Miscellany
Contents
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
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.
Flying Carpets and Hex Clearing
Using a flying carpet -- or other method of long term flight -- greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to explore most hexes. For grasslands, farmland, mostly water hexes, etc. reduce the time required to explore a hex by half, to two days for the entire hex. Note, of course, that this does not reduce the amount of time needed to deal with potential threats but rather the overall time required to map and explore the hex. In addition, assuming the flying observers on the carpet stick relatively close to the main party the group is only surprised on a roll of 1 on 1d6 or, if there is an Explorer present, on a roll of 1 on 1d8.
For other terrain -- hills, mountains, light to medium forest, etc. -- it moves the category up by one degree. Therefore, you could explore a hilly hex (which typically takes six days) in the same amount of time it takes to explore a grasslands hex. For hexes that are mostly obscured by the air (such as woodlands) the party does not gain the benefit of reduced chance of surprise.
Jungles, swamps or heavily forested hexes do not gain the benefits of having an "eye in the sky".
