Fai Chen

Fai Chen was a planewalking merchant who ran the Fantastical Faire, a traveling shop. As part of a gambit to get out of servitude under the rakshasa Mahadi, he drew on obscure knowledge of ki and made duplicates of himself.

Description
Fai Chen was a mustached Shou man standing tall with weathered tan skin, black hair, and dark green eyes. He typically wore somewhat worn out monk's robes covered in dust.

Personality
As befitting of a merchant, Fai Chen acted friendly, had good manners, and was preternaturally aware of what was happening in and around his shop. He didn't allow his merchandise to even be touched until a full transaction had taken place, and would always hand purchased wares to the buyer himself.

Fai liked gaming sets, particularly card games, and was always happy to trade his wares for them.

Although not always apparent, the most unusual aspect of Fai was that there was more than one of him. When multiple Fais were around each other, they tended to give one another knowing looks and would finish each other's sentences.

Abilities
Well-versed in the study of ki, Fai Chen devised of a way to use this power in order to create duplicates of himself. Rather than the better-known clones created by the clone spell, these doubles remained extensions of Fai himself, and although their shared knowledge wasn't flawless, none of them were different people.

Possessions
The wooden cart Fai Chen traveled with functioned as his home as well as his shop. When selling wares, he could open the latches at the top of the cart in order for the split ceiling to fall to the sides in order to display a selection of magic items hanging from pegs and hooks. It was rumored that the cart was some manner of extradimensional space, but this was unverified, and Fai Chen did not want to speak about it.

Fai also owned a monocle that could discern the true value of any observed item, as well as a dagger made out of a large tooth of unknown origin.

Relationships
Gary, the mule pulling the Fantastical Faire cart, and Drandeldew, the blue faerie dragon familiar, were Fai's constant companions.

Fai and Mahadi had a contentious relationship, as Fai was the only mortal to ever escape from one of Mahadi's contracts. Because of this, Mahadi simultaneously admired Fai's resourcefulness and also hated him intensely.

Su Zhen Kang and Fai were once good friends as monks in the same order, but when the two became indentured under Mahadi, Su Zhen was unable to escape and ended up signing his soul away to the rakshasa. Twisted by his service as Mahadi's master torturer, Su Zhen became emotionless, and had no compunctions about harming his former friend in order to learn of his self-multiplication technique and free himself from bondage.

The planetar Rinzel was familiar enough with Fai to recognize him by looks alone, and seemingly didn't have a high opinion of him.

History
Fai Chen was originally a temple monk. While mastering the ki manipulation techniques of his order, he and his fellow monk Su Zhen Kang grew weary of their monastic life and yearned for adventure. As the duo read about grand adventures, they attracted the attention of Mahadi, who offered them a deal to learn to travel the planes with his Wandering Emporium and eventually, after paying off their incurred debt, to go free with this knowledge.

As it turned out, the only plane that the Wandering Emporium wandered was the Nine Hells. What's more, the monks were trapped in servitude, as their debt to Mahadi kept growing with every meal he gave them, every monster in their path he disposed of, and every break he granted. On top of that, accounting for interest, there was seemingly no way to get out from under this contract. Eventually, Su Zhen broke from despair, and ended up selling his soul to Mahadi in exchange for power and the possibility of happiness, devoting himself fully to Asmodeus. Fai, however, held on to his soul, and looked for another way out.

Fai Chen found a loophole in the contract, and exploited it by drawing upon his obscure knowledge of ki in order to create duplicates of himself. As long as at least one of these duplicates continued to toil under Mahadi, the rest were free to go out and find external revenue to pay off the debt, which Fai and his doubles did by building up their merchant empire. Ultimately, their debt was paid off, and the Fais returned to the Prime Material plane to continue their trade in Faerûn.

Rumors & Legends
False stories of Fai Chen's early life circulated. Many believed that the reason he left his monastic order was due to expulsion for unknown offenses. Another rumor held that he joined a group of adventurers that traveled across Faerûn looking for riches and danger as a way of putting his days of asceticism in the past. One anecdote in particular made the claim that a horrible encounter with a mummy was what made Fai give up adventuring and become a traveling merchant instead.

Appearances

 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
 * Hecatomb • Day of the Devil • Faces of Fortune • Infernal Insurgency • The Diabolical Dive • Losing Fai • The Breath of Life • Maddening Screams • Consequences of Choice • Fang and Claw • Where Devils Fear to Tread • The Harrowing of Hell