Dalatai Shontrick, the Coinshark

[Mike Speck]

Dalatai Shontrick, the Coinshark
Male halfling bard6/rogue1

Description: Dalatai Shontrick was once a popular traveling bard, but is now the fastest-rising merchant in the city of Aulix – a sober, bitter halfling whose successful turnaround of his family's caravan business is due to well-hidden ruthlessness and a vicious drive to dominate the taller races.

Dalatai's bardic career ended when he was summoned home to assist his family in the operation of Shontrick Caravans. Seeing the contempt in which other merchants held his kindly father and his unassuming siblings, Dalatai took a different tack: forceful and aggressive, he seeks to bring down his family's rivals and monopolize Aulix's trade using any means necessary. While he occasionally employs his bardic abilities – he is hailed as the greatest story-teller of the last half-century, and still uses charm spells regularly – he has discovered that a fierce business acumen and an openness to violence are more useful.

Rejecting bardic flamboyance as he approaches middle age, Dalatai dresses in well-made, plain-colored garb, cut to make him appear taller. His cropped blond hair and blue eyes frame a closed, wary face; his voice is low for a halfling and his speech is clipped and pointed. He is generally polite, but only with family and close associates is he friendly; he takes cold offense to any jokes about his height, or about halflings generally.

Motivations/Goals: Dalatai has discovered, somewhat to his surprise, a deep devotion to his family – it is this loyalty which drives him to ruin the merchants of the taller races who so disrespected his father. He is also intensely protective of his fellow halflings, and takes it upon himself to see to their well-being. Lastly, he seeks magic to improve his strength and physical prowess – humiliating a human in a contest of strength would please him to no end, and he feverishly pursues rumors of a magical mask that would allow him to swallow such an opponent whole....

Schemes/Plots/Adventure Hooks: Dalatai works indirectly, hiring and charming agents to handle his legal and illegal business: guards, outriders, saboteurs, killers, and so on. Among other possibilities:
*A halfling PC in trouble is rescued by Dalatai's bodyguards, in exchange for future favors.
*After the party wizard's spellbook is stolen, the party receives a tip leading them to one of Dalatai's rivals. The halfling expects them to wreak havoc on the targeted warehouse, during which another group will steal a valuable shipment from another part of the warehouse.
*While escorting a Shontrick caravan, the PCs help defeat an ambush. The other guards – Shontrick regulars – are unusually brutal, hunting down and killing the fleeing bandits. They then ransack the bandits' lair, burning any paper they find, but allowing the PCs to keep all other treasure. At the bottom of one chest, the PCs find a scribbled log of caravans these bandits have robbed...all Shontrick rivals....

[Ed Greenwood]

Initial Impression: A shrewd, unscrupulous merchant. Stock villain in an urban setting or along a trade route unless he’s been designed so as to make him stand out. So, has he been? Otherwise, I’m not feeling excitement . . .

Concept: A halfling who stands up for the Halflings against all other races. And has good family reasons for doing so. And a drive to succeed in business by all means, fair and foul. Fine, understandable, and a deployable villain. Yet seemingly still a pretty ordinary one.

Execution: Good, clear writing. Just one minor (and it is minor) style cavil: I get a list of the agents he works through and it ends in ”And so on”? Ah, c’mon, tell me what the “et cetera” is. (Pssst! There’s no tomorrow for me to hang on for; the submission has to Tell All, or pay the price.)
I’m more concerned with not getting enough meaty examples of Dalatai’s tactics (other than that he always works through others). I do get what drives him (the need to avenge slights done to his father [about which we don't quite learn enough for them to have emotional impact, by the way]; the chance to personally beat a human; the search for the mask), which is good.

Tilt: I want more excitement, but somehow this submission has spurred me to start thinking of ways to jazz up this villain, instead of not caring and turning away. See below . . .

Overall: The versatility and deployability of this villain won out over my concerns about his blandness, but not by much. This villain seems more “useful” than “memorable” to me, and as a DM I’d want to spice him up more than a bit. Give him colorful allies or girlfriends plus a secret or two. Perhaps something he must do for the family that his father failed to do, that other surviving family members will judge him on . . . and perhaps some personal magical immunity or “make magic go wild” factor that he doesn’t entirely understand, so he’ll learn it along with the PCs as they battle him again and again. Perhaps he has doubles who will lay down their lives for him in battles with the PCs so the real Dalatai survives to scheme against the PCs more effectively in future. I need SOMEthing. I need more excitement. Yet, I can work with this villain, so though I perhaps should nix it as too weak or ordinary, I’ll say yes.

Recommendation: Recommended (lukewarmly, I’m afraid) for advancement.

[Sean K Reynolds]

This guy would be a good contact for a group of PCs working on the fringe of organized crime or the corrupt side of the business world. But a villain?

