As aforementioned, four wealthy, well-established local families unofficially rule the trading city of Delzimmer. They can be very dangerous if crossed (for instance, although none of them officially keep slaves, they employ drugs to enslave certain individuals -- slayers, thieves, and personal bodyservants -- to their wills). Wise visitors learn all they can about these folk, and as with all self-styled nobles, their feuds and intrigues are long, involved, and as ye might say, "Byzantine."
The traits of this numerous, fecund family include mimicry and nondescript facial features, which has allowed them to impersonate many folk in their travels. Only sixteen Jathlets at most are to be found in Delzimmer at any time. The rest are scattered across Faerûn pursuing trade and theft opportunities with all the skills and avid hunger of the worst sort of Rat Hills merchant (the Sword Coast term for any outrageously dishonest trader, the sort of merchant who'll sell you someone else's wagon when its owner has just stepped into a tavern to sell a keg of ale).
Jathlets own any number of small trading companies working the Tashalar ports, and there are persistent rumors that the family ranks include at least one necromancer skilled in magic that can knit body parts together and alter human physiques and faces enough to hide someone permanently. Enemies of the Jathlets claim these abilities are used to forever trap important persons (kidnapped by the Jathlets) into slavery.
In Delzimmer, folk say "a Jathlet's behind it" of almost any trade transaction or change in the prices of goods, because the family dips their fingers into almost all local mercantile doings.
Jathlets rule their staff by fear, not bothering to pay well or hire for long, and only reward loyalty on the part of their numerous house guards (highly trained and superbly equipped warriors). Jathlets care little for pomp, ritual, or showing off their wealth, and customarily dress in anything comfortable. Their servants have overtunics of Jathlet green emblazoned with the Jathlet at hunt badge. The family maintains no less than three grand houses in Delzimmer, but the oldest and largest is Selkturrets on Alvandaer Street.
Since the recent death of longtime patriarch "Happy" Jolthur Jathlet in a rather suspicious riding accident, the family is nominally led by his widow Elsraea (LE female human Ari6/Rog4), but dominated by its independently operating "forest of uncles." Some two dozen in number and typified by the saturnine Feldaern (NE male human Ari4/Ftr8/Rog6), these men are rarely in Delzimmer for long. There are a dozen younger, more reckless Jathlet sons, such as Dolrur (CE male human Ari2/Ftr2/Rog1), who swagger about Delzimmer trying to prove themselves -- but behind all of these are the mysterious elder mages of the family, of whom I've only met Malthorn (NE male human Ari6/Nec14).