into a merchant’s treasure trove—filled with antique furnishings, rare books, curiosities of forgotten ages and breathtaking artworks from all imaginable crafts. Every shelf, every glass case, was arranged with precision, a masterstroke of organization that made every item feel important.
Business flourished. Elric knew his craft well, and customers flocked to his store, drawn by the comprehensive collection of history and art that Elric had amassed.
Still, there were questions. Every so often, a patron would approach Elric with a question about the backroom door. Each time, Elric would dismiss any inquiries by claiming it was a storage space for cleaning supplies, and that was often enough to direct the discussion to other matters.
But recently, the nature of the questions has changed. Customers no longer ask about the backdoor, but rather about the alleyway behind the establishment. Elric does not entertain these questions.

Tallow could sell you your own shadow, and make you think you came out on top.

–A Druvenian merchant when asked about Elric

Current Status

Proprietor of the Vintage Vault

Current Location

Glarithia

Age

47

Pronouns

He/Him

Sex

Male

Gender

Man

Presentation

Masculine

Eyes

Brown

Hair

Short, black, messy

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Chestnut, tanned

Height

6'1 / 185cm

Weight

151lbs / 68kg

Belief/Deity

Resounding Truth

by Midjourney

_{A young Elric with his father, sorting through jewelry.}