BRAZ CINDER-MARCH
ElementalsMerchant of Heat-Forged Goods and Caravan Leader
"Everything has a price, friend, but not everything should be for sale. I have learned the difference the hard way, and I carry the scars to prove it.""
Identity
- Residence
- Lava-Flow Workshops, trade quarter (frequently traveling)
- Civilization
- Elementals
Appearance
• Physical: A broad, stocky fire elemental whose flame burns a deep, smoky orange like perpetual sunset. His form is denser than most of his kind — less flickering tongue and more solid mass of compressed heat, giving him a rumbling, grounded presence. Soot and trade-dust cling to his outer layers, evidence of constant travel. • Clothing: A heavy merchant's harness of heat-treated leather fitted with dozens of pouches, clips, and sample hooks for displaying wares on the road. • Distinguishing Marks: Three parallel scorch-scars across his chest from a bandit ambush on the Ashfall Pass — he wears them openly as a badge of survival.
Relationships
- Family - A daughter, Torra, born from a shared-spark ritual with a fellow merchant who has since dimmed; Torra works as his apprentice caravan guard
- Allies - Workshop artisans who depend on him as their primary distribution channel, a Gnome road-engineer who maintains the Ashfall Pass route
- Rivals - A competing Fire Elemental merchant consortium called the Char-Guild, which undercuts his prices by using lower-quality goods
Personality
- Traits: Gregarious, shrewdly practical, loyal to those who earn it, restless when stationary too long
- Mannerisms: Claps his hands together producing a shower of sparks to punctuate deals, sizes up everyone he meets with a merchant's eye, tells long-winded trade-road stories that always have a point
- Voice: A booming, crackling baritone like a bonfire in full roar — jovial and loud, dropping to a conspiratorial rumble when negotiating prices.
Backstory
Braz was born through Confluence Birthing at a Nexus Cradle near the Lava-Flow Workshops, his flame stoked by currents of mineral-rich magma that gave him unusual density and endurance. Too restless for forge-work and too blunt for politics, he found his calling on the trade roads, hauling heat-forged tools, weapons, and luxury goods between the fire sub-realms and the wider world. Over three centuries he has built a modest but reliable trading network and a reputation for delivering on time, even through hostile territory.
Daily Life
Braz spends half the year on the road with his caravan of fire-resistant pack-beasts, moving goods between Inferno Spire, Cogsworth, and border markets where elemental and non-elemental traders meet. The other half he spends in the Lava-Flow trade quarter, restocking, repairing equipment, and haggling with Workshop artisans over wholesale prices. He keeps a meticulous ledger burned into basalt slabs that he carries everywhere.
Secret
Braz has been quietly smuggling cooled-flame crystals — a substance banned by Pyrakos's decree because it can permanently extinguish a Fire Elemental — out of Inferno Spire territory. He does not sell them as weapons; he delivers them to an Outcast Fire Elemental community on the border that uses them medicinally to stabilize elementals whose flames burn too hot and threaten to consume them. If discovered, the punishment is exile or worse.
Story Hooks
- 1 Braz's latest contraband shipment has been intercepted by the Char-Guild, who plan to turn the evidence over to the War-Flames unless Braz pays an exorbitant bribe — he needs the party to recover the shipment before the handoff.
- 2 Braz offers the party lucrative caravan-guard work on a route through contested territory, but the job is more dangerous than advertised because the cargo includes a diplomatic gift for a hostile Primarch.
Narrative Value
Braz serves as a travel companion and quest-giver who can plausibly appear anywhere on the map, provides economic context for Fire Elemental society, and introduces a morally complex smuggling subplot that challenges assumptions about law versus compassion. ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════