Miscellany

The Wilderlands of Absalom

Monster Parts

According to the books monster parts are worth a number of gold equal to their XP. One load of monster parts weighs 5 stone and is worth 300 gp.

There are two options when it comes to selling monster parts: you can sell it direct to a magic-user, provided the mage is looking for those parts in particular. This sale is at the exact cost of the monster parts (so, if you find a mage who needs chimera spleens you could sell it to her right then for 1300 gp). You also don't run the risk of losing any money. The downside is finding a mage who wants the specific monster parts right then and there. You can also treat monster parts as part of mercantile exchange, in which case you have to wait a bit longer than if you had a buyer lined up, but the good news is that there are merchants out there who deal *just* in monster parts, so you don't need to worry about finding one mage who wants to buy ogre skulls and another who wants to buy wyvern stingers. On the plus side, you can also come out with more than the base price assuming market conditions are favorable.

Mercenaries

As per Domains at War (p. 12), mercenaries may be veterans. They are classed characters (usually fighters or explorers) and inflict an extra +1 damage and gain a +1 bonus to their morale score. Their base pay is increased by 12 gp, however. Note that due to the dangerous nature of the expedition (venturing into the unknown) all mercenaries and specialists (such as animal trainers, healers, etc.) are going to charge double their base price, unless garrisoned in cleared hexes.

Shields Shall Be Splintered

You can negate a physical attack against you by having your shield take the force of the blow.

Money Matters

• We are using standards of living (p. 39): 450 at 4th and 5th, 1225 at 6th. The adventurers begin with the 1st month already paid. Henchmen will use the table on p.51 for their monthly fee.
• There are no banks. I like the idea of you guys hauling around chests full of gold and jewels and trying to figure out what to do with it. Please note that your factor will be able to keep money for you (like, I'm assuming he has a big saferoom in his office like Scrooge McDuck).
• You guys have coinpurses that can hold up to 50 coins or their equivalent without adding to encumbrance
• Jewelry worn openly does not count towards encumbrance.
• There's no exchange rate or fees for gems. All those costs are baked into the Standards of Living costs. Spend 100 gold get a 100 gp gem.

Alchemist Lab

Posts here and here.

Starmetal

Every once in a while a lump of stone and ore plummets from the sky and collides with the earth. If it is large enough to survive its fiery descent the ore may be refined from the meteorite through a laborious alchemical process. As it comes from the formless void of space starmetal is inimical to the matter that makes up the world, making weapons that are most potent against elementals and their kin. In addition, it makes a fine material to use for the creation of magical items, as it never rusts or tarnishes. When alloyed with steel, the most common alloy, it has a dull bluish hue. This alloy is typically called starsteel or durseren, in Faery.

Starmetal must be refined in an alchemical laboratory, a process taking one week for every pound of ore processed. Each pound of ore yields half a pound of star metal. The refined star metal has two primary purposes: it can be used in the crafting of non-magical, masterwork items or as components in magical items.

When used to make masterwork items a single pound of refined starmetal will yield twenty arrow or bolt heads, five daggers or spear tips, three short swords, hand axes or similar, two longswords, battle axes or similar or a single two handed sword. Metal shields or any armor up to chain mail may be fashioned from two pounds of refined starmetal while a suit of plate require four pounds. Masterwork items composed of starmetal alloy have the following qualities in addition to the typical masterwork properties:

• Weapons are considered to be magical for the purposes of hitting and damaging elemental creatures, regardless if they may only be struck by magical weapons.
• Armor and shields grant an AC of 1 greater when resisting attacks from elementals and elemental creatures, but not spells that rely on one specific element.

Magical items forged from starsteel have the following properties (and require the same amounts, as given above):

• In general, using starsteel is considered to be worth 10,000 gp of precious materials, regardless of the amount actually used.
• Each pound is valued at 1000 gp for purposes of valuable components.
• If crafting an item specifically to interact with elemental beings (such as a a brazier of elemental control, or a sword +1/+2 v. elementals) reduce the base price of the item by 2000 gp.

However, because it was born in the cold depths of space starsteel is brittle and suffers a -2 penalty to attempts to sunder or break it.

Construction Projects

Large scale projects (roads, boats, castles, etc.) can be completed at the following rates given access to an urban center:

• In areas with a Class I market commissioned work can be done at the rate of 500 gp/day
• In areas with a Class II market commissioned work can be done at a rate of 400 gp/day
• In areas with a Class III market commissioned work can be done at a rate of 250 gp/day.
• In areas with a Class IV market commissioned work can be done at a rate of 100 gp/day.
• In areas with a Class V market commissioned work can be done at a rate of 50 gp/day.
• In areas with a Class VI market commissioned work can be done at a rate of 25 gp/day.