He's devoted to his family, merchants who've been pushed around.
One of his plot hooks has him rescuing a PC in trouble.
He's involved in some shady stuff, but against other people. I get the impression that if the PCs never insulted him or stole from him or competed against him, he'd never do anything bad about them.

He's an interesting character with a respectable motivation, but he's just not villainous enough.

Rec: do not advance.

[Clark Peterson]

Oh man. I love a good low level villain. This isn't one, though.

Ruining merchants and humiliating the bigs just isn't enough.

I agree with Mr. Greenwood's comments. But I just don't think that in RPG Superstar I should be doing the filling in of the blanks. I, too, more times than I can count in this year's contest and last year's contest, have found a seed of an idea and been swayed by it and wanted to take it and run with it. But that is MY design, not the author's design.

I DO NOT recommend this villain advance.

[Wolfgang Baur]

We've seen three bards but only one halfling. Interesting choice, and I must say I like the premise. In a typical D&D world, halfings should be merchants and scoundrels. It seems to be bred into the PC types, after all, so this is a neat twist on that.

But for me, it doesn't go far enough.

Dalatai needs to be more of a bastard to make it as a big villain. If this villain were written a little more ruthlessly, I'd say yes. But he's a little too cautious and hiding behind too many masks to quite make the merchant villain stick.

A villain can't just be ruthless. He has to be beyond the pale of civilized life. He needs to be stopped with extreme violence and heroics, for the good of all. In true villain style, even his own mother should denounce his actions.

And Dalatai, it seems, just needs to be arrested and charged. He's not quite bad enough. Push the concept harder to make a villain stick; this is a little too safe.

Recommendation Lots of promise, but not recommended to advance.

[Mike Speck]

I thank the Four Big Judges for their feedback. It's been copy/pasted for further digestion (and rest assured, there will be further digestion). I hope the voters will give me an opportunity to show improvement on those points mentioned.

So on that note...votes, comments, and critique appreciated! Vote Shontrick!

[Fern Herold]

I like the character... but not as a villain. More of a contact.

[Wicht]

I am tempted to vote for you just to see if you can make this character more villainous. Good character but not necessarily a villain.

[Sue Flaherty]

Oh, so close ... but a miss for me. Just not enough villain here to hang my hat on. Sorry.

[Reckless]

Reckless Ratings

Concept3
(Is this villain villainous?)
Content3
(Grammar, Format,Spelling, Etc.)
Coolness2
(Would my players be impressed by this? Am I?)
Credibility2
(Does the villain’s motives make sense?)
Clarity3
(How good a sense of how to stat this villain do we get?)

Scores out of 5 and completely based on my opinion only.
Total Score13

[GolarionMidwife]

So he's a villain... with a family business to run. And not even an evil family business... it's like suddenly finding out the proprietor of your local grocery store is actually an evil mastermind. It's not really fitting together for me...

[Michael Hatfield]

Mike Speck wrote:

he feverishly pursues rumors of a magical mask that would allow him to swallow such an opponent whole....

Mike Speck wrote:

rest assured, there will be further digestion

Groan...

[Russ Taylor]

Plusses:
halfling crime boss, puts in mind of Midgets in the Earth in an old April Dragon
melee bard, an archetype we don't see enough of

Biggest minus:
Here's this unethical halfling, and instead of masterminding a web of criminal enterprises, he works to make a normal business succeed. There was a good chance at him being the Underboss here, with his family business being just a front.

I like the start of the idea, but it'll have to be another pass for me.

[Corrosive Rabbit]

I like the beginning of the concept, but this villain joins a growing list of villain entries that make me think that the work is being put on the GM to figure out how to enmesh the PCs in Shontrick's schemes.

For me, a villain has to be someone that I can drop in a setting, have him or her go on their merry way, and be reasonably sure that the PCs are going to be motivated to act against them on their own, because the villain's schemes are going to directly and deeply affect the PCs in some way. There's always the option of having a third party pay the PCs to stop Shontrick, but that's not the kind of motivation that makes for a memorable villain. I want villains that make it personal, as opposed to representing a professional commitment for the PCs. This isn't to single this entry out -- as I stated, there are a lot of entries that went this route.

CR

[roguerouge]

This guy totally needed a trophy elf wife. If he's going to over-compensate, he might as well go all the way.

I like the "Death of a Salesman 2: Biff's Revenge" angle, but I agree that a specific slight would do wonders to liven up this submission. With a specific slight, you'd have this villain's villain. And that's an angle that develops plot hooks.

[Mike Speck]

Thank you all for your reviews and commentary. Vote Dalatai and join the Shontrick "family"....

[Winterwalker]

Poor merchants, I wouldn't use this guy in my game due to the fact I love my merchants. Those longshanks don't deserve the strife this guy would bring!

It seems rather bland for my tastes, I want action, I want "BAM!", in my face villains, and I'm just not seeing it so far.

[Charles Evans 25]

I love the 'driven' halfling angle, but as with other posters it's not currently apparent to me what makes this a superstar villain? He has a superstar villain's name, with that 'Coinshark' soubriquet, but how and why has he earned it? You don't tell us.

