Mor's End Craft & Trade Submissions
Just a BUMP to try and breathe new life into this thread, and a heads-up that I just posted a gridded version of the city map in Geography, so you can start locating exactly where in the city you want your NPCs to live.
Bump, damnit!
"Do not go gently into that good night" and all that...
More OT, does anyone have an estimate of the size of caravans we can expect to pass through Mor's End? A&EG lists a maximum traveling wealth for a merchant from a Small City as 10,000 gp (with as escort of 2 Ftr6, 7 War4 and 12 War2!). But how many wagons or carts (river barges, lake ships, ferries...) would that make on average?
Would several merchants be traveling together in a single caravan? Should we assume merchants passing through Mor's End can come from Large Cities (max traveling wealth 20,000 gp with an escort of nearly 30 Ftr and War) or even Metropolises (50,000 gp, ~50 men escort)?
"Do not go gently into that good night" and all that...
More OT, does anyone have an estimate of the size of caravans we can expect to pass through Mor's End? A&EG lists a maximum traveling wealth for a merchant from a Small City as 10,000 gp (with as escort of 2 Ftr6, 7 War4 and 12 War2!). But how many wagons or carts (river barges, lake ships, ferries...) would that make on average?
Would several merchants be traveling together in a single caravan? Should we assume merchants passing through Mor's End can come from Large Cities (max traveling wealth 20,000 gp with an escort of nearly 30 Ftr and War) or even Metropolises (50,000 gp, ~50 men escort)?
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As a partial answer to my own question...
A cart can carry 1/2 a ton of weight, a wagon 2 tons.
Kul Moren and Lalaton fall in the Village categories, so have a max traveling wealth of 400 gp. For Kul Moren that's 4000 lb of iron (1sp/lb): two wagons or 8 carts. (Maybe they need carts to cross those threacherous mountain passes?) Let's assume mainly dried fish from Lalaton. "Dried goods, common" are 1-5 sp/lb, so that's two wagons, or down to as little as two carts.
A silk merchant leaving Mor's End with fisher silk... Silk is listed at 20 gp/lb in the SRD, closer to 1gp/lb in the A&EG ("Fabric, exotic" is 26-50+gp / 50lb). At the higher price, 10,000 gp would be 500 lb, or only half a cart! At 1gp/lb, 10,000 lb takes up 5 wagons.
A clay jug is 3cp and 1lb. If we figure Mor's End pottery is 10x more expensive, that's 3sp/lb. 10,000 gp is 33,000 lb, or 16 wagons. That's starting to look more like it... Of course, a shipment of high-end pottery would probably only be 1-2 wagons...
A city as wealthy as Mor's End can probably afford to import a good amount of basic food stuffs as well. These would come from relatively nearby, smaller cities/towns. A 3,000 gp grain shipment from a Large Town would weigh 300,000 lb, and take up 150 wagons. That's probably too much for a realistic caravan...
A cart can carry 1/2 a ton of weight, a wagon 2 tons.
Kul Moren and Lalaton fall in the Village categories, so have a max traveling wealth of 400 gp. For Kul Moren that's 4000 lb of iron (1sp/lb): two wagons or 8 carts. (Maybe they need carts to cross those threacherous mountain passes?) Let's assume mainly dried fish from Lalaton. "Dried goods, common" are 1-5 sp/lb, so that's two wagons, or down to as little as two carts.
A silk merchant leaving Mor's End with fisher silk... Silk is listed at 20 gp/lb in the SRD, closer to 1gp/lb in the A&EG ("Fabric, exotic" is 26-50+gp / 50lb). At the higher price, 10,000 gp would be 500 lb, or only half a cart! At 1gp/lb, 10,000 lb takes up 5 wagons.
A clay jug is 3cp and 1lb. If we figure Mor's End pottery is 10x more expensive, that's 3sp/lb. 10,000 gp is 33,000 lb, or 16 wagons. That's starting to look more like it... Of course, a shipment of high-end pottery would probably only be 1-2 wagons...
A city as wealthy as Mor's End can probably afford to import a good amount of basic food stuffs as well. These would come from relatively nearby, smaller cities/towns. A 3,000 gp grain shipment from a Large Town would weigh 300,000 lb, and take up 150 wagons. That's probably too much for a realistic caravan...
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jdavis
First Post
I would figure caravans would bunch up to cover each other in dangerous areas and that there would be some very large caravans comming through the city. Now going south through the swamp it would be assured that groups would bunch together, of course if that way is the way to the frontier then most of the people going that way would be settlers and pilgrims, traders going that way would deal in general goods and not the riches moving in the North, of corse that is dependant on the land this city is intergrated into and that depends on the DM and his world.
Caravans may be very large, but 150 seems a little high. I'd suggest that the signals/way station usually only send thirty or so through at a time. By the way, how does the road stay safe/passable? Is it actually built into the mud of the swamp with huge pylons? Or is it massive slabs of stone transported into the area from Kul Moren? What a job. I think the first sounds a lot more likely.
I remember during the original university debate, we discussed a 'press-gang' approach to the convicts of the town. I think that they should have to maintain the causeway, which would be an absolute nightmare of a job. Maybe escaped prisoners have made it into the swamp before - that's why one of the orc tribes is lead by a half-orc (sorry JDavis, I can't recall the name). Maybe one of the Rangers could be a grizzled ex-convict, who hides out in the swamp, but works with the rangers now.
I remember during the original university debate, we discussed a 'press-gang' approach to the convicts of the town. I think that they should have to maintain the causeway, which would be an absolute nightmare of a job. Maybe escaped prisoners have made it into the swamp before - that's why one of the orc tribes is lead by a half-orc (sorry JDavis, I can't recall the name). Maybe one of the Rangers could be a grizzled ex-convict, who hides out in the swamp, but works with the rangers now.
jdavis
First Post
You mean you haven't memorized the names of all the orcs in the swamp yet? shame on you.
The raised causway in the swamp is most likely in very poor condition and very hard to travel on, I like the idea of criminal chain gangs being used to keep it clear. Washouts and sections that have sunk probably take months to get repaired and the whole thing is probably slowly sinking and in need of repair. Still it would probably have quite a lot of settler traffic on it and lots of poorer caravans traveling it's length.
The raised causway in the swamp is most likely in very poor condition and very hard to travel on, I like the idea of criminal chain gangs being used to keep it clear. Washouts and sections that have sunk probably take months to get repaired and the whole thing is probably slowly sinking and in need of repair. Still it would probably have quite a lot of settler traffic on it and lots of poorer caravans traveling it's length.
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