Goods
Chains
Section titled “Chains”Goods are made from other goods in chains:
| Chain | Goods |
|---|---|
| Bread | Grain to flour to bread |
| Ale | Barley to ale |
| Beasts | Beasts to meat, and hides to leather |
| Cloth | Wool to cloth to dyed cloth |
| Linen | Flax to linen |
| Healing | Linen and herbs to bandages |
| Fuel | Firewood to charcoal and lime |
| Iron | Ore and charcoal to iron |
| Raw | Timber, stone and fish |
Where they come from
Section titled “Where they come from”Each place is surveyed when the world is made: its woods, water, hills, pasture, sea, rock, nearby mines and workplaces. So places specialise.
Villages gather goods into a store: barley with the harvest, wool at the shearing, flax at the end of the reaping, herbs in spring and summer, and the rest daily. Their carts take it to town with the grain. A village with woods, hills or a river may have a woodcutters’ camp, a quarry or a fish weir, and gives more timber, stone or fish for it.
Each workplace in a town makes what its hands and the market’s goods allow, and stops while its goods pile up. A workplace held under half its day’s work for want of goods stands idle: the next day its workers start late, sit at their doors or stand in the square, and more of them drink at night.
A castle runs only its mill, bakehouse, brewhouse, woods and quarry.
| Wood | Gives | Grows back |
|---|---|---|
| Coppice | Firewood | Cut on a 16-season cycle; never thins |
| High forest | Timber | 20 years |
A town that fells hard thins its woods and gets less timber, never under a tenth. Towns start three tenths felled, villages one tenth.
What towns use
Section titled “What towns use”Townsfolk use bread, ale, meat and fish, firewood (most in winter), cloth, linen, leather, timber, stone, lime and a little iron each day. Armies buying food take the market’s grain and bread. Carts kept home by war leave the market short.
The armourer, weaponsmith and tailor make their pieces from the market’s iron, timber, leather, cloth and linen, with dyed cloth for fine pieces. A town with no iron soon has no mail.
Prices
Section titled “Prices”A good sells at its base price when the town holds eight days of what it uses. The price runs from a quarter to four times that base as the stock falls or rises. From two days before its fair, a town wants half again of the crafts’ goods.
The market lists every good in chain order, marked short if the folk went a quarter short of it yesterday and plenty if the town holds twice what it wants. Inside the walls, the screen tells you what the town is short of or has plenty of.
Healing goods
Section titled “Healing goods”Bandages and herbs heal the wounded. A day’s tending uses one load of each per ten men, and each makes that day’s healing half again as fast.