Matin de Vries

Matin de Vries is the eldest of Saul de Vries’ sons and the most accomplished of the three within the family business. Where his sister Emlyn walked away from the expectations attached to their name, Matin embraced them, refined them and became exceptionally good at the work he was raised to do.

From a young age, Matin showed a natural understanding of how people valued things, and more importantly, how differently they valued the same thing depending on circumstance. Goods, land, contracts, reputation, obligation and time all became part of the same language to him. Under Saul’s guidance he was trained in negotiation, account keeping, trade law and the customs of the city’s guilds, eventually following the bardic tradition of the Dealmaker.

Matin has since become one of the family’s most trusted negotiators. He handles important contracts, resolves difficult commercial disputes and represents de Vries interests when the sums involved are large enough that poor wording can cost more than most people earn in a lifetime. He rarely raises his voice and dislikes theatrical bargaining. His preferred negotiation is calm, orderly and increasingly difficult to escape from as every remaining alternative is quietly made less attractive.

He is extremely good at making people feel that agreement was their own sensible conclusion.

Matin enjoys wealth and has no embarrassment about displaying it. His clothes are beautifully made, his equipment is expensive and his standards are high, although he has little patience for empty extravagance. He prefers things that are excellent, durable and recognisably valuable to anyone knowledgeable enough to notice. Among the de Vries siblings, he is probably the least likely to understand Emlyn’s insistence that independence requires deliberately making life more difficult than it needs to be.

Their relationship is complicated. Matin loves his sister and respects her courage, while finding many of her choices exasperating. He believes she could have found freedom without abandoning the advantages of the family entirely and occasionally makes the mistake of trying to explain this to her. Emlyn generally responds as expected.

He is more comfortable with Saul than any of his siblings and has gradually become someone his father treats less as a son being taught and more as a colleague whose judgement matters. That position carries its own pressure. Matin understands that much of the family’s future may eventually rest on him, and beneath his confidence lies a strong determination never to be the generation that diminishes what previous de Vries built.

With his younger brothers he is protective without being particularly indulgent. Erdmun is capable enough to be given serious responsibility and increasingly treated as an equal in business. Ganley still receives advice whether he asks for it or not. Matin expects both to succeed because, in his mind, they have been given every possible opportunity to do so.

Away from commerce, he can be surprisingly personable. Matin has a dry sense of humour, enjoys good food and company, and is capable of genuine generosity when generosity serves no obvious commercial purpose. Years spent negotiating have made him excellent at reading people, though they have also left him prone to treating ordinary disagreements as problems that can eventually be solved by finding the correct terms.

He dislikes disorder more than conflict. A hard agreement is acceptable. A bad outcome can be repaired. An unresolved matter bothers him enormously.

Matin is handsome and carefully presented, with dark brown hair, an athletic build and the easy confidence of someone raised in rooms where enormous sums changed hands over dinner. His clothing favours the green and gold associated with his family, made from expensive fabrics and cut with enough restraint to avoid looking gaudy. Even when travelling, very little about him is accidental.

To most people in Aranthaes, Matin de Vries is simply an extremely capable young merchant from an extraordinarily wealthy family.

Across a negotiating table, he is considerably more dangerous than that description suggests.