The Bazaar

Station/Social Defence Chart

This table lists typical weekly budgets for households of various stations, along with examples of what people of that station does. It is also used when haggling, looking for rare merchandise and similar occasions, for the Social Defence of objects and merchandise, used to determine if it is available for purchase or when haggling over it. This use is more fully explained below under availability and under the Haggle and Fencing talents.

The Bazaar

The Station/Social Defence chart is used in the bazaar, to haggle and find items for sale. The talent descriptions for Haggle, Fencing and Business describes how this is done in detail.

Cities also have station ratings, that are equal to the station of their ruler. A city with lot's of prestige and a popular and powerful ruler (high station) has a more abundant bazaar, to which merchants bring strange goods from foreign lands.

Station of Cities

This listing gives the station of various rulers, and thus the station of the cities they rule.

Rare & Unusual Goods

When looking through the bazaar of a city, most common goods will be found in abundance. But some rare and unusual items will only be found in the greatest cities.

Make a Station check for the city (the station of a city is the same as that of it's ruler) against the Social Defence of the item sought. Rare items require a good success, very rare items require an excellent success while exceptional or unique items might be available on an extraordinary success. The number of items available is half the result points, rounded down, with a minimum of one.

A character can browse the market, to see if anything unusual pops up. The GM should make an availability roll, with the player either specifying the rarity (success level) or value (difficulty) of the roll, and pick something of appropriate rarity that suits the situation. Leaving your destiny to Fate in this way invokes her favour, so a Karma point can be spent to argument such a roll.

Which goods are rare vary from location to location, but some guidelines follow:

• Unusual (Average Success): Most potions, common magical items, forged weapons, unusual pets, elemental substances, most sorcery spells, trained or unusual slaves, books of lore, jewellery.
• Rare (Good Success): Unusual magic items and potions, lesser thread items, forged armour, live wild animals, most wizardry spells, exotic or adept slaves, unusual or specific artworks.
• Very Rare (Excellent Success): Uncommon thread items, nethermancy/illusion spells, former nobility or ranking adepts sold as slaves, original manuscripts or artworks by demand, captured elementals.
• Special (Extraordinary success): Unique thread items, slaves of unheard of beauty and rare species, captured genies, original masterpieces of art and literature.

Services

When looking for the services of skilled persons, such as a Rawun to remove an Evil Eye, an Imam to perform an exorcism or a Barber who does not cut your purse along with your beard, the same rules can be used. The base difficulty s the desired skill value, adds typically being one-third of this value. The searcher can either fix the success level required (I want a Good-natured barber) or fix the skill demanded (I want a barber of skill 12) with the following rarity table. For abilities that adepts only gain at certain circles, the minimum difficulty is three times the required circle.

• All Ones: A mad but crafty member of the profession comes into your service, possibly ruining your whole life. This is an adventure hook. Nourish a raven and it will pick out your eyes.
• Poor: Inquisitive and talkative service, taking twice as long as usual. Will not spend Karma or do anything even remotely dangerous, nor will he put any extra effort into his work (maximum success level is Average). He has an almost unnatural ability to find out secrets and spread rumours about them. If a light serves to see, it also serves to be seen.
• Average: Gossipy but skilled member of his profession. The things you plan will not stay secret with this individual about, and he will not take risks or spend Karma, but otherwise performs well. If I listen I have the advantage, if I speak others have it.
• Good: A polite servant, silent and discreet. He will perform his service without fuss, and may even be willing to spend Karma if it can improve his reputation. Unusual services, such as teaching talents, Reveal Station or teaching spells, become available at this level. As the mind expands, the tongue grows quiet.
• Excellent: A good-natured and reliable servant, that will perform even dangerous tasks to the best of his ability (spend Karma). He will not teach secret talents, but otherwise does most everything.
• Extraordinary: A faithful servant currently out of employment, willing to go on retainer to you for pay equal to half his skill value read on the Station/Social Defence Chart (or whatever is customary for his job). If this is four points below your own station, it can be a part of your living expenses. To impress his loyalty, he is willing to do most anything, at least before the contract is signed. Every man thinks of his own fleas as gazelles.