Antholo Kraul

Antholo Kraul was the proprietor of Antholo's All the Realms, a map and chart shop located in Delzimmer in southeast Faerûn circa the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR. He was a seemingly ordinary man except that he mysteriously returned from the dead on multiple occasions.

Description
Antholo had no unusual features that made him stand out in a crowd. He was of short stature, rotund in build, and losing his hair.

Personality
Antholo Kraul was a modest and unpretentious man.

Relationships
He had a small circle of friends who were fellow merchants on the same street as his shop. He had a number of cousins that may have been envious or covetous of his mediocre success as a shopkeeper.

History
Around the latter part of the Year of the Unstrung Harp, 1371 DR, or early 1372, Antholo was walking along Paroind Street in Delzimmer when a three-story residence mysteriously collapsed and the western stone face and balcony landed on him and a few others who were passing by. He was tragically crushed to death. When his bloody body was recovered, his face was still quite recognizable, and the acquaintances that were with him at the time identified him to the authorities without a doubt. His body was subsequently cremated on a funeral pyre as was the custom in Delzimmer.

A very few days after his death, three of his female cousins were going through his map shop, arguing over his wares and possessions, when Antholo walked in at the usual time he opened the shop, apparently unscathed. This gave his cousins a fright, and created quite a commotion in the immediate neighborhood as news of his return spread. The seemingly bewildered Antholo did not offer any explanation of his whereabouts (his business was his business, after all) and the small gathering of townsfolk reckoned that it was a case of mistaken identity.

After the furor died down, business returned to normal for a tenday or so until, as luck would have it, some thieves fleeing a botched robbery attempt at Istryn's Silks on Lhavarild Street fatally stabbed Antholo as he walked down that same street. His cousins attested to a kala (one of the priests of law hired to act as judges in matters of civil disputes and criminal cases) that they were certain it was the body of Antholo Kraul that laid in the street, and the corpse was again placed on a pyre, this time witnessed by a nagra (one of the local police force) who watched until the bones turned black. Three days later, Antholo's All the Realms had its proprietor back.

On the night of his second return from the dead, Antholo was murdered in cold blood by notorious thug-for-hire Srandro Chree. The very next evening, Antholo walked into the Reaching Hand tavern to meet with his drinking buddies at the usual time. They were understandably curious about all three of his deaths, but he rebuffed inquiries with mild disdain, implying they should not be concerned. Later, his friends all avowed that it was the real Antholo that drank with them, although they reported that he seemed a bit subdued, with a touch of melancholy.

Kraul was the talk of the town for a while, and three kala ordered the nagra to watch him carefully. The priest-judges also paid a wizard passing through town to verify that the Antholo going about his business was not something else impersonating the shopkeeper. While being surveilled, the suddenly famous map salesman narrowly escaped being run over by a fast-moving cart and dying in a tavern brawl with a drunken outlander. But, seven days later, Kraul was again murdered as he was about to enter his house by a large flower urn falling from his own balcony. The nagra witnessed the incident and observed someone exiting the balcony, whom they arrested and identified as one of Kraul's cousins. They suspected but could not prove a connection between the cousin and Srandro Chree, or the driver of the racing cart almost a tenday before.

The kala ordered the corpse be brought to a station house for observation instead of being burned as usual. Over the next few days, it began to decompose as expected, but then simply faded away to nothing. This phenomenon was observed by several nagra, and neighbors of Antholo reported that the blood stain left on the ground in front of his doorway vanished at about the same time. Four days later, Antholo opened his shop at the usual time in his usual unassuming manner.

The kala interrogated Kraul closely, but got no definitive answers from the unperturbed merchant. This series of incidents generated heated debates among the kala as to what was within their purview regarding the possible threat of strong magic operating in Delzimmer. Quite a few Delzemaer were greatly concerned that news of Antholo's situation would attract the Red Wizards or other powerful groups interested in seizing whatever knowledge or advantage could be had from poor Antholo Kraul.