Ok a little context. The party im currently DM'ing will soon ender a major elven city. This city is strange as it is built on a "tear" in reality that seperates the Material plane from the Feywild. Now in my brainstroming I'm looking to create a market place that is in the feywild, that occupies the same space as the citie's primiary market, on the material. The city iself has a feywild equvient. in the exact same spot. Think the troll market from Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.
That said, im thinking that Fey of all walks of life come to this market, and by extention these fey can bleed out into the material world as a result. How would you go about buildng a Fey Market. Im thinking there'd by wacky and danergous merchants, like a merchant that could sell you an untrained manticore for example xD. Im thinking of created a Fey Lord for this Market "The Merchant King" or something, and MAYBE create a Shadow Fell equivenlant of the market and by extenstion the city. Any ideas?
I think I'd go for some sort of time lock device. For arguements sake, have the material plane market available 24 hours a day with various mundane options such basic armourer and weapon dealers, fresh produce sellers and hawkers of day to day items but from midday to sundown the Fey side comes into being and from midnight to dawn the shadowfell side comes into effect.
When either the Fey or Shadowfell side appears you get more mystical vendors such as Eladrin selling Pseudodragon familiars or Shadar kai selling magic weapons and the occasional more powerful merchant such as an Archfey or Nagpa that sells extremely rare and powerful items, magical components or acts as some form of information broker.
You can use a "never the twain shall meet" approach so the stalls operated by the Fey are in the same place as those operated by the Shadowfell which can lead to some political shenanigans as maybe the merchants know of each other and are jealous and want to saboutage the others etc. This also means depending on the time of day the party go to the market they will get different experiences.
I think you;d have to have some sort of Magnificent Mansion effect on each of those stalls though so when its "closing time" and the Fey or Shadowfell stalls disappear any matreial realm patrons are not shifted back to the Feywild or the Shadowfell.
For a Lord running the market I might go for something akin to a powerful Genie or Hag as they might have a more vested interest in allowing mortals on the material plane to access items form teh Feywild or Shadowfell.
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I'd try to go funny both in terms of mundarnity, and obsurdity. As an example, they Fey work a 9 to 5. 5pm hits and they stop whoever they're dealing, quickly pack a suitcase and leave, mid-transaction, leaving their client just slack-jawed.
Similarly, you might have charts with things for sale and their prices:
Pixie Dust Ramen - (Cost) Your tears for 48hrs.
48 Tooth Silver Necklace - (Cost) 1 Goblin Tooth and 1m of string - NO SUBSTITUTIONS
What the PC doesn't notice is that these aren't sad tears. These are eye moisture for 48hrs... and the necklace is worth 48x the cost of materials, but you can't give them anything else. Just a Goblin Tooth and string.
Lastly, I'd just make Goblin Teeth as currency a re-occuring theme. (It's actually a thing a normally do for Goblin culture.) So the PC's might see a Goblin punch himself in the face to give a tooth to a Faerie for some big shiny sword he shouldn't be able to lift, but magically can.
Many ideas. Most of them depend on how the fey work in your world and how much you enjoy/can get away with screwing with your players.
Picky Pixie Merchant: this pixie sells interesting and valuable goods, and she'll even take simple coin for her wares! But not your coin. No no, your coin is ugly. She wants coin from a batch that was minted a thousand years ago; that design was so much prettier and nicer than your stinky new coins with the ugly face on them. The players may coincidentally have a few of the correct coins, but if they want some of what the pixie is selling, they'll need to locate and loot an ancient stash of the proper coins.
Love is Strength: A merchant offers to sell the party a special potion that can permanently* increase their Strength and Strength maximum by 2, and the cost is within the party's means. Yay! Drawback: the potion is actually a fey-jiggered philter of love; the next compatible party member they see after drinking it becomes their undying love. For one hour each day they can invoke the potion's power and improve their Strength, but only if the object of their affection is within sight and able to witness them use their power. Effectively, the player who drinks the potion becomes afflicted with a tricksy Fey curse that leaves them with power that only works in defense and support of 'Love'. Because to a fey that's how love has to work, right?
