Price Cyclopedia

The Price Cyclopedia contains more than a 1,000 entries (not counting variations). You can search by item name, item type, or establishment. It supports price ratings, prices with a ‘+’ (e.g., 12+d), items with variations (e.g., qualities of potions), etc. You can also select a character and buy the selected item/service which will add it to the character (for goods) and optionally subtract the price from the character’s coins. Alternatively you can add the item to the character’s short notes (for things like conveyances). There is also an experimental “availability by market size” information provided.

This is one of the four ways to Manage Gear, but it can also simply be used as a reference.

Searching

To access the Price Cyclopedia, you press ⌘-P and then tab to move to the search field, then you type what you're looking for. This can be the name of the item ('candle'), the type of item ('lighting'), or the establishment that you're in ('chandler').

You are then presented with a list of entries that match your search criteria on the left. In this list (on the left) you can see all the items that match the criteria, for example all the items sold at the establishment, with the price, weight, and the quantity the item is sold by (per ounce, per pound, per dozen, etc.) You can then select one of these entries to see the details or make a transaction involving one of the characters.

See List of sources or List of item types below to see what you can search for in addition to the item name.

Selected Entry

When you select an entry you are presented with all the details about the item. For example, say you search for 'elixir' and select the Darkvision Elixir from the list. This is what you will see.

Looking at the details, here are some of the information that is given. You have the item's name on the top left. On the top right you have the item type, the shop where this is available, and an availability rating (more on this below). In this example, an elixir is always a special order from an alchemist.

The 'variation' is a drop-down menu with a specifier for the item. Elixirs come with an Alchemical Strength rating from 6 to 11 which you can select here. The variation will affect the price. Other examples of variations are locks that come in various complexity levels, mixtures that have target numbers, and potions that have success values.

Below that is the price of a single item. On the right is the amount the item is sold by, but this is left empty for item sold "per each". For some items it might be "per ounce," "per gallon," etc.

There is a selector for the price rating of the establishment. This is found in the setting information. Just select the rating for the shop the character is in and the price will reflect that. Ratings go from £ to £££££ and correspond to 'very low' to 'very high.' So the lexigrapher's rating above corresponds to an average price rating.

Character Selection

At the top of the window is a menu where you can select any of the characters. Once a character is selected, the "On person" container is selected by default. You can select any specific container the character is equipped with. Once a character is selected, the "Transaction" section will be available.

This shows the selected character and container, as well as the amount of coins that they have.

Transaction

While the Cyclopedia's main purpose is to inform you of the prices of things, you can also use it to make transactions. With an item and a character selected, you have various options for a transaction.

Buying a service

If paying for a service, you can simply subtract the coins from the character for the service selected. For example paying a toll or renting a room in an inn. Select the service and the character and press "Buy Service" and the coins will be subtracted from the character. If the character doesn't have enough coins to buy the item or service, the 'Buy' button is replaced with a warning.

Buying goods

For goods, you can add the item to a specific container, for example Azdar is buying 4 days of rations and putting them in his backpack. You enter the quantity that you want to buy (press enter after specifying the quantity). The price to the right of the 'Qty' is the total amount of the transaction. You then press 'Buy Expedition Equipment' and the coins are subtracted from the character and the rations added to the selected container.

If you want to add an item without subtracting coins you can do so by selecting Don't manage coins. The button will change from "Buy Expedition Equipment" to "Add Expedition Equipment" to reflect this.

Buying conveyances

For something like a horse or a saddle, you generally don't carry it on you (especially the horse!). You won't be able to add these items to the character's containers, but you can make the transaction (subtracting the coins), and/or you can add the item to the character's short notes by selecting that option.

Buying an item with a price range or a '+'

Some items have a price range, others have a price followed by a '+', and some have both a range and a '+'. These items when selected offer the possibility to select the price within a range. Just use the slider to select the price you want for the item or service.

Buying (or adding) potions or elixirs

Elixirs are not generally available to buy, but your alchemist character might want to add them to his equipment. Both potions and elixirs have special rules which require to remember when they were purchased. Potions only last a number of days, and elixirs might have their Alchemical Strength reduced every 30 days. For this reason both of these items offer the option to add a note to the character sheet by selecting "Add note."

Adjust for Wealth

Cloth and padded reflect materials worn by those with Wealth 6. Multiply prices by a proportional amount to reflect a different social class (Standing table, page 52). Thus, gentry cloth and padded articles (Wealth 18) cost three times as much (6 × 3 = 18).Page 118

Characters have the option to have their clothes reflect their wealth or not. This can be set on the character sheet on the Armour Articles line on page two.

The "Adjust for wealth" checkbox in the Cyclopedia will reflect that choice for the selected character, but it can also be turned on or off here on a per item basis.

It's important to know that this only affects cloth and padded articles, and additionally belts, as they were a visible sign of status in the middle ages. If an item would be affected by this rule, the "Adjust for wealth" turns bold. If selected, the price reflects the adjustment for the selected character's wealth score.

