Encountering The Gray Merchant

Source: The Gray Merchant of Asphodel, p. 4

The Gray Merchant is a unique vendor who wanders Theros, seemingly at random. Characters may trade for only one item from him each time they encounter him. He trades with one person at a time but is willing to trade with any number of people during the encounter. There’s an unlimited number of wares in his bag. It may contain multiple of the same legendary item, but artifacts should remain one-of-a-kind. It is up to you what limitations or lack thereof you put on the items available.

Number of Items for Trade

When someone expresses interest in trading with the Gray Merchant, he lays a piece of cloth on the ground to display his wares, presenting seven items. If you think seven options are too many for the group, reduce the number. You can use the roll tables in chapter 3 to determine what items he draws from his bag.

Each character may make only one trade. The Gray Merchant only refreshes items he trades away. He does not refresh all seven items unless requested to do so.

If a character requests he refresh his entire selection, he does so but reduces the number of items offered by one. For example, the first refresh request causes him to put away all seven items and draw six new items. The second refresh replaces the six items with five and so forth. This reduced selection persists through all subsequent trades.

If the Gray Merchant has only one item out, asking him to refresh ends trading for everyone present. He places the item back in his bag and appears unable to draw anything else out. He sadly shows his empty hands and departs.

Magic: The Gathering Reference

Magic: The Gathering players may notice the refresh rules follow the card draw and mulligan rules at the start of a game.

The Price of a Trade

This section provides optional mechanics for using the Gray Merchant as a seller of magic items. You may ignore this mechanic and use the roll tables in chapter 3 to distribute the magic items in a more conventional manner.

The items in this supplement use price ranges based on rarity. Since the amount of gold earned varies in each game, consider adjusting the prices to suit your group. Some items may also be overpowered for the level of your party, in which case you may want to reroll an item of an unsuitable rarity rather than make it available for trade. This supplement roughly categorizes item rarity by the following prices and recommended power levels:

• Common: 0-100 gp, level 1+
• Uncommon: 100-1,000 gp, level 3+
• Rare: 1,000-10,000 gp, level 5+
• Very Rare: 10,000-100,000 gp, level 10+
• Legendary/Artifact: 100,000+ gp, level 15+

Characters may trade one of the following types of items for an item from the Gray Merchant:

• any amount of currency
• any one inanimate object or set of related inanimate objects

A set of related objects are items that a reasonable person would consider thematically linked, such as a set of jewelry or all the books belonging to a series. Players may not pad the value of a trade by trading multiple unrelated objects as a set, such as a bejeweled idol plus a magic scroll. Characters may not trade living creatures or awakened items.

The value of a traded object may be based on monetary value or sentimental value to the character. For example, a character has a set of books passed down to them from a long dead parent. This set has a monetary value of 5 sp and high sentimental value. The higher of the two types of value applies during a trade. In this example, the object is worth high sentimental value. If it had been a random set of books bought from a pawn shop with no sentimental value, the object is worth 5 sp instead.

Sentimental value has only four possible values: none, low, medium, and high. A clay mask taken from the dead, or fragments of such clay masks, are automatically considered high sentimental value by the Gray Merchant regardless of its value to the character trading it away (see the “Background Lore” section in this chapter for details about the character and his motivations).

If characters offer an item previously obtained from the Gray Merchant, it’s worth the lowest gold value listed in its recommended price and no sentimental value, unless otherwise specified.

The Gray Merchant can’t speak and uses gestures to communicate the exact recommended monetary price range in copper, silver, or gold pieces. If the item has no price, he shrugs. He gives no hint as to the sentimental price of an object. Divine intervention prevents stealing from the Gray Merchant.

Item Types

There are three types of items in this supplement: magic items, artifacts, and story items.

Magic Items

Each magic item has two recommended prices: monetary and sentimental. Its properties vary depending on the price the character paid for it. Characters always get the base properties of the item.

If characters pay the recommended price, they get additional properties described in a section labeled with the keyword Paid.

If characters overpay, extra effects apply, sometimes for only a limited period of time, described in a section labeled with the keyword Overpaid.

Characters know the base properties of an item from handling it, but they must use the identify spell or focus on an item over a short rest to know its Paid and Overpaid properties. You decide if the Gray Merchant allows characters to take a short rest with an item prior to trading.

If using the items in this supplement as treasure discovered in the open world, we recommend using only their base and Paid properties.

Artifacts

Artifacts are legendary magic items that are unique, cause unique effects, and have an impact on the story in terms of being an item of historical significance or an item with the potential to shape a campaign. They can’t be destroyed through conventional means and may break rules that normally apply to other magic items.

