The economics of Continual flame

[Ancalagon]

the real money from the continual flame casting business is in grinding up 5,000 gp rubies and selling the dust... 200 50 gp bags.

You kid but... any economic resource can become a major plot device, and that can be used in an RPG campaign. Light is valuable after all (even for darkvision-having races, it only gives you dim light equivalent, ie you can't see fully). After centuries of use, perhaps the world is running low on rubies...

The spice must flow... or perhaps, the ruby dust must.

 

[ricks3]

Even back with Continual Light, there's not a great reason why every city wouldn't be fully lit.

We play that all the continuous light sources have a limit - a spellcaster can only keep the number functioning that they have levels.

 

[Ancalagon]

One thing I was thinking about this thread - I should make clear that this doesn't mean that "Haha, your game MUST have continual flames all over the place or else you are WRONG!"

Not at all. If this is not the look/feel you are going for, there are many ways you can explain why it's not like this in your campaign - perhaps it wears out after a few year?