Sources

Here is a list of the establishments, or sources, that can be searched for in the Cyclopedia.

Alchemist, Animal Trainer, Apothecary, Arena, Astrologer, Black Swan, Bondmaster, Breeder, Cartographer, Chantry, Charcoaler, Clothier, Chandler, Courtesan, Embalmer, Falconer, Fishmonger, Fletcher/Bowyer, Glassworker, Guild, Harbourmaster, Harper, Herald, Hideworker, Hunter, Innkeeper, Jeweller, Landlord, Lexigrapher, Lìa-Kaváir, Liege, Litigant, Locksmith, Longshoreman, Mángai, Market, Mason, Mercantyler, Metalsmith, Miller, Miner, Ostler, Perfumer, Physician, Pilot, Porter, Potter, Prostitute, Reksýni, Runecrafter, Salter, Shipowner, Shipwright, Slaver, Tarotist, Temple, Tentmaker, Thatcher, Thespian, Timberwright, Town, Weaponcrafter, Whaler, and Woodcrafter.

Item Types

And here is the list of item types that can be searched for in the Cyclopedia.

Accessories, Accommodations, Armour Article, Concoctions, Containers, Conveyance, Craft Items & Tools, Drinks, Esoterica, Expedition Equipment, First Aid, Food, Furniture and household items, Gems, Lighting, Melee Weapons, Mineral, Missiles, Missile Weapons, Musical Instrument, Services, Vehicles & Tack, and Written Work.

Availability

This is an experimental feature.

The following describes the system that I am using to determine if an item is in stock in a particular type of shop/location. Note that an 'item' in this context is 'something in the cyclopedia' which can be a service as well as goods. Availability is defined as either a number of items in stock (in all shops of a given type in the settlement) or a percentage chance to have one such item. These number or percentage chance are for a given month.

Note also that this is intended to help determine what's available or not, it does not replace GM's fiat. The specifics of a situation will often determine availability which these tables cannot predict.

The factors that affect availability are:

• Market (MKT) size;
• Price of the item (or service);
• The "availability" rating of the item;
• Who makes the item, and in which shop you are trying to acquire it.

Market size

The bigger the MKT, the higher the chance to have an item. MKT is determined by the world's setting based on various factors like the total population, the proximity to trade routes or ports, etc. For example Sarkum in Kandáy only has a population of 330 but is a port so it is rated at MKT 2.

These are the MKT size used in HMK.

Price

The higher the price, the lesser the chance to have an item (this scales with MKT). For example in a small village you would not expect shopkeepers to stock items valued at 3,000d when the general population could never afford to pay this amount for anything in their lifetime. On the other hand items valued at 10d can be found more easily. Bigger markets have a higher number of people, more trade, visitors, etc. so the shopkeepers can expect to sell higher priced items more easily.

Again, GM discretion is necessary. In a town with a strong military presence, higher priced armour might be readily available for example.

Availability Rating (AR)

The ratings used in these tables are defined like this.

• Automatic: "Over the counter", there's always ale in a tavern for example.
• Common: Base 100% modified by MKT size.
• Uncommon: Base 50% modified by MKT size.
• Scarce: Base 25% modified by MKT size.
• Rare: Base 10% modified by MKT size.
• Special: Imports only, special order, etc. Undefined in terms of specific chance %.

Shopkeepers

The shopkeeper will have an influence on the availability of an item in a specific MKT size.

Items have a source (who makes the item) and a seller (who's shop you're in trying to buy the item). Most of the time these two are the same (a weaponsmith selling swords that he made), but sometimes they're not (a chandler selling rope made by a shipwright because there aren't any shipwrights in town).

Sources have a minimum MKT size property. In a smaller MKT, there won't be any of that type of shop available. For example, there are generally no Litigant in a hamlet, because the size of the population is too small to sustain a full time litigant. So below the minimum MKT, the availability will be zero for the shopkeeper (and the items/services he sells directly), but you might find the item in another shop (but generally not services). Ultimately it's the GM who knows what's available in a town or not. There probably isn't a shipwright in a small land-locked village, but there might be in a small coastal village (there is one in Sarkum for example).

Quantity available per month by MKT

This table gives a quantity which represent how many of that specific item are available, in stock, for the current month in all shops of the given type. That number of items will be spread among all the shops, so if there are 15 items and there are 3 shops, each would have about 5 in stock.

The number, if below zero, represents the probability of one item being in stock. Not one per shop, again one among all the shops.

Principles:

• For a given MKT, quantity goes down as price goes up.
• For a given price, quantity goes up as MKT goes up.
• For a given price and MKT, QTY is proportional to the AR (availability rating).

The quantity Q is thus given by the simple equation:

where M_p is a market-specific number given in the market size table above and A_r is the Availability rating (100% for common, 50% for uncommon, etc.). For Q ≥ 1, round the nearest number, for Q < 1, round to the nearest percent.

Here is an example for an Aromatic Potion.

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