Black Market goods

[Jallorn]

So at the end of our last session, my players decided to try and find the local Black Market. As a result, I'm looking for suggestions for fun Black Market goods. I already know that they'll have a handful of expensive magic items (mostly weapons) which I'll be creating myself as this is a lowish-magic world, but I need suggestions for what kinds of non-magical things the black market might have for sale.

[ahenobarbi]

Poisons, drugs, slaves, regular-stuff-only-cheaper (stolen and thus possible source of problems or flawed in non-obvious ways or counterfeit).

[motoko's ghost]

Those evil material components from BoVD, evil magical items

[Diarmuid]

Weapons/Armor/Other items with hidden compartments (wand chambers, boot blades, etc) various "kits" like climbers' kits that rogues might use.

[motoko's ghost]

Assassins, cut-throat thieves and mercenaries for hire, blackmail material on various people, alibis, safe-houses, those who cater to man's darkest whims.

[Funkyodor]

Whatever might be illegal imports to wherever they are. Or luxury goods like exotic "animal" parts or magically preserved foods. Maybe someone selling mystery unidentified magic items for "cheap".

If the locale is important enough, maybe an auction for powerful/rare magic items (Tomes of Stat enhancement, Aparatus of the Crab, Metamagic Rods, etc...).

[Clawhound]

Anything that is illegal, immoral, or blasphemous.

Strange books, tomes, secret histories, incriminating letters, political influence, useful knowledge. Basically, anything that needs to change hands quietly. All the dirt on the highly evil ruling family is just as much black market material as a book of demon summoning.

[Mystify]

I'd think that goods gotten from the black market are more likely to be shady, and would have a chance that items are cursed.

[hydraa]

Several items in the BoEF might fit the bill.

[Coidzor]

Symbionts and other exotic but unobtrusive creatures. Contacts with groups that specialize in exotic magical beast slavery for mounts.

Illicit warbeast operations, magebred creatures of dubious legality. The occasional magebred horrid warbeast.

If you're OK with purchasing of feats, something akin to a slotless graft through some means or another to gain an abyssal/draconic/aberrant/X heritage feat. Like, say, back alley magical surgery from a fleshweaver, steaming and green bubbling beverages from an alchemist type, etc...

Information brokers, spy rings for hire/hiring, mercenary recruiters/jobhunters, bidding on assassination contracts that the guild farms out to hopefuls as a way to cut down on scabs on the overflow and to help screen recruits.

Blessings from dark or at least morally dubious gods that are the equivalent of purchasing X buff, or at least a spell that one thinks works like X buff... For a longer duration than normal, but at the cost of attracting that god's attention while that buff is up, and of course, it does have its price...

Items for skillful characters and scoundrels.

Kinky boots and other sundries.

Changeling and Doppelganger services of various sorts from prostitution to information to going on assignment to dig up blackmail information to just plain pranking people.

Changeling dancers.

The odd bit of planar currency.

Could probably throw in a few clues or components of macguffins too.

Shax's indispensible haversacks. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148101)

Someone trying to undercut Bunko's Bargain Basement and the opportunity to help them resist a representative sabotaging them or to help a representative of Bunko's sabotage their attempt.

[Morithias]

One time when my players went to the black market I had them find a book of vile darkness.

...they stole it. So I don't recommend doing this unless you want a lot of plot and retribution to come along.

They destroyed the book of vile darkness at a holy church, i REALLY didn't see that coming.

[hydraa]

Sell them some conjured/summoned mounts or other objects that will go poof.

Sell them the 10 ft poles made from ladders.

(i.e. reverse some of the money making schemes that PCs can use to break the finances of D&D)

Sell them discount diamonds or diamond dust. (5000 gp of diamonds for 2500, then when they use it to raise dead tell them thier diamonds are only worth 2500 not the 5000)

Sell them Quarterstaves and slings

[Jallorn]

Ok, almost everyone seems to have missed the sentence fragment in my first post that reads: "I'll be creating [magic items] myself as this is a lowish-magic world, but I need suggestions for what kinds of non-magical things."

I'm sorry, but that seems like the best way to get my point across. Let me clarify.

This is a homebrewed world using the E8 alt. rules; if anyone is over level 8 they are probably the most powerful thing around. Additionally, magic is far more difficult to obtain, most NPC casters use the NPC classes, and NPC non-casters easily outnumber NPC casters at least 10 to 1. So every magic item in my world, save potions and some of the weaker wands and scrolls, has a backstory. You do not simply walk into a shop and say, "I'd like to buy some magic weapons."

[Coidzor]

Even better, if there's no NPCs with PC casting levels to provide buffs for hire, then dark or at least shady deities are perfect, and a great way to get a melee character "addicted" to getting his "fix" in the form of a "cocktail" of minor but long duration buffs.

[Tvtyrant]

Slaves of both the humanoid and none-humanoid variety. A dragon is smarter than a human, and is being taught from birth to obey the dumb thing climbing on its back. Preserved corpses for use in necromancy and grafting, cursed items, intelligent items that hate people, de-tentacled Aboleths whose minds can be searched for lost information. In certain places where the concept of rights has developed, golems for forcing a living thing into a tortuous cage. On that note, half-golem grafts (they cause a lot of people to go mad).

In E8 most of the above works, but you are going to want lower level monster babies to sell/preserved corpses to raise. A Dragon might be out, but a Manticore or Magma Mephit.

[Curmudgeon]

Stolen Wizard spellbooks.

[Medic!]

Various Masterwork Tools! (hahaha, but yeah really)

On the weapons side some non-magical special made weapons would fit the flavor pretty well, like fey-crafted, pit-forged, etc (those may have to be magical, idr and I'm AFB atm)

Some unique buff mediums had already been mentioned as well, like spices for food that duplicate a minor long-term buff. Some jewelry or ornamentation that affects circumstance bonuses, unbeknownst to the players. (For instance an amulet of a crying maiden made of gold with sapphire tears that's an underground or little known symbol of a certain guild or group or obscure religion that gives hidden +/-2 circumstance bonuses/penalties to cha based skill checks depending on who you are talking to and where their beliefs/loyalties/whatevers lie)

Of course no black market is complete without a tattoo artist!

If some sort of tinkerer community exists (the gnomes of Exloditon Mountain are well known for their mechanical contraptions...that usually work...mostly as intended) the black market could be a good place for forbidden or at least frowned upon technologies (bow scopes, spike-shooting boots, items to duplicate minor magical effects through technology...lookin at you Alchemist Fire Bazooka) with limited charges or the possibility of malfunction and tragedy.