Will this villain cause the PCs grief?
Maybe if they're prone to make jokes at the expense of the stature of halflings or have been Mean to one of his relatives. I'm not seeing it otherwise.

[Ernest Mueller]

2/10

A halfling merchant/crime boss. I'm probably jaded from Finn from Freeport but it's been done, and in this case, not in a very interesting way. This is a random NPC that the party will have trouble remembering clearly.

[Montalve]

Mike, Dalatai is an interesting, really interesting NPC, but that is about it... he is not a villain, not The Villain at least...

he is just ruthless merchant with a good voice and prejudice for the tall races, that is all

[deadly_puddingcup]

He's a villain, but he's nothing to write home about. He would be a good villain for a small arch or a side quest, but I couldn't see him as someone that the PCs would worry about once they left his territory or killed him. Now that I'm thinking about it, if you're running an all city campaign, he would make a decent villain.

[Jason Nelson]

Not bad, he has plans and motivations, he's going places... but it's all just a little too small (pun intended).

It's kind of like the James Bond movie Goldeneye. It's a movie with a lot of nice parts to it, but when you sit back and think about it at the end, it's really just a bank robbery. James Bond shouldn't be stopping bank robberies, no matter how big. Maybe you could say the same thing about Goldfinger, I guess, but execution put it over the top in a way its later sibling didn't.

A nice enough NPC, but not quite Superstar.

[Casey Smith]

Mike Speck wrote:

...he feverishly pursues rumors of a magical mask that would allow him to swallow such an opponent whole.......

Ha! I missed that until just now. Awesome.

[Mike Speck]

Thank you all for your commentary. Pour it on! I'm here to learn!

Glad you liked the shout-out, Casey. =0

[Steven Helt]

Last year I would not have liked this villain so much. A little vanilla. A seed for me to run with, like Clark mentions above. But the other entries are really flawed or uninspiring. Shontrick (a bad name for a halfling, I think) is motivated, has shown us a little of how he does business, and we even get a peek at what goes on behind those beady little...erm...Small eyes.

A vote-getter for the time being. Lack of examples of true treachery will sink you if three more entries beat you out.

[Mike Speck]

Steven -- thanks for the consideration!

-S

[Majuba]

You had me at halfling. (and you didn't disappoint)

[Jorrik the Fat]

If the characters annoy him for some reason, this guy has the potential to become an interesting villain. But the GM is pretty much going to have to set that up, because the PCs *have* no obvious reason to annoy him. He's a unscrupulous merchant, and certainly an interesting character, but, for me, he doesn't quite have that villainous feel. More of a potential villain than an actual one, really.

[Charles Evans 25]

Well, Dalatai made the roll-off for my last vote, but was not successful.
The description of the villain was good in my opinion, but I think you were lacking in indications of current villainous activities. I think that you needed to make more of the 'put other merchants out of business' bit, and especially explain why Dalatai is called 'The Coinshark'. All other entries being the same, those would have been enough to get at least my last vote, instead of having to contend for it.

[Joel Flank]

I found Dalatai pretty boring. I could use him as a villain, but I could pretty easily find a better choice that would be more memorable. To really shine, he needs to go to crazy extremes to put other merchants out of business, but that wasn't described in this entry. Capturing enemy merchants and chopping them up into fine steaks to profit from them, transforming them into monsters that attack yet other merchants, sacrificing them to demons for more power or tainted trade goods all would have been ideas to make him stand out, but simply ruining their business with no real examples? I'll pass.

[Mike Speck]

Thank you, all posters, for your reviews, compliments, and reservations. Without writing a small novel here, I will simply say that I agree with almost all posted concerns, and own them as a writer -- in other words, the vision in my head would probably have answered them, but my ACTUAL SUBMISSION on which I was being judged was full of holes, many of which were pointed out by posters.

To oversimplify: in my head I had Don Corleone, or Niska. On paper, I submitted Badger. Interesting, many posters said, but just not villain enough. Hopefully I'll have an opportunity to rectify that.

Thanks again for your feedback, and to Majuba for standing up and saying "I voted Dalatai!"

-Speck

[Charles Evans 25]

Sorry you didn't make the top 16, but.... since you're out of the contest now, any chance of you getting together with Boomer and whipping up a 'Boomerified' version of Dalatai? :D

[Mike Speck]

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Sorry you didn't make the top 16, but.... since you're out of the contest now, any chance of you getting together with Boomer and whipping up a 'Boomerified' version of Dalatai? :D

Stranger things have happened -- all of them Boomer-related, actually -- but I think I'll clean up the Coinshark solo after this weekend's auditions, and post him for feedback. That way I can see if I'm truly hearing what the posters are saying, or just making changes for the sake of changes.

Of course, he's Paizo's now anyway, so I might not even be allowed to do that...?

Thank you all again!