IMTU Templates 5: Merchants

1.5 Merchants

Merchants have a background in the large, Imperially-chartered merchant ships that tied the Empire together with trade. They are now on their own, savvy businessmen, some of whom border on the criminal with shady deals, fleecing the rubes and engaging in trade wars, but they’re excellent at weighing risk against profit.

1.5.1 Merchant Captain

By the time you mustered out you had made it to your own command of one of the mid-sized merchant vessels, and spent time on some of the really big ones. While even those aren’t as big as the imperial warships they are damn site larger than any free trader. Still, the work of moving things on relatively routine hauls pales after a while, and on exiting from your megacorp you have the chance to do something new – open up new trade routes, act as a manager for mercenary companies, whatever.

Body 5, Mind 5, Reflexes 5, Meta 1

Divide 5 points amongst your stats, with no more than 4 points in any one.

Skills

Command* 10; Deceit 11; Drive 12; Gambling 11; Guns 8; Info (Navigate) 10; Info (pick) 10; Martial Arts 10; Status 10; Trader 13

Shticks

Shtick 1- Smooth Operator: spend a Fortune Point to temporarily bamboozle anyone with a line of patter. This won’t make them your willing slaves but it will distract them and reduce the difficulty of any social tests by 3.

Shtick 2- any Guns or Blade shtick.

1.5.2 Merchant Broker

Sure you spent time on the merchant vessels, but your real skill lay in connecting the people who needed something in one place with someone who had it in another, by way of someone who could actually move it. Now that you’re out from the big merchant chains you can actually start putting this web of connections to personal use. While you no longer have nigh limitless resources behind you there are plenty of ways to make a killing.

Body 5, Mind 5, Reflexes 5, Meta 0

Divide 6 points amongst your stats, with no more than 4 points in any one.

Skills

Computers 10; Deceit 13; Drive 12; Gambling 10; Guns 9; Investigation 12; Martial Arts 9; Repair 9; Trader 11

Shticks

Shtick 1- Knows a Guy: Unless entirely implausible (mis-jumped to a planet no human has ever seen level implausible), spend a Fortune Point to have a connection anywhere where there are enough people to call a town. It might be a friend of a friend of a friend, but it’s enough to get you some support, depending on what you ask.

Shtick 2- pick one guns or blade shtick

Merchant Quartermaster

The Quartermaster of a major trading ship is responsible for getting the cargos in and out, and making sure the ship is fully supplied. They also have to be a dab had at repairs and possible vacc suit certified to get out of the ship and assist. When you scale that down to the Tramp Freighter level, like many of your old friends from the company have, you suddenly become chief mechanics, space based contact expert, primary programmer and heaven knows what else. But it certainly keeps you busy!

Body 5, Mind 5, Reflexes 5, Meta 1

Divide 5 points amongst your stats, with no more than 4 points in any one.

Skills

Computers 10; Deceit 10; Drive 9; Gambling 13; Guns 11; Info (Choose) 9; Martial Arts 10; Repair 11; Sabotage 9; Survival 9; Trader 12

Shticks

Pick 2 shticks from Guns, Blades or those listed below.

Shtick 1- Scraps and Remnants: you have all the stuff in the corners of the hold that you couldn’t move, or the sample copies of things that look interesting. You can always make a Trader roll to see if you have something that might serve for your purposes, or spend a Fortune point to guarantee it.

Shtick 2- Merchant Vacc Suit Training: you have logged a thousand hours in both standard vacc suits and industrial cargo loaders that are essentially mech suits with the serial numbers filed waaaaay off. You suffer no penalties when wearing a Vacc suit or in zero gravity. You know just enough to run a mech suit without penalty (Advanced Vacc Suit skill is a prerequisite).