PDA

View Full Version : help with trade goods for a special pirate campaign.



Kol Korran
2011-11-11, 09:09 AM
ok, so soon i'll probably DM a sandboxish pirate campaign in a home brew world. since they be pirates, there need to be things to steal cargos of ships that make sense. but i'm faily lousy with this, so i thought to ask for your help:
there are 4 grand cultures in the game, what would each bring? i need common goods to trade as well as more specialized and/ or interesting ones...

- the islanders:the players belong to a meshed up tapestry of small island cultures, including many of the regular races and so on (no humans though), with a heavy theme of Caribbean isles, voodoo, withc craft and so on. the players may evolve mini island cultures as well. the diversity is the strength, but no ability o mass produce or mass export.
they deal mainly between themselves, and only a bit with the other cultures, but desperately wanting to.

thoughts:
- rare/ magical woods and plants...
- ? (told you i was bad at this)

- the Empire: a unified fairly advanced colonial religious force of humans (and somewhat subservient dwarves). heavy emphasis on their superiority, using reason and religious touches similar to Christianity in it's crusading period.
they deal mostly with the 2 exotic cultures (mentioned below), guarding their technology and secrets from the islanders. (though some trade in secret)

thoughts:
- highly manufactured goods (they are the only ones using heavy armor)
- stronger/ better metals
- ?

-The Sebbacai: a culture of arabian themed catfolk, who has a great talent for psionics. very much into luxury, fine things, fine experiences and pleasure. they are not happy giddy jolly cats however, but quite serious. they deal mostly with the empire and Vizikian, but also with the islanders on occasion (for high prices)

thoughts:
- high art form, perhaps even able to affect the mind.
- specific mind or body enhancing... substances with various effects. (not reproducible with the islanders magic)

- The Vizikian: a strange race of mongrelfolk like people (who look like they did in AD&D, not 3.5) who have a great talent for artifice (they have many artificers of great talent). they even craft simplistic constructs as their servants (similar to mindless warforged). they however are small in number (raltively) and can't really mass produce.
they trade mostly with the Empire and the Sebbicai. they have fairly recently developed the gunpowder, which the empire craves and established a trade monopoly on. no one was able to reproduce it amongst the other cultures.

thoughts:
- high grade magical items on demand.
- gunpowder
- perhaps small kind of constructs or homunculus?

again- anything interesting to trade, as well as common goods. the islanders should have the most goods, but generally far less demanded.

thanks!

(search word: piratewitch)

The Reverend
2011-11-11, 11:02 AM
The most important thing, from a realistic and historical perspective, is the boring stuff: rope, pitch, sail cloth, medical supplies were a buggy, ship wood, food, cutlery, candles, wax, and the hundreds of other basic things.

One little talked about source of pirate booty was jerky and smoked meats.
1. Russell cows and pigs, apparently manatee was popular too, on one island.
2. Transport cows and pigs to second island, either alivenor dead
3. Smoke and dry the meat
4. Sell meat at port for big profit

Bucan the root word for buccaneers is an Arawak word for a wooden smoking frame.

But the stuff you probably want help with
Islanders- fever plants, quinine for malaria medicine, Ironwood, pearls, exotic shells, weather totems for clear sailing and good weather could be made to order and installed on a ship, exotic pets, spices would be a BIG one, island dwarve iron glass tools( use a sand to glass spell followed by a hardening spell) its light as glass, just as sharp, hard as steel), fruit especially fruit and vegetables that will keep for a long period of time, flowers if a preservative magic was used would be a High Value low weight long distance commodity. A particularly venturesome magic user might set up a small facility just to determine what the local flora and fauna might be good for, then plan to develop a export market for them.