Magic Items For Sale - Cheap!

One of the qualities that distinguishes Ara from many other D&D campaign settings is that, due to the presence of a powerful Enchanters' Guild, magical items are actually available for sale in many areas of the continent.  This is especially true in the Free City of Kaladar and in Minoch, the latter being the region where my current PC adventuring party is exploring Stonehell.  Minoch is in fact home to the single largest Enchanters' Guild facility in all of Ara, so my players are well-placed to gain access to Magic Items for sale in Minochian towns like Fortinbras and Farn Junction.

What this means for me practically is that I have had to start pricing these magical items.  True to my nature, I have been largely making up gp figures on the fly for enchanted items the PCs seek, since the monetary system in Crimson Blades of Ara, the homebrewed RPG system from whence the Enchanters' Guild concept emerged, was based upon a silver standard and is not easily converted to the D&D item pricing scale.

Also true to my nature, I had more or less forgotten that the AD&D DMG has resale prices listed for magical items --  a fact I had to be reminded of by reading a recent post of JB's on the B/X xp system.  So for several sessions now, most notably those two recent sessions the PCs spent in Fortinbras, I have been making up magical item prices without any reference to the DMG.  However, once I remembered (thanks to JB's post) that the DMG lists magic item resale prices, I decided to check those lists out, compare them to what I have come up with so far, and see where this lands me in terms of "standardizing" magical item prices in the Arandish campaign setting.

That said, I should briefly disclaim that I think magical items shouldn't really have stable prices.  As I have previously posted, despite the presence of the Enchanters' Guild, magical items are somewhat uncommon in Ara, the availability of Dwarven Steel being a far more typical means by which adventurers acquire more-potent-than-standard weapons and equipment.  But, since Dwarven Steel cannot itself be enchanted, and therefore cannot take the place of, say, a ring of invisibility or a +3 Flame Tongue, I know there is demand for magical items in Ara.  But the Arandish Enchanters are notorious price-gougers, and so prices for these sparsely dispersed and highly sought-after items should vary a lot and should always be quite high, by my reckoning.

So let's take a look at those prices. What follows is a partial list of some representative items that the Arandish PCs have been buying and/or pricing, with my own "from the hip" prices listed first, and the DMG prices (taken from pp. 121-125) listed in square brackets.


potion of healing: 150gp  [400gp]
potion of extra-healing: 400gp  [800gp]
+1 Battle Axe: 300gp  [2,500gp]
+2 Battle Axe: 650gp
+1 Polearm: 450gp [2,000gp for a +1 Sword]
+2 heavy crossbow: 700gp [3,500gp for a +1 bow]
each +1 hvy. bolt = 50gp, 300-350gp for 10 [300gp for 2-20 +2 bolts]
+2 heavy flail: 800gp
Potion of Plant Control: 140gp [300gp]
Scroll of Ward against Magic: 100 gp [4,500gp for Protection from Magic]
Ring of Protection, 800gp per +1 = 1600gp for +2, 2500gp for +3 [10,000 - 20,000gp]
Decanter of Endless Water, 5000gp [3,000gp]
Staff of Striking: 1400gp [15,000gp]
wand of paralyzation: 500gp with ten charges [25,000gp]
Ring of Invisibility 3,000gp, on special 2,800gp [7,500gp]
Scarab of Protection : 650gp  [25,000gp]
Stone of Summon Earth Elemental: 5,000gp  [12,5000gp]
Eye of the Eagle monacle on a kestrel hood, 300gp  [18,000gp for two such Eyes]
Rope of Climbing: 1,000gp [10,000gp]
Girdle of Giant Strength: 2,000gp [2,500gp]


So, in general, I have been seriously lowballing most of these items' prices vis-a-vis their listed resale value in the AD&D DMG.  Yet for a few of these items -- e.g., the Girdle of Giant Strength and the various potions -- my prices have been pretty damn close to the DMG's, and in one or two cases (e.g., the Decanter of Endless Water, a fetish object of Hazel's), my price has even been higher.  Now part of that variance I attribute to the perceived rarity of such items, and since the Arandish campaign world features industrial-scale enchanters who offer their services openly, I would expect that certain items gauged to be extremely rare in AD&D might be more commonly available in Ara -- and hence a bit cheaper.

Yet all in all, I am inclined to raise my campaign's magic item prices to bring them more in line with the ranges given in the DMG for all but the most common magical items listed above.  By "common magical items" I refer to healing potions and +1 weapons.

I can justify this upward price adjustment without retroactively penalizing the PCs by claiming that on their previous town visit, the party was there during a major regional holiday with an accompanying "clearance sale" offered by the local Enchanters once every fifty years or so.  No harm, no foul!

But from now on I will be keeping that DMG list handy, and while I may still keep Arandish prices a bit lower than the DMG does in many cases, I will likely use the DMG tables as a starting point for magic item pricing in Minoch.  All such items would be even more expensive in regions north of Kaladar, where Dwarven Steel is more common and Enchanters far less numerous.

Lastly, just for reference, for the custom enchantment of a +1 crowbar a Fortinbras Enchanter charged Yor the cost of the implement (2gp) + 200gp and a 2-day wait.  In line with the above discussion, I think I will need to raise the price of custom enchantment jobs as well, though I think that that rate for a +1 crowbar (a fairly minor, if damned cool, item) is pretty reasonable in retrospect.  But maybe it would have cost more like 500gp or even higher on a non-festival, non-"clearance sale" day.

+1 Crowbar and Arandish Messenger Service

Two interesting tidbits from recent sessions:

1.  Two sessions ago -- Arandish Campaign 2010 Session 20 -- the party left Stonehell to re-provision and re-equip in the nearby Minochian town of Fortinbras.  One of the PCs (I forget who - possibly Yor the Dwarf?) asked if the local Enchanters' Guild could imbue a crowbar with magical properties -- in other words, could the party buy a +1 Crowbar?  Of course I said yes, charging the PC in question 202gp and a 2-day wait for the privilege of obtaining this custom item.  The +1 Crowbar gets a +1 bonus to certain tasks, like prying open doors and treasure chests, and functions as a +1 club in melee combat.

2.  Messenger / Courier Service in Ara:  Around the same time that Yor the Dwarf was buying his magic crowbar, another PC made an inquiry regarding the availability and cost of messenger service in the lands of Ara. The party's cleric, Innominus, wanted to get a message back to his Order, the Followers of Endra, about recent hobgoblin troop buildup activities in the area of Stonehell.  I ruled that since his Order, whose main temple is located in the distant Western Lands, must have at least a small shrine or sub-chapter in the nearby Free City of Kaladar (since everything can be found in Kaladar!), his request would only necessitate a courier willing to travel approximately 7-8 days from Fortinbras to Kaladar along well-traveled, well-patrolled roads.  I reasoned that such a service could be had at a rate of 2gp per travel day for the courier.  That rate would go up to 8-10gp per day if the route were through a monster-infested wilderness area, a war zone, or some other particularly dangerous region.

Does that sound reasonable?  Have any other DM's / Labyrinth Lords out there ever worked out a rate schedule for this type of service in your own campaigns?  I assume these charges are for the courier only, NOT for any armed guards/mercs to accompany the messenger.  I also assume the rate would go up significantly if the courier were asked to convey anything more heavy and /or valuable than a written (or verbal) message.

In Innominus' case, I assumed that he only needed to pay to have his note delivered as far as the shrine of the Followers of Endra in Kaladar -- his brethren in Kaladar could subsequently be counted on to relay his message onward to his parish in the Western Lands at no charge, kind of like free inter-office mail for clerics.

Minoch - Uncanny Energy and Snowbound Mountain Peaks

Minoch [MY-nock] is a relatively small mountainous region widely believed to have been haunted by strange energies and ghostly spirits long before the first Arandish human settlers (the Minars of ancient Noffel) came here in the decades following Old Calendar year 171.  These weird energies are thought to influence Minochian natives to this day, making them seem distant and strange to many other Arandish people, though this may also have to do with the geography and climate of the region: Minoch's mountains are high, steep, and riddled with rock troll warrens, and the weather, particularly at higher elevations, is harshly cold.  Minoch is known for its long, cruel winters, as well as its rock trolls and dire wolves.

It is fairly certain that by Old Calendar year 360, the early Minochians -- immigrants from ancient Noffel --  had made contact with the Mizarian horse raising tribes to the east and south.  Limited trade between these peoples may even have taken place in the years following initial contact.

In Old Calendar year 392, the people of southeastern Minoch were devastated by a series of large-scale assaults by southern hill trolls.  The surviving Minochians were driven into the high mountains, and what little contact existed between these people and their ancestral brethren to the west in Blint and Noffel was severed.

By Old Calendar year 431, bronze was being smelted in Minoch, and bronze weapons are forged to repel invading hill and rock trolls.  Further, bronze implements of all kinds are traded to the Mizarians for grain, wool, and horses.  The introduction of bronze tools and weapons to the Mizarians will allow the horse tribes to drive back the trollish hordes and become the new masters of the southern plains.

The "uncanny" properties of the Minochian region are almost certainly connected in some way with the Great Minochian Catastrophe of 787, in which most of the original settlers of this region suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.  What few records survived the destruction of the original Minochian people do not make clear what exactly occurred.  Some force caused the demise of this ancient civilization and scattered the survivors.

Minoch has since been resettled by humans from all over Ara, most prevalently from mountainous regions like northern Noffel and Telengard, and nearby Mizar.  Thus present-day Minochians most often have mixed Mizarian and either Noffellian or Telengardian ancestry.

Minochian Geography
On the map excerpt above, cropped out of the older large Lands of Ara map (Map #1, downloadable here), the first Minochian town encountered as one ventures south on the trade route from Kaladar is Farn Junction.  Farn Junction (a medium-sized town, straight above the "o" in "Minoch") is the central trading point for Minochian imports and exports -- most notably, dwarven-crafted iron implements are brought here from the northeast for enchantment by the Enchanters' Guild nestled in the high mountains of Minoch.

That other Minochian town to the southeast of Farn Junction (to the right of the "h" in "Minoch") is Fortinbras, smaller than Farn Junction but fairly well-traveled nonetheless since it is the the gateway to all the smaller villages that lie above the Minochian snowline to the west. Fenris Pass (unmarked on the map) is only a few days' march west (and straight uphill) from Fortinbras, and those snowbound villages (like Crystal Lake and Snowdrift, unmarked on the map) lie in the snowy mountain reaches beyond.

The Enchanters' Guild
The sole Enchanters' Guild in the Lands of Ara is located on a remote mountainside in central Minoch.  The Enchanters put their Guildhall and workshops there in part because (as they claim) the weird energy of the Minochian Mountains aids them in their arcane work.  Minoch is also a somewhat convenient location between the dwarven iron-smiths of the eastern mountains and the markets and shipping ports of Kaladar, Blint, and Noffel.  The Enchanters' Guildhall and workshops do wholesale business only -- PCs wanting to purchase or custom-order magical items must deal with retail vendors in Kaladar and other large Arandish cities and towns.