Hugo Delftgruber

"I don't remember. I just sell rope, that's all! I'm no one, from nowhere! Leave me alone!"

- Hugo Delftgruber, Frightened Trader

Hugo Delftgruber, or Old Delftgruber as he is usually known, is a drab, scrawny-looking man in his late fifties. His narrow, sharp features are deeply etched, and he has a distracted, slightly absent-minded manner. His hands are slightly twisted, as if with serious arthritis. He wears fingerless gloves most of the time, but if anyone inspects his hands closely they will find scars on the palms and backs, as if nails were driven through them several years ago.

On matters to do with ship's outfitting, Hugo Delftgruber is as sharp, bright and efficient as any Guilderveld merchant charging three times the price. Apart from occasional periods of abstraction, he is a master of his trade and many ship captains deal exclusively with him.

Should the conversation drift onto other topics, how-ever, Old Delftgruber's eccentricities come a little more to the fore. He knows very little of what goes on in Marienburg, as he hardly ever leaves his shop. His almost complete lack of knowledge and curiosity is rare among Marienburgers, and is enough for a number of his neighbours to be convinced that he's completely mad.

And he is timid in the extreme: if anyone should press him for the answer to a question, or raise their voice in his shop, Old Delftgruber may suffer a spell of dementia. He does not care to hear about events in the outside world, and will ask people to change the subject; if they insist on forcing some item of news upon him, he also is in danger of a spell of dementia.

Old Delftgruber never speaks about his past, when he was one of the north city's most feared crime bosses, or of his downfall at the hands of the dreaded Adalbert Henschmann - he either can't or won't remember anything from this period of his life.

Old Delftgruber has a number of regular customers, but knows almost nobody else. Friends from "the old days" will occasionally drop in, but they don't stay long, since he gets upset easily. He tries to have nothing to do with the smuggling operation, or at least, as little as possible. Having tasted Adalbert's vengeance once, he is not keen to suffer again. He has a close friend in Sumieren Imlordil of Priceless Friends, whose life Hugo once saved during the same gang war that cost him his power. Sumieren doesn't visit often, but his response would be instant and violent should he learn of anyone harming his friend.

Source
[[Category:H]] [[Category:D]]
 * Warhammer Fantasy RPG 1st ED -- Marienburg: Sold Down the River
 * pg. 84