The Art of Bartering

There’s a special place in the depths of my heart for those freaky little merchants you find in odd places. The concept of “dungeon merchants” has been around forever, especially in mega-dungeons, and I’m not breaking new ground here. In fact, you can go and check out a major piece of inspiration for this post by heading to Joshy McCroo’s itch page and grabbing At the Shrine of Fortitude. It’s full of weird merchants, and the method of discovering them at the shrine is a full-on genius idea by hexculture.

Encountering a strange merchant in a strange land (like navigating a dungeon, wandering a swamp, locked in a dream prison, or visiting a cloud fortress) should play out a bit different than dealing with the regular city peddlers you pick up potions and arrows from.

These merchants are a bit more volatile and they have different needs than simple coin and jewels. Their goods don’t cost money. You have to barter for them.

Here’s how it works. Feel free to loosen or tighten the reins. Each merchant has the following:

• Patience: how many times you can swap goods in and out during the negotiations. Patience is a number, somewhere between 0–5.
• In demand: things that the merchant dearly wants. These are usually groups of items rather than specific things. Each item or group has a die value associated with it, typically a number of d6s to roll.
• Untouchables: things that the merchant will not trade. More groups of things, varying from specific to esoteric.
• Wares: A list of what the merchant has and will trade. Each item also has a die value associated with it, typically a number of d6s to roll.

Here’s the procedure:

After meeting a merchant and agreeing to trade with them, the group picks one of the merchant’s wares. That item is now on the table and the GM rolls the associated dice for it, creating a total.

The group now offers items, one at a time. If they offer in demand items, roll the designated dice for a total. Everything else is rolled as 1d6. The merchants outright refuse to trade for any untouchables.

Compare the group’s barter score with the merchant’s. If the group has an equal or higher value, the merchant accepts the deal. The group can also request another ware from the merchant to continue the process.

If the group doesn’t find the score of an offered item to their liking (either one of theirs or the merchants), they can take it off the table. Remove that item and any dice associated with it to find out the new total. They can do this a number of times equal to the merchant’s patience. Afterwards, the merchant gets frustrated and locks down with a take-it-or-leave-it mentality. No more switch outs.

Sometimes, merchants will accept coins, but only as a full pouch of silver and these are bartered just the same as anything else.

Here’s three merchants you can drop right into your game:

OL’ HogStitch

Beady, glowing green eyes peer out from the hood of a skin-hide cloak. The creature hunches, hiding his true height. Torchlight reveals the tusks, snout, and bristly fur of a warthog’s head where there should be a man’s. His cloak shifts and parts, revealing hands—too many hands!—to reach past and offer a trade. Behind him, chained by black iron links to his back, is a metal trunk too heavy for half a dozen men to carry. And yet he drags it behind him, a quiet snort the only indication of any strain the burden causes him.

He used to be a man, once. A weak one. His body betrayed him at every turn, his bones as brittle as a bird’s, his constitution promising a life of sickness and an early death. And then, by fortune or folly, he found a fairy grove. And in that grove, he discovered a spool of thread and a needle made of pure moonlight. He could stitch things back together. He could remove things, and then stitch up the wound, and he wouldn’t need that thing anymore. And that’s how he’s made himself. One replacement at a time. For his head, he grafted the boar’s head next to his own, and then sawed his own right off.

Patience: 3

In demand: monster parts (4d6), living animals (3d6), living plants (3d6), a pint of your blood (4d6)

Untouchables: coins, jewels, precious metals, art, and anything used purely for economic value.

Wares:

Miss Martine

Porcelain skin, cracked in places and put back together with veins of gold. The doll steps forward, her movements stiff and slightly delayed, as if she has to queue them up and then execute them all at once. On her back, a winding key endlessly tick-tick-ticks, crafted in the design of butterfly wings. Her eyes are icy blue, and her head tilts with a small smile as she greets you. Behind her, three clockwork porters carry her goods, devoid of the spark of sentience that fills her eyes. Her dress and coat are of the finest quality, cut, and lavender coloring. A jar attached to her hip is perhaps the strangest thing on her person—or rather, its contents are: a human skull.

Miss Martine is a living doll, commissioned by a travelling merchant years ago. When he met an untimely end, she knew not what to do, and could only carry on his work. He rests now, at her hip, and she’ll speak to the skull when she thinks nobody is around. She knows that the merchant had a son, and she desperately wants to get a letter to him. She hopes to one day meet the person she considers her “brother.”

Patience: 5

In demand: gems and jewels (2d6), beautiful things (3d6), well-made clothing (3d6), someone to deliver a letter for her (6d6)

Untouchables: Anything ugly

Wares:

Rantari The Queen

Eight scuttling legs, the hairs on them sharp and as long as a man’s arm. A great spider, the size of bull, scurries forward. She has a voice, but it is not what you expect. It rings sweetly—like a bell, down to your very core—striking the chords of your soul. She weaves her web effortlessly, twisting and turning and pulling and knotting. She is demure, and speaks eloquently, but she demands to be treated as the queen she is.

Rantari is not a giant spider. She is something more. Her cosmic webs are all around her, always growing, but they are not in our existence. They are beyond the world. Caught in those webs, wrapped in tight bundles, are heroes of legend from a past age, living and dead all the same. Rantari is a collector, a curator of individuals of great worth and power.

Rantari has with her beads of power that can hold pure magical essence if a spell is cast inside of them.

Patience: 0

In demand: Spells cast into her beads (3d6), memories (3d6), secrets (3d6), magical trinkets (2d6), stories and legends (2d6)

Untouchables: Food, weapons, armor, anything that fulfills the base needs of mortal creatures

Wares:

If you love the idea of bartering instead of buying and want to supercharge this concept, check out this post by Prismatic Wasteland, where he details out his system.

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