Pierre is a thin, good looking man in his early thirties, he has auburn hair and green eyes. He dresses in the finest clothes, but prefers loose fitting silk shirts and pants when not participating in any social event.He has a mesmerazing personality, he is the kind of person that everyone notices when he enters a room, his class and refinement have made him a very well known person among the nobility and high society. For the same reasons, he is usually found at parties and receptions entertaining large groups of young ladies.

The "guildmaster" of the Claw is nothing more than his puppet, and so he controls a vast network of criminals; aside from that, his front is that of a jeweler and a rare merchandises dealer, which is by itself a powerful trading organization, with many legit contacts in lands near and far.

He also has connections with the nobility, the high society and several corrupted judges and officials (through his puppet), as well as the kingdom's army.

 Pierre Lantier was born in a foreign nation, the only son of a rich jeweler, from whom he learned everything about the trade, the rest of his education was entrusted to a famous tutor, who taught him many things about the "modern" (in a manner of speaking) sciences and proper manners.

When he was 20, his mother died of a terrible illness, spending little over than six months in bed, suffering a slow, painful agony. He and his father did not take the death of his mother pretty well, the first months after that were very hard, as his father began drinking and gambling a lot, supposedly to forget his sorrows.

As for Pierre, he dealt with his pain in a similar way, giving himself to a life of disipation, living only for wine and women. During that time, Pierre and his father hardly saw each other, let alone speak to one another.

His father died a year later, drunk and dirty, on a dark street corner, apparently he was mugged on his way home, the truth is that he was killed by the city's thieves guild for not paying his numerous debts. After his father's death, Pierre was in charge of the family business, or more properly, in charge of his father's debts.

The city's guild was now after Pierre to make him pay his father's debts, after many threats and scares, Pierre was able to negociate a way to pay them off and save his business. The deal was simple, by using his contacts and his store as a front, he was to help the guild smuggle products into the city for sale on the black market.

This went on for several years, even after the debt was paid, and Pierre was even able to rebuild his fortune and expand his contacts, he even became an important member of the thieves guild. Pierre became an expert in dealing stolen goods, smuggling, etc.

After working in the guild's payroll for 6 years, he felt more than ready to break free from them and start his own operation. To this end, he betrayed the guild to the city's militia, prior to hiring a band of asssasins to kill any person who could involve him with the guild's activities. The strike on the guild's power was swift and fierce, most of its members were imprisoned or killed, and the very few who escaped disappeared hastily.

After that, Lantier left the city and established himself in the PC's kingdom, nation, whatever. It has been 7 years since that, and Pierre's fortune and influence have increased greatly. Using a large network of smugglers, thieves, assasins, and all sorts of criminals under the guise of "The Claw", he has nearly dominated all illegal activities in a large area.

And the best part is that he is not even a suspect.

To all outward appearances, Pierre is nothing but a rich snob with no connections whatsoever to any illegal activities, as a matter of fact, the Claw has "stolen" from him on several occassions, and he has even organised several units to hunt down the guild.

He is usually a nice person, an demanding but fair person to work with, and all his employees will speak wonders about him, he is very good with people. On formal affairs, he is elegant and refined, behaving more like a snob than anything else.

If confronted about his relationship with the Claw, well... he's nearly untouchable, and he knows it, he likes to be cynical about it, denying or confirming nothing, but still letting the PCs know that he is behind it all, after all, it would be nearly impossible for them to prove anything (but if somebody is foolish enough to let him know they are on to him, he will order their deaths inmediately).