Ferryman

*"The journey’s far more than the current between the shores…and that journey be short if ’n you don’t come up with the proper fare."*

## Basic

(Core) Rivers both large and small cut through the Empire. While a few are shallow enough to ford easily, most require transport to cross safely. Ferrymen make their living moving people and goods across the Empire’s rivers, for a fee of course. They favour flat-bottomed barges because they have a shallow draft and plenty of deckspace. Ferrymen in more remote areas also favour the blunderbuss. Bandits are a constant danger and the blunderbuss provides not-so-subtle encouragement to move along. Many Ferrymen are also extortionists of the highest order, arbitrarily changing their prices based on the apparent wealth and desperateness of their passengers.

### Secondary Profile

**Skills:** Charm, Common Knowledge (the Empire), Evaluate or Secret Language (Ranger Tongue), Gossip or Intimidate, Haggle, Perception, Row, Swim

**Talents:** Marksman or Suave, Specialist Weapon Group (Gunpowder) or Street Fighting

**Trappings:** Crossbow with 10 bolts or Blunderbuss with powder/ammunition enough for 10 shots, Light Armour (Leather Jack)

### **Career Exits**

Boatman, Highwayman, Roadwarden, Seaman, Smuggler

## Affiliations

The Sons of the River are a small guild of honest ferrymen west of Talabheim; their many ferries sporting Taal’s horns in blue on the prow in honor of the River Father. Their vigilance prevents many unscrupulous ferrymen on the Talabec from abusing their positions and taking advantage of passengers or cargo-owners. They patrol the river constantly and undercut the fares (or covertly sabotage the boats later) of crooked ferrymen. They are at odds with the Boatsmen’s League only due to Jens Leonhard’s apparent lack of piety toward their god.

“Otto’s Flats” is the name of one of the larger passenger ferry guilds around Altdorf. Headed by Otto Pentzlerr, this collective of nine greedy ferrymen limits passenger traffic between Altdorf and Kaldach. They move people and goods across the river easily for their allies. Meanwhile, those who don’t pay the exorbitant fees, find themselves with rotting cargo or forced to take long routes to bypass the ferries.

## Oskar Madravvin

Born under the sign of Cacklefax the Cockerel, Oskar Madravvin knows his prosperity is just around the bend, as he has said his whole life. He lives and operates his lone ferry on the River Aver toward the western end of the Moot and close to Averland. Some have tried to rob Oskar – to their regret, as he never forgets a face and has numerous friends on both sides of the river.

Others have tried to pressure Oskar into smuggling illegal goods. The halfling is not one to bow to pressure, however, and just hopes no one looks closely at the river bottom where he regularly drops anchor when mooring his ferry at night.

While Oskar makes a tidy living ferrying people or small amounts of cargo across the river (or downriver toward Nuln), he actually makes more money as an information broker. With his memory for faces and a gift of disarming chatter, Oskar often gets his passengers to share more information with him than they realize.

His friends among the local coachmen, bounty hunters, and fieldwardens pay him handsomely for any gossip or news on the whereabouts of certain folk or fugitives (as do the local messengers and gossips looking for more news to barter themselves).