What kinds of items are traded between the spheres? Here is a D30 table to get some ideas flowing.
- Luxury goods including:
- Books and scrolls
- Spherepaths, atlases, and maps
- Fortune Decks (especially variant designs)
- Items uniquely associated with a specific Sphere or Realm (e.g., you only find Pyramid Cult medallions and rosaries in Everway)
- Items associated with a historical figure (ruler, folk hero, Spherewalker from a particular realm)
- Fine rugs and textiles
- Jewelry and other apparel
- Cosmetics
- Musical instruments
- Paintings
- Furniture
- Jade items
- Gold and gems
- Saffron
- Other spices
- Religious relics
- Sacred articles (e.g., sage, holy water, dragon relics) used in rituals
- Demon jars
- Magic items
- Grains. Magically modified high-yield grains are increasingly popular trade items. Some of high yield grains cannot be used as seed. Trade in these grains makes farmers in one sphere dependent on magi in another to produce new seed corn
- Mankines
- Human slaves (the sale of which is prohibited in Everway)
- Salt
- Fruits, especially the transportation of fruits that are in-season in one realm to another where those fruits are not in season (or simply impossible to grow)
- Magic fruits
- Various alcoholic beverages.
- Recreational and ritual drugs
- Domesticated animals
- Specialized or superior breeds of domesticated animals
- Rare or exotic animals
- Magical creatures
- Creature parts
- Small machines, magical or otherwise
- Weapons and armor.
- Dragon-backed currency and items that were once part of Dragon hoards
- Dragon relics- see the Dragon Trade II.
- Debt pawns to collateralize loans between spheres
- Pottery, china, glasses, utensils
- Labor in the form of skilled workers (masons, smiths, mercenaries, shipwrights)
- Medicines
- Stimulants including:
- Tobacco
- Tea leaves
- Coffee beans,
- Chocolate beans
- Coca leaves
- Khat
What about Jeweler's Rouge & Black Powder?
ReplyDeleteBoth of those are good calls. According to Wikipedia, jeweler's rouge was used to polish gold, gems, and lenses - as well as being used as a cosmetic in ancient times. Interesting. Black powder would work as well, since it goes back to 9th C. China. It was the world's first chemical explosive. In standard Everway, there are no black powder firearms, however, which probably reflects Wester high fantasy's discomfort with modernity. Quite a different attitude than you see in Japanese manga and anime.
ReplyDeleteConsider Zelazney's Amber series...there's a good example of Western fantasy that found a clever way to bring fire-arms into the mix quite nicely.
ReplyDeleteAnd their is an Amberway conversion which you can see from The Crossroads-Everway Links page to the upper right.
ReplyDeleteSeems like a natural fit.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff.