D&D General Scrimshaw Prices

[Yenrak]

The players in the campaign I'm DMing are likely to come into possession of a sizeable amount of Icewind Dale scrimshaw. I'm trying to figure out what it might be worth. Anyone have suggestions or sources on pricing for carved knucklehead?

 

[jgsugden]

The materials are essentially free, so it comes down to quality of the artwork and distance the art has traveled from the Dale. Outside of something that required magic, I'd likely keep the max price at 50 GP with a typical piece being worth only a few gold.

 

[aco175]

Similar to ivory. I can see some carvers (artists) can fetch higher prices for their work if they are well known. Although if the trout are only found in Icewindale the known artists may be in short supply and most pieces are just lumped together. I play gems in my game as just a gem and not any more specific than this so I would just call it a piece of scrimshaw (10gp) or whatever gp I needed. I could also see where the further away from Icewindale the higher the gp it fetches.

For an average piece I may have the player roll 1d10x10gp or 2d6x10gp.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yup, the price should largely depend on the quality of the carving.

It's not just the availability of knucklehead trout that drives the Icewind Dale export industry. It's the long hard winters that leaves people with little to do apart from perfect their scrimshaw carving skills.

 

[pukunui]

From the Legacy of the Crystal Shard DM screen: