Pismir the Jewel-Wizard

Appearance
Unlike what most people expect a jewel-cutter and money lender to look like, Pismir is considerably younger, in his early 30s. His hair is black and his face, though stern, has a handsome cast to it and when he does deign to smile it is a very pleasant smile. Hie eyes are dark also, but they either glitter or glint depending on his mood. He dresses very well, never quite emulating the styles popular in court or among the top brass of the deMadden company.

History/Background
Pismir, at heart, is greed personified. He wants simply more of everything. More money, more respect, more women, more amethyst, he wants it all. The only problem is that other people have alot of what he wants, and to get it he either has to take it from them, or get them on his side. Being a charismatic man coming from a well to do country family of some means, he seldom has difficulty recruiting humans to his cause. His real foes, he has discovered, are the krakens and the beauracracy of the deMadden Company.

Having devoted himself to studies of a more arcane nature, Pismir has done something very few other jewel-cutters would attempt. In a world where amethyst is the key to magic power, he has taken to cutting amethyst into shaped stones. It was in this process, in the act of weighting carats, and designing the facets of the stone to catch as much light as possible that Pismir discovered two things.

Amethyst dust, left over from cutting facets into the stones has great value as a spell reagent to magi who wish to be discrete and not actually use visible stones. He also discovered that the act of cutting the stones, when properly done, amplified the power of the amethyst. Some brief research revealed that in making the facets, and removing the imperfections, a superior stone was created and by natural action, it concentrated more power within it's geometric planes.

Pismir is now a wealthy and powerful speculator, a benefactor to those hunting wealth and treasures (ahem, PCs) and a quiet and subtle foe to the deMadden company. He is more of an ardent foe of the krakens, and harbors a secret and burning hatred for the drowned cults of Ma-o. Pismir is a well connected man, and many people owe him favros, from merchant captains to even some new officers in the deMadden company. His goals are simple, in the end. Destroy the krakens, destroy the cults of Ma-O, and destroy the deMadden Company and it's economic and social stranglehold over Acqua.

Special Equipment
Being a wealthy man, Pismir has a comfortable home on a medium sized Banhosean island. He keeps a number of horses, a small vinyard, and has his own personal sea going vessel, the two masted Herraj Sonhea. Much more secretly, he has a stockpile of amethyst that would boggle the mind, several caches of gold and weapons on various all but abandoned islands, and a small cadre of retainers/henchmen who have learned to do his bidding with questions unasked.

Roleplaying Notes
Pismir is neither an evil, or chaotic man, despite his desire for destruction and change. In another time and another place he might have stood among the patriots of the American Revolution, the Bolsheviks, or any other revolutionary party. Except that in Acqua (as far as I know) there is no revolutionary faction, and Pismir is a single man working quietly and diligently against a foe magnitudes larger and older than himself. He works best as a semi-shadowy benefactor for a PC band, especially if the PC group has a habit of ending up on the wrong side of the law, or have a penchant for calamari.