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see
Learned Scribe
 
235 Posts |
Posted - 28 Nov 2010 : 16:30:36
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quote: Originally posted by Quale
Selgaunt
Selgaunt? Hah! Saerloon, where the major temples are to Azuth and Mystra, that's the Sembian city to choose! |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
    
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 28 Nov 2010 : 18:38:58
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Baldur's Gate, Tantras, Westgate, Calimport, Zhentil Keep.
Waterdeep is overhyped (though Skullport ain't so bad). Cormyr and Sembia are oppressive. Besides, everything gets policed, monitored, counted, and taxed in those places. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
   
1864 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 20:46:11
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In the 1360s and 1370s, I've always found Ravens Bluff a particularly interesting location for buying and selling things. While not the biggest city around the Inner Sea, it probably has the largest population of transient adventurers (20,000+) who regularly visit it and consequently has a large market for anything which might be useful to adventuring folk.
A lot of adventurers find magical gewgaws that don't necessarily lend themselves to their own use, at least they would not be as useful to them as they would to someone else. In Ravens Bluff, the odds are rather good they'll find someone who has a more pressing need for the item and from then on, it's only a matter of haggling. Sure, that person may not have anything immediately useful to you, but as anyone can see, such a situation offers a profitable role for intermediaries and middle men, buying and selling items for coin or gems.
The church of Waukeen was important there before her disappearance during the Time of Troubles and I'd expect to see it come soaring back after 1371 DR, when she returned. Given that it was a priest from Ravens Bluff who supposedly (in Ravens Bluff lore, at least) managed her escape from the Abyss, I'd expect to see Ravens Bluff become a center of Waukeenar faith. Lady Lauren DeVillars, having assumed her old position of high priestess 'for the duration' is formidable enough for me to have no trouble with seeing the church growing at an incredible rate.
And when the Church of Waukeen grows, it does so by seeing business opportunities and stepping in to profit from them. So while the barter economy of adventurers in the city might have been badly-organised and inefficient in the 1360s, I think it is going to start to work a lot better in the 70s with Waukeenar priests providing security and magical guarantees for particularly important and high-value deals, with the temple storing valuables and issuing bonds and so forth.
When you add a rather civil and welcoming mage guild, surprisingly functional in the role of historical guilds, i.e. finding its members paying work and then protecting their interests, the situation becomes even more attractive. PC wizards looking to find someone willing to commission them to make something magical for a high fee can indicate their ability and willingness to do such work for hire to the guild and the guild can then relay this information to whatever noble or rich adventurer who wants a particular enchantment. If the PCs are the ones looking to have something enchanted, it works in reverse. |
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
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Snow
Learned Scribe
 
USA
125 Posts |
Posted - 21 Mar 2012 : 18:09:34
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It took quite a few posts before some of you focused in on Sembian cities. When I think of strategic-scale commerce and trade in the Realms, that's the first geographical locale I think of. While I think the options for trade in Sembia are the best you'll find in Faerun, you better damn well have some serious commerce/bartering skills to get your golds worth. The odds of you ending up as the "worst-off" in a given transaction are also the highest in the Realms .... |
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