In my head, there’s more than one of them, they’re a group of retirees who chose this method of funding and enabling their ability to tick off their bucket list. They can be NPCs or DMPCs depending on the situation, and explains away the JRPG trope of the merchant in the last boss dungeon. The merchant turns out to be a retiree choosing to set up shop in the middle of their own adventures.
In my head, there’s more than one of them, they’re a group of retirees who chose this method of funding and enabling their ability to tick off their bucket list. They can be NPCs or DMPCs depending on the situation, and explains away the JRPG trope of the merchant in the last boss dungeon. The merchant turns out to be a retiree choosing to set up shop in the middle of their own adventures.