D&D Player Compendium

Halia Thornton

2 min read

Halia Thornton — Mistress of the Miner’s Exchange

Sharp, ambitious human woman who runs the Miner’s Exchange in Phandalin. By far the most polished and politically savvy of the town’s merchants.

At a Glance

  • Race / Profession: Human, in her early thirties. Runs the Miner’s Exchange — the assayer’s office where miners bring ore to be weighed and sold.
  • Where to find her: The Miner’s Exchange on the south side of Phandalin’s town square.
  • Disposition: Polished, deliberate, attentive. The kind of person who pours wine without breaking eye contact.

Personality

Halia is the smartest person in any room she walks into and she lets you find that out at her pace, not yours. She does not raise her voice. She does not interrupt. She does not haggle. She makes you feel respected — and a few minutes later, you realize you have agreed to something you would not normally have agreed to.

She presents as a frontier business owner with a sharper-than-average mind for trade and politics. Townsfolk describe her as “the only person in Phandalin who could actually run the place if she wanted to.”

Her Offer to the Party

Halia will openly offer the party the following job:

Kill Glasstaff. Recover any correspondence in his quarters. Deliver it directly to her. 100gp on completion, paid in advance if the party seems trustworthy.

She frames this as a civic act — Phandalin needs to be free of the Redbrands — and her wording is impeccable. She has personal reasons she does not elaborate on, beyond saying that the Redbrands’ continued presence is “bad for the mining trade.”

What She Will Tell The Party

  • The Redbrands do not harass her business. They have, in her words, “an unspoken arrangement” — she implies this is because the Exchange is too valuable to disrupt and the gang would rather extract revenue gradually than provoke a confrontation.
  • Their leader is Glasstaff, a wizard. He is at Tresendar Manor. He has personal correspondence she would like to see.
  • She is willing to pay the party half her offered fee up front — a gesture of good faith.

Connections

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