Evil Marduk (Empath stories)

Evil Marduk is a character who appears in the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf flashback story "The Enchanted Evergreen". He was an evil wizard who was in debt to some creditors and was seeking how to pay off his debt when he came across Timber Smurf, Vini the elf, and Arboria the elf tree and overheard the legend of the golden tree with the golden pinecones. Threatening to burn down Arboria unless he got a pile of pinecones before the day's end, Evil Marduk forced Timber and Vini to seek out the legendary tree for themselves, only for the two to find out that the tree was just an ordinary tree that produced ordinary pinecones. Nevertheless, with some trickery, Timber had Painter coat a pile of pinecones in gold paint so that they could be passed off as legitimate golden pinecones for Evil Marduk to take with him. His gullibility proved to be his downfall, as when Evil Marduk tried to pass the fake golden pinecones as real gold to the local assessor and bailiff who came for the wizard's goods, both the assessor and the bailiff found out the truth and proceeded to take everything Evil Marduk owned, including the clothes on his back.