The Earl of Merham

Prompt 30: A person considered villainous or monstrous
The Earl of Merham
Earl Ozker Toros of Merham controls a strategic point in the trade between north and South Thar’kor. Despite its grim and frostbitten setting on the foothills of the glacial mountains, Merham is a thriving river port city and has made Earl Toros a very wealth man. The river city is built on several islands crossing the juncture of the Yangcheonwi and the Carton Rivers in the Kingdom of Penkhambia. The city controls a system of gates and locks that restrict access up and down the river thus enabling the city to tax the river boats for their passage to and from Penkhambia. To avoid this tax port traders, have to risk crossing the Tutescom lake, which is notorious for pirate activity or travel much farther west into Dawnskeeper to travel on the Dawnsguard river, currently being harried by dragon activity or the often frozen Penmouth river. This gives Earl Toros a large amount of power and near limitless wealth.
Merchants and travelers alike are outraged by his exorbitant taxes, much higher than the taxes requested by the King of Penkhambia, but there is little choice so most pay, and so long as the taxes are coming to the King, he turns a blind eye to the Earls rampant corruption. Even if the king were to try to unseat the earl it is unlikely, he could as the Earl has retained a large army of mercenaries and a small flotilla of pirates to do his bidding and given the strength and position of his city & keep, it seems near impossible to defeat the city by siege.
To make matters worse, the Earl is not satisfied with the massive wealth he acquired by taxation & has recently taken to outright piracy, using the tax locks to identify particularly precious cargo, owned by persons that are unlikely to be able to do much to take back their wealth, the Earl identifies prize targets and communicates the names to his pirate captains located further along the rivers, they will then seek out this vessel, killing all on board and sinking the vessel to make it look like an accident. Further to this The Earl has put out general privateer contracts for the Tutescom lakes encouraging Pirates to attack ships sailing through other channels of the Carton River, so that people are more inclined to travel via the Tax gates.