Handrich

Handrich is the god of trade, merchants and the sacred bargain, revered above all in the wealthy port of Marienburg and among the trading houses of the wider Empire of Man. He is the patron of those who buy and sell, the guardian of contracts, and the divine advocate of the fair deal honestly struck. To Handrich, commerce is not a base thing but a holy act, for trade binds distant peoples together and turns the wheels of civilisation as surely as any army or altar.

His faithful are merchants, guildmasters and money-lenders, who count a profit honestly earned as an offering to their god and a broken contract as a blasphemy against him. The temples of Handrich double as counting-houses and exchanges, where oaths are sworn over ledgers and the god's blessing is invoked upon every venture and voyage. In mercantile Marienburg, whose wealth rivals that of any imperial province, his cult wields quiet influence to match the gold in its coffers.

Yet Handrich's is a worldly faith in a treacherous age, for gold draws the greedy and the corrupt as surely as it draws the honest. His doctrine holds that a bargain is sacred only if freely made, and his priests preach against the fraud, the extortion and the smuggler's coin that would rot trade from within. In a world where Chaos offers its own dark bargains, the god of merchants reminds his followers that every deal has a price, and that the wise trader reads the terms with care before setting hand to the parchment.