FARTHINGAZZ

When he was young, Farthingazz was in the Indigo Oyster Bar with Belboz. When the Great Necromancer had a couple of drinks too many, he fell over top of Farthingazz. It was only for a few seconds, but in those fleeting moments, more secret and arcane knowledge passed from him to Farthingazz than any length of time studying at G.U.E. Tech could have brought him. The spell book fell out of Belboz’s pocket and Farthingazz happened to pick it up afterwards.

By the time of the Great Monster Uprising, Farthingazz was known as phony wizard who tried to scam adventurers with false magic tricks which required an item of significant weight of the sucker to be dropped into his battered hop hat, such as a wallet. Other scams included writing down their bank details inside a sealed envelope which he would read with his mind. Another example of his schemes, included mass-mailing of the following letter:

Good Sir,

You may not know me, but I am your great-uncle twice removed, Rumplestiltskin. I have recently caught the black lung, and the local medicine men tell me that it’s fatal. As I never had any children myself, you are my closest living relative, and it is to you that I have decided to leave my huge fortune of 70,000,000 zm. However, due to an accounting oversight this money is in a secured account which I am unable to access, so I fear I must ask you to send 10,000 zm to my lawyer, Wizard Farthingazz of Port Foozle, who will then be able to access the account and repay you all the money in full. I hope you enjoy the same happiness that being able to sleep on a huge pile of Zorkmids has brought me.

Uncle Rumpie

He claimed to have a dark tower, but this information was most likely falsified, as the dishonest wizard was known to have been a resident of Dark Alley #19 in Port Foozle. 

When he was encountered during those days, Farthingazz was a hobbling and wizened old man. His cloak and robes were clearly some star-patterned curtains that had been badly sewn together. Despite his aging, he could disappear with the speed of someone who knew that moving quickly would get him an easy buck, and hanging around might get him killed.

Before the death of his friend Zazzimano, Farthingazz lent out "Wizipedia: a Guide to Ruinous Runes" to him for some light holiday reading, but he never returned from the trip. All that remained was a cryptic letter.

Farthingazz also occasionally played Double Fanucci with Shinboz. Since Shinboz moved around a lot, he sent coded invitations to prevent stupid people from turning up, which caused Farthingazz to miss several games.

During the Great Monster Uprising of the Second Age of Magic, Farthingazz attempted to scam an anonymous man by the alias of "Detective Softly" who was lurking the streets of Port Foozle. Farthingazz was hired to identify and translate some runes which were discovered from the Peltoid Valley. At first the wizard was reasonably sure that he could identify them as being "magical", but further investigation required the "Wizipedia" book which he had lent to Zazzimano. "Softly" was able to decrypt Zazzimano's last letter and promptly returned the book to Farthingazz. The wizard was able to determine that the runes belonged to a group of dark magicians known as the Brotherhood of Ur’agoth. Farthingazz directed him to Shinboz for more information. This required Softly to decode one of Shinboz’s coded invitations to determine his whereabouts at the Miznia Marshland. Farthingazz never saw "Softly" again, but after meeting with Shinboz, "Softly" deceived Farthingazz away from his present location at the Miznia Marshlands, by deviously providing him with misleading information in the following telegram:

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SOURCE(S): Legends of Zork