Many years ago, a Great Calamity arose from the deepest pits of this world, lasting many a year before heroes of the land finally overcame it. This is the tale of that Calamity, and the supports who necessitated those great heroes on their legendary journey.
A tale of honor, valiance, and profit.
Essentially, this is Fantasy War Profiteering - The Game. You play as one of four merchants running a general store which up-and-coming heroes go to as they venture across the land,
attempting to grow strong enough to defeat the Big Bad, and end the great calamity once and for all. But you don't care about all that. You're just trying to make a good profit.
You, as a shop owner, have many tools at your disposal to manipulate the economy in your favor, but the basic gist of your job is this:
1. Acquire stock.
2. Sell stock.
3. Use money to acquire more stock, or to fund things that will aid profit in other ways.
4. Repeat.
Now, of course, things are never quite that simple. You are also competing against 3 other rival shops, who are all out to get the most profit before the Great Calamity ends. After the Calamity, your business venture will be over, and you'll have to make do with whatever is left over. (The game ends when the Calamity is over, and the winner is that who has the most money at the end of the game.) You and your competitors will need to do whatever it takes to ensure yourself a rich and prosperous future after the Calamity, even if it means a little subterfuge is involved.
The Calamity will end in 3 years time. Each turn is a week of in-game time, during which you are allowed to perform 5 separate actions (one for each weekday.) These are divided into a couple of categories.
1. Bartering: The buying of stock, auctioning off your own stock, trading stock with other players, altering the price of your stock, or ordering in custom stock.
2. Subterfuge: Stealing stock from other players, setting up fake stock to be sold, interfering with other player's affairs, investigating other player's plans, etc.
3. Villainy: Performing rituals to extend the Calamity, cursing stock, casting dark magic on other players or heroes, looting the dead bodies of heroes, hiring goons to kill off heroes, generally nasty stuff.
While bartering has no inherit consequences, performing acts of Subterfuge or Villainy has a chance of being revealed to the local authorities, and that can put you (and your profits) in a bit of a rough spot.
You can defend yourself against other players subterfuge by hiring hands from the Tavern, having high enough popularity, or if you know what they're planning you can send goons to mess with their goons.
The village you reside in has a few facilities available, and interacting with any of these counts as a Bartering action. They are as follows:
- Auction House: Hosts a weekly auction for items at their base value, heroes and merchants can visit this. Items sold to the auction house will provide the original supplier with a cut of the money from the item's selling price at first, and the full price if sold. Not available if you have been involved in too many acts of Subterfuge or Villainy.
- Arcanist: Can produce costly custom-built items, but only ones that provide positive or neutral effects, not negative ones. These take a variable amount of time to make, depending on the value of the item created. Usually 2-4 turns.
- Witch: Can produce costly custom-built items. Cheaper than Arcanist, but all items are cursed to some degree (whether the player decides what the curse is or not), making them have a lower base value.
- Craftsman: Sells high-quality mundane items for a higher-than-base value price.
- Guild: Buys stock in bulk quantities (to supply for new recruits) and can sponsor you if you put quests up on your store. Sponsorship provides money each turn, but is cancelled if you are caught in any acts of Subterfuge or Villainy. Sponsorship also makes heroes more likely to visit your store, but if your sponsorship is cancelled, they will be less likely to turn up than normal.
- Tavern: Can hire hands to help with your 'affairs'. Quality varies widely, but generally keeps you safe from the penalties of Subterfuge and Villainy.
There is also a weekly Market which is free to attend, although you can choose whether you do so or not. At this market there will be 5 select items available for purchase, and this changes every week. Some items will only appear this way. There are also some basics which will always be sold.
Each turn, after all actions, the heroes will play out their part. They will buy from stores that have positive reviews, and generally good quality items. Occasional weekly modifiers may alter their choices, but these will be made apparent to you. As the Calamity worsens through time (or other means) they will want higher quality gear, but also have more money to spend. Of course, a fully-equipped hero will not need to shop any longer, and thus will stick to adventuring.
Items provide modifiers to heroes success chances, and the better items they have, the more money they'll bring back. However, if you want to kill a tough hero, it'll be fairly difficult and require some skilled hired hands.
The numbers in this game will be kept fairly under wraps, although you will be aware of the value of things, etc.
If there are any questions, please ask away and I will add them to this overview. I'm sure there's probably some things I'm missing, so I'd love to be informed of it.
Player Name: Your name.
Shop Name: The name of your store.
Specialty: Choose from the options below.
- Local: Pay less for stock, auction house gives extra money when selling items there, and pay less for facilities in town. However, Villainy and Subterfuge have harsher consequences.
- Criminal: Far less popularity among customers, and occasionally some of the 5 select Market items will be locked off from you, unable to purchase. However, you do not suffer consequences for Subterfuge, and you suffer lighter consequences for Villainy.
- Veteran: Heroes will frequent your store more often, and occasionally may donate money or items to you. However, fresher heroes will be hesitant to shop with you.
- Cultist: Villainy has no consequences, and you can curse items for free. However, the Artificer will not serve you, and the longer the Calamity goes on, the less likely it will be for heroes to visit your store.
- Nomad: You start with three items in stock rather than the normal 5, but you gain the benefits of a hired hand without paying for them at the Tavern.
Favoured Stock: Weapons, Armor, Items, or Artifacts. Determines your 5 starting stock items, and gives you a higher chance of getting customers willing to spend money on those types of items, but not other types. You may also choose General, which starts you with a varied stock, but no bonuses/penalties.
Credit to Empiricist for helping with this.
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Topic: Profiteer's Delight - The Great Calamity Begins - Starting soonish! [4/4] (Read 948 times)