Cool -- thanks for the feedback everyone. It looks pretty much unanimous so far. The reason why I asked is that I wrote this up last night and was wondering if it was too much. Judging by the response here I think it should be alright.
The Isle of Avarice
The priest-merchants of Baloch, god of gluttony & avarice, live on this island. The island is also home to a great number of slaves, who both serve the priest-merchants and are exchanged in trade. Outsiders are decidedly unwelcome here. Trespassing is expressly forbidden and punishable by death. Few can make the claim to have visited this isle as anything other than a slave.
Baloch: Baloch-of-a-million-slaves is the god of avarice and gluttony, whose priesthood lives on the Isle of Avarice. His dreaded priest-merchants strike terrible bargains with those who are too careless in their anxiousness to get a great deal. It is said that those who sell their soul to Baloch will serve him for all eternity in the afterlife, where he sits, a massive mountain of flesh, with thousands of damned souls to fulfill his every need. Baloch consumes the souls of the damned at an astounding rate, but those consumed are not granted the peace of oblivion. They are cursed to return to his service, where they will begin their morbid cycle of servitude yet again.
The Priest-Merchants of Baloch
BELIEFS
The priest-merchants of Baloch, god of avarice and gluttony, are bloated and immensely wealthy. Dark ships that make no sound as they glide through the water slip into port and trade with mainlanders. They offer great bargains but with terrible hidden costs, luring their targets with promises of anything and everything while using immensely complex contracts which they twist to their advantage. Too often a person finds that he has unwittingly sold his soul to the service of Baloch in the afterlife, a fate for which no reward in the temporal world could ever compensate. Some merchants from the mainland follow this cult in secret, and have more beneficial arrangements with the priests in exchange for them helping to set up new victims and gather intelligence.
The history of the priest-merchants is largely shrouded in mystery, as are the rites of their religion. Indeed there is even speculation that the priest-merchants are not altogether human...
ORGANIZATION
If there is any order or hierarchy to the priest-merchants, it is certainly never seen by the uninitiated. The priest-merchants have an unearthly sense of common purpose, and have never been seen to disagree, argue, or exert authority over one another. The black ships that they sail are crewed by slaves under the close supervision of a small cabal of the merchant-priests. These slaves are often former clients.
The priest-merchants are also served on their island home by a great number of slaves. These unfortunates must attend to their every need, and there are a great many needs. The priest-merchants always remain seated and exerts as little effort as possible in all ways. Servants feed them, bathe them, clothe them, carry them from place to place, and perform every other action that is in their capacity to perform. For a priest-merchant to take a single step on his own would be one of the greatest humiliations possible – perhaps second only to being outsmarted in a contract negotiation.
RELATIONS
The priest-merchants are utterly scrupulous in following the letter of the law, but twist it’s intent so cruelly that their actions are always of the sort that seem they should be illegal, but never are. As a result, while countless rulers and bureaucrats despise them utterly, they invariably have a great deal of trouble finding reason to incriminate them (and even fear doing so for their dread reputation). Thus, the priest-merchants remain free to enter many of the ports across Haalyr. The priest-merchants of Baloch do not visit Namarundi though, as by order of the king they are to be slain instantly if caught within Namarundian waters. The priest-merchants of Baloch do not seek confrontation, and when presented with an obstacle such as this simply seek more willing victims. They likewise never engage in a fight, relying on guards and servants to do it for them.
