Carcenjo Foxmantle I

Carcenjo Foxmantle Portrait

Carcenjo Foxmantle I was the half-elven merchant patriarch who bankrolled the founding of the Farseas enterprise — one of the three founding figures alongside Hiren Kropus and Eleanor Osrin. He is remembered for his fat cheques and enormous gains, for the extraordinary stroke of luck that required Hiren Kropus to save his life before the partnership had properly begun, and for being the model that Vader Kropus spent a lifetime aspiring to become.

He is the patriarch of House Foxmantle.

Background

The Foxmantles are a half-elven family with some pure elves in the lineage — originally from Sembia, with commercial interests across the Sea of Fallen Stars. Their business covers grains, textiles, and shipping; their logo is a stylised fox head that ends up, as someone once observed, everywhere. Their fleet is a mighty navy. Their products are practical ones: bread, breakfast cereals, sailcloth. The Foxmantles made money by feeding and equipping the world, and they were very good at it.

Carcenjo I met Hiren Kropus during early explorations of the Farsea margins. Their friendship was immediate and — given the circumstances of Carcenjo's brush with death — cemented in a way that few professional partnerships ever are.

Nearly Eaten by the Suh'Skel

During an early Farseas expedition, Carcenjo I was captured by the Suh'Skel — the militant lizardfolk who regarded the swamp as their ancestral domain and any outsider who wandered into the wrong territory as a potential meal. Their position on the matter was stated plainly: "Eemperyuhlzzsss arrrgh honly guud fffor eeeteeng." (Imperials are only good for eating.)

Hiren Kropus negotiated Carcenjo's freedom as part of the terms for the first methane drilling site — an arrangement so foundational that it set the shape of the entire Farseas enterprise. Without Carcenjo's rescue, there would have been no Foxmantle money. Without Foxmantle money, there would have been no drilling, no cities, no Peoples Accord. The entire history of the Farseas turns, in some small way, on the fact that Hiren talked the Suh'Skel out of eating his friend.

Bankrolling the Founding

Carcenjo I wrote the fat cheques. He was the financial engine of the founding trio, and the Foxmantle investments saw incredible gains as the methane trade grew from a single drilling site to an empire. He mostly stayed out of the swamps after the founding — the arrangement suited everyone. Hiren and Eleanor managed the human and political relationships; Carcenjo managed the money and the fleet.

His family refused to return to the swamps in any formal capacity after the founding, which is why Eleanor Osrin set up the Thayan portal network between the Farseas and Cormyr — a reliable way to meet, greet, and conduct business across the distance.

Relationship with Vader Kropus

Vader Kropus never saw Carcenjo I as a rival, despite the obvious potential for competition between the Foxmantle and Kropus commercial interests. Instead, Vader admired him. Carcenjo I was the goal: the model of what a pragmatic, commercially excellent man could be. He was the benchmark by which Vader measured himself.

This is one of the quieter details of the Farseas founding — that the son of the human explorer aspired above all to be like the half-elven merchant who nearly got eaten before the adventure began.

Family

Carcenjo I's son and heir was Carcenjo Foxmantle II, who had four sisters including Rachel Foxmantle. The Foxmantle family line is not bloodthirsty, but has historically suffered from bad luck at sea and a tendency to get into racist fights that thin the numbers.