Merchant
A trader who knows the price of everything: shrewd and persuasive, softened by years behind a counter.
| Role | Difficulty | Key stats | Hit points | Mana | Spells given |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday folk | Joke | Intelligence, Presence | 2 | 2 | none |
Plays like: Weak in a fight; their gold grows with a business partner in town.
Starts with: a dagger (wielded); a travelling cloak (being worn); a long coat (being worn); a pair of leather boots (being worn); one of a garnet, an amethyst, or a topaz; one of a garnet, an amethyst, or a topaz; 120 gold coins; a wool cloak; 10 wax candles; a coil of rope; 4 strips of dried meat; a scroll of identify (see Starting kit).
See also: Shops and People and talk.
How to play
You are weak in a fight, but you have gold: 120 coins, two gems, and a scroll of identify to start, and better prices in every shop (Haggler). Put your gold with your business partner in Cēaptūn (Invest) and it grows week by week. Spend the rest on the best arms and armour you can buy, and fight carefully.
Levels
A bonus talent at levels 10, 20, 30, 45, 55, from Scholar or Delver.
| Level | Ability | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Haggler | shop favour +15 % (before the cap) |
| 1 | Invest | your business partner invests the gold you put with them (2 % kept going in, 2 % coming out): every week it changes by 10 plus 4d201-404 basis points (hundredths of a percent), 1 more per quest of their town’s people done and more for some quests (see Invest) |
| 6 | Deep pockets | coins you carry weigh nothing |
| 6 | Pack mule | carrying limit +10 %; 60 % off the burden’s slowdown, on top of Balance (Burdened ×1.10 for 60 %); the burden’s cap on Dexterity in Defence +1 |
| 12 | Merchant’s eye | active (on a thing you carry, for the time of reading a scroll, 6 seconds at normal pace; no mana, cooldown, or check, as often as you like): the thing is identified as a scroll of identify would identify it. On a thing you already know it is refused, with no time spent |
Abilities
The merchant’s investment (Invest, from level 1) works like a fund. The merchant has a business partner at the corner desk of Factor Wulfrun’s office in Cēaptūn, of the merchant’s own race and speaking as their people speak. Only a merchant’s run has them. Talk to them and they tell you what your stake is worth, to the coin. Then pick a topic:
- Invest 100 gold, Invest 1000 gold, or Invest all your gold: the partner keeps 2 % as a fee (rounded up to a whole coin), and the rest goes into your stake.
- Withdraw 100 gold, Withdraw 1000 gold, or Withdraw everything: the partner keeps 2 % of what you take out, and you get the rest. Gold that would leave you overloaded is set down at your feet.
Each takes as long as a chat. Every game week (seven days, counted from the start of the calendar), wherever you are, the stake goes up or down by a random return: 0.10 % plus a roll of 4d201−404 hundredths of a percent, so anything from −3.9 % to +4.1 %, mostly within about 1.2 % either way. Weeks spent resting or travelling count just the same. Over a 360-day year that comes to about 5 % a year on average, but about three years in ten lose money.
The more Cēaptūn owes you, the better the partner does. Every quest you have completed for one of Cēaptūn’s people adds 0.01 % to every week’s return (each quest once). Completing Wulfrun’s Fire in the deep, which slays the fire drake and lets the town dig in its mines again, adds 0.06 % more. With all of Cēaptūn’s fourteen quests done the stake grows by about 16 % a year, and only about one year in thirty loses.
If the partner dies, your stake dies with them.