The Masked Merchants is a social encounter designed to simply mess with your players. Two fae creatures named Rin and Tin target groups of people and use their skillsets to confuse, astound, and annoy.
The fight for the Masked Merchants should be brief, if happening at all. Neither Rin nor Tin are gearing up and ready for a fight - they'll flee at the first sign of violence and do everything they can to ensure they get away.
Utilize each Merchant's "Evasive" spells to escape extremely sticky situations, and their increased movement speed to run very far away very quickly. Though they're not small creatures, both Rin and Tin and wiry and slippery.
Though essentially the same creature, Rin and Tin have drastically different personalities.
Rin is extremely introverted, but loves toying with the group the pair are targeting. Extremely similar to a cat, Rin will repeatedly do the equivalence of pushing a cup off of the counter before quickly dipping into cover. He darts around wherever the players just finished up a battle, getting their attention and confusing them. If they do get caught, Rin is extremely skittish, and will run off the first chance they gets.
Rin is also a very talented craftsman and can repair most damage dealt to items. Once the players have left, Rin will look around and find items with notable damage, that their quarry surely saw. Rin will then repair those items, and rush to bring them to Tin ahead of the group.
Tin, on the other hand, is loud, boisterous and almost obnoxious. Akin to a dog, Tin will try to talk to anyone nearby, the whole time peddling the wares that Rin has repaired. Tin's number one priority is to get the attention of the group they're targeting to make sure they see the repaired goods and make the connection that these were taken off of people felled by the party.
While Tin will talk to anybody, they only truly trust Rin. They won't follow anyone anywhere, and will run at the first sign of trouble, leaving the items behind if they need to. After all, most of their items are simple goods, and are grabbed specifically to toy with their quarry.
Tin talks quickly, and excitedly. They'll act innocent and dumb when initially questioned by the players, but won't be able to keep that up forever. Once they crack, their immediate reaction is to run.
The duo function quite simply - targeting a group of people and toying with them. If the targeted group often engages in combat, they'll collect belongings from those felled in the combat. If they don't, they'll wait to see what the group breaks in their day to day life, then repair and sell them in plain view.
They're obviously not super well liked due to this, and because of this Rin and Tin have been chased out of several areas. The pair don't even recall where they're from at this point, having been forced to move so often.
You'd think this would change their behavior. But they are nothing if not consistent.
The Masked Merchants is a very light-hearted encounter. When dealing with Rin however, it would be best to use a slightly unsettling track. Utilize something in the vein of Macadamia Mayhem from Moonlighter for Rin's lurking. When dealing with Tin, however, the jig is up and their cards are on the table. Perhaps lean into this with a light-hearted track like The Troll Shop Theme from Gwent.