Artifacts are included in their own roll tables because you may not wish to make these available via a random trader. Most come with recommended story hooks if you prefer to integrate them into your campaign.

Story Items

Story items are typically items NPCs traded to the Gray Merchant that were worth high sentimental value to the NPC. These items use story as their rarity and usually have no recommended price. They are intended as story hooks for side quests.

Story items are included in their own roll tables to avoid introducing unexpected side quests unsuitable for a given campaign.

Gray Merchant Coins

The Gray Merchant leaves a trail of gold coins that fall from the bag he carries. See the Gray Merchant’s gold coins item entry for details.

Background Lore

The Gray Merchant is a Returned, a form of undead. On Theros, souls go to the Underworld when they die. Some particularly strong-willed individuals try to return to the land of the living. They may do so by forging golden masks to replace the funereal clay masks placed on the faces of the dead. There is a price, however—any who would return from the Underworld must leave their memories behind.

Despite losing their memories, the Returned may pursue ingrained habits or routines without knowing why. For example, a blacksmith may return to his forge and attempt to continue making wares for sale, and while he may succeed in running the forge, he largely produces twisted pieces of metal with no function.

Returned also lack the capacity to retain long-term memories despite otherwise possessing the intelligence and self-determination of any living creature. As such, they live sad existences, unable to establish any real connections.

They possess the same physical appearance as when they died but usually have no face and can’t speak. Their golden masks hide their lack of facial features and tend to depict exaggerated emotions. The emotions are usually sadness or anger, though exceptions exist. They have strong sentimental attachments to clay funeral masks, perhaps because they know what they lost when they traded their own for golden ones. Clay masks are supposed to help the dead retain their memories and identity in the Underworld.

Returned are generally considered dangerous and attacked by the living when encountered—their behavior can be erratic and they may explode in fits of rage. Those who survive long enough to try to find a new place in the world end up congregating in two necropolises, or cities of the dead. Asphodel houses those who have embraced their fate and are content to live out the rest of their shadowy existences in peace. They typically stay within its boundaries and continue to act out their old routines. Odunos is a more aggressive necropolis where the Returned rage at their fates and venture out to raid living settlements.

The Gray Merchant is from Asphodel and somewhere between myth and urban legend. He is highly recognizable because of the large worn bag he carries and the white asphodel flower he wears. He thus escapes culling by those who would otherwise slaughter any Returned they meet.

There are also whispers that he’s protected by the gods, or at least one of the gods, for reasons unknown to mortals. Perhaps he was one of their lovers, or perhaps he’s an agent of one of their numerous conspiracies.

Phenax, god of deception, is the usual patron of the Returned, said to have been the first soul to escape the Underworld, but Klothys, god of destiny, also intervenes on the Gray Merchant’s behalf when someone wrongs him. That said, Klothys frowns on all who violate rules of hospitality against travelers.

Stat Block and Combat

The Gray Merchant’s bag functions like a bag of holding (DMG), but there is no known limit to the quantity or size of items he can store within it.

Characters may attack the Gray Merchant of Asphodel. He doesn’t fight back, instead cowering from their blows. The pitiful sight induces guilt in attackers. Attacks incur the dismay of bystanders and may cause powerful NPCs to intervene on the Gray Merchant’s behalf.

Killing the Gray Merchant causes his body and all his equipment to dissolve into red embers that fade into the earth. The Gray Merchant reforms with all his equipment in another part of the world and continues traveling. All characters who participated in the attack lose attunement and possession of any Gray Merchant’s gold coins they have and must roll on the Ill Fortunes of Klothys table to determine the effect they will suffer in the coming days.

Ill Fortunes of Klothys

d8	Effect
1	Fate frowns upon you. For the next 1d10 days, you die on two death saving throw failures instead of three.
2	You feel a desperate need to prove yourself in combat. For the next 1d10 days, you can’t use your move action to leave the melee range of a foe when engaged in combat.
3	Intense anxiety feels like strings wrapping ever tighter around your chest. For the next 1d10 days, you suffer a -1 penalty to attack rolls and disadvantage on rolls to maintain concentration.
4	Your hubris makes you believe you’re better than you are in truth. You suffer a -1 penalty to ability checks for the next 1d10 days.
5	You feel sluggish, guilt weighing you down. For the next 1d10 days, you have disadvantage on all saving throws.
6	Word has spread of your offense against the gods. For the next 1d10 days, merchants won’t sell or trade you goods.
7	The truth shall set you free. For the next 1d10 days, you’re unable to lie.
8	For the next 1d10 days, an intangible and invulnerable spirit donkey follows you everywhere, observing silently but judgmentally.