For these purposes the amount of work done includes materials. There is also a limit to the number of large construction projects an area can maintain at one time. Areas with a Class VI or V market can carry out one project at a time, Class IV markets can carry out two projects at a time, Class III and II markets and carry out three projects at a time and Class I markets can carry out four at a time. This maximum number of projects includes all work being done in a region, so the adventurers may not be able to begin work right away. For each project capability roll 1d100 at the end of each week; there is a 25% chance the project can begin the beginning of the following week.

Work of this scale can only be done within a number of hexes of the urban center, as follows:

• Class I and II market. 3 6-mile hexes
• Class III and IV market. 2 6-mile hexes
• Class V market. 1 6-mile hex
• Class VI market. The hex the urban center is in.

Work being done outside the area requires the following:

• Wages increase by 100%, due to logistical matters.
• Guards are required if the work is being done in Borderlands or Wilderness. Assume there needs to be a monthly gp value of guards equivalent to the construction rate per day while in Borderlands territory and twice that in Wilderness.

In areas with material scarcity building materials must be imported. Material costs are, assuming average materials, half of labor costs and are used at a rate as follows: every

Praum

• It is called godshit because it seems to be spontaneously produced in places where powerful beings, quasi-gods or eidolons are trapped, sleeping or otherwise confined. The presence of such beings, over centuries or millennia, creates veins of the waxy, slightly glowing substance that alchemists call praum.
• It has a value approaching one hundred gold per pound when refined.
• Raw praum can be difficult to refine, and one pound of raw godshit produces one half pound of refined praum.
  • Requires a base throw of 17+, instead of 14+. Without the book it would have a throw of 20+ to refine.
• The real value of praum is to magic-users, especially those who specialize in the creation of life or unlife. It can be used as follows:
  • For every twenty pounds of godshit used in necromancy it allows the mage to add 1 HD to the maximum level of undead created, to a maximum of double the caster's level. Using a minimum of one pound of praum in the ritual also adds +1 to the caster's magical research throw.
  • When creating crossbreeds every twenty-five points of godshit allows the caster to add one special ability beyond which would normally be allowed. She also gains a +1 bonus to the magic research throw as long as at least one pound is used.
  • A mage using praum to create a construct gain a +1 bonus to the magic research throw for every 5,000 gp worth of praum they use.
• Because it is created from the boiling off of excess divine power (much as salt is refined from boiling sea water) praum can also be used as a source of divine power. Every pound of godshit produces 1,000 gp of divine power.
• Refined praum can also be used in alchemical labs. One pound of praum counts as 500 gold worth of alchemical reagents.

Nathet estimates that the book is worth approximately 500 gold for purposes of being added to the growing library at Wolf Keep.

Natural 20 Rolls

Any attack throw that results in a natural 20 yields maximum damage.

Coal

Coal is a mineral trade good worth a base of 75 gold per stone of weight. This puts it at a rough equivalence to gold ore at 50% purity (see ACKS mining). It can be mined at a rate of 50 stone per week per miner tree (one master miner, two journeymen, four apprentices and ten unskilled laborers). Coal does not need to be refined. It has the following uses:

1. When used to run a smelter it increases the efficiency of the smelter by the following: small smelter x 100%, medium smelter 50% and a large smelter by 25%. In addition, it increases the yield of the smelter by 10% (to a maximum of 100%). It takes five stone of coal to run a small smelter for one week, twenty stone of coal to run a medium smelter and eighty stone of coal to run a large smelter.

2. If used by a blacksmith, armorer or similar they have their output increased by 50% per month. A smithy will go through one stone of coal a week. In addition, the smith can produce the rare alloys needed to create masterwork or magical items.

3. If used in an alchemists lab coal adds a +1 to any magical research throw that requires a reagent or consumable material. At least 1/6 stone per 250 gp of the project must be used to gain the bonus.

Improving Land Values

Some of the hexes include resources (such as herbs, mines, lumber, etc.). You may decide to either use the resources directly until they are depleted, in which case you get the gp value of whatever the resource is worth. So, if there's a stand of timber worth 750 gp you can harvest it and get the cash, or a mine can be worked until all the ore has been extracted, etc.

The other choice would be to ration the resource, in which case it will increase the land value by some fractional amount, yielding potentially more revenue over the long term.

Cooks

An army moves on its stomach, and while any mercenary worth his or her salt can cook a meal the presence of professional cooks with an army can improve morale and stretch food beyond what would otherwise be expected. Cooks follow the standard pyramid for craftsfolk -- masters, journeymen and apprentices -- with the same pay scale as a craftsman. The only difference is that the gp produced per month is instead mouths fed. So, a master cook can feed 40 soldiers at a time, a journeyman 20 and an apprentice 10. When under the command of one above them the output is increased, as per the description. The presence of a cook raises the morale of all soldiers fed by the cook by +1. In addition, a full pyramid of cooks improves the efficiency of food production by 25%. So, for instance, 8 days of rations gets stretched to 10 days.