Pay the Toll: To even gain access to the Fey Market, one must give a secret to the night hag that controls it and acts as its Fey Lord. Once given to the hag, the player physically cannot share that secret with anyone else. Once they've given up a secret they can access the Fey Market, but occasionally the hag will threaten to revoke their access if they don't give up a fresh secret. The more secrets the player gives up, and the more important each secret is, the more influence the hag has over the player. If she gains enough influence, she can compel the player to aid her in ferreting out others' secrets and occasionally imposes a fairy quest on the party. The players can curry favor with the hag and earn special discounts and expanded access in the Market by giving up secrets and by trading in other people's secrets they manage to puzzle out, but if they ruin a secret by sharing it? They incur the hag's wrath, and everything goes south.
Just a few notions off the top of my head, may or may not be useful. I do enjoy the idea though. May have to purloin the notion of a 'Fey Market' for future games myself, even if my players are sadly far too hyper-paranoid to do anything interesting with it.
Many ideas. Most of them depend on how the fey work in your world and how much you enjoy/can get away with screwing with your players.
Picky Pixie Merchant: this pixie sells interesting and valuable goods, and she'll even take simple coin for her wares! But not your coin. No no, your coin is ugly. She wants coin from a batch that was minted a thousand years ago; that design was so much prettier and nicer than your stinky new coins with the ugly face on them. The players may coincidentally have a few of the correct coins, but if they want some of what the pixie is selling, they'll need to locate and loot an ancient stash of the proper coins.
Love is Strength: A merchant offers to sell the party a special potion that can permanently* increase their Strength and Strength maximum by 2, and the cost is within the party's means. Yay! Drawback: the potion is actually a fey-jiggered philter of love; the next compatible party member they see after drinking it becomes their undying love. For one hour each day they can invoke the potion's power and improve their Strength, but only if the object of their affection is within sight and able to witness them use their power. Effectively, the player who drinks the potion becomes afflicted with a tricksy Fey curse that leaves them with power that only works in defense and support of 'Love'. Because to a fey that's how love has to work, right?
Pay the Toll: To even gain access to the Fey Market, one must give a secret to the night hag that controls it and acts as its Fey Lord. Once given to the hag, the player physically cannot share that secret with anyone else. Once they've given up a secret they can access the Fey Market, but occasionally the hag will threaten to revoke their access if they don't give up a fresh secret. The more secrets the player gives up, and the more important each secret is, the more influence the hag has over the player. If she gains enough influence, she can compel the player to aid her in ferreting out others' secrets and occasionally imposes a fairy quest on the party. The players can curry favor with the hag and earn special discounts and expanded access in the Market by giving up secrets and by trading in other people's secrets they manage to puzzle out, but if they ruin a secret by sharing it? They incur the hag's wrath, and everything goes south.
Just a few notions off the top of my head, may or may not be useful. I do enjoy the idea though. May have to purloin the notion of a 'Fey Market' for future games myself, even if my players are sadly far too hyper-paranoid to do anything interesting with it.
Can I just say that I love this? All of this? It's fantastic. You should be proud.
Be sure to have the local law enforcement only enforce the law of the Elves in the Elven realm. Things that happen in the Feywild or Shadowfell are out of their jurisdiction. The punishment for breaking the law in each of those places may be very different than on the Elven market. The "laws" may be very different too.
Stealing from the Elves may be punishable by a fine or jail time.
In the Feywild it might mean a service (quest), an item the PC values (a magic item, their voice, or their left eyebrow) or the PC's first born.
In the Shadowfell it might mean a year of the PCs life payable right now, their sight, or a time of servitude.
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, chapter 1 (Witchlight Carnival), has a table for ways the players can buy extra ride tickets. None of it is with money.
Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus has a market that wanders around that sort of fits too.
There could be Arcane, these blue giant magic items merchant.
Sprite Fey drug dealer selling a veriety of intoxicating substances from the Feywild.
Eladrin selling elvish artwork.
Goblin opera music concert somewhere.
Like in every major cities' marketplace, you could find beggars asking for coins, but instead, these invisible pixies would ask for extremely sad or joyful stories to feed on emotions it evoke in the listeners.
Talking multicolored Parrots could be found offering translation services for sylvan, and other Fey dialect.
Hags offering escort services for accompagnying you to any public or private events
Security assured by small korred squads at every corner.
A dryad offering charm identification and beast and plant interpret services, where you exit even more charmed than you were before meeting it!
A charlatan nereid fortune-telling water fountain.
Quickling fast mailing services throughout the marketplace, guaranteeing minutes delivery or money refund.
Poor looking Satyr in every corners playing music for money, that are in reality richer than you!
A yet hound selling his service as creature tracker.
Air and ground pegasus and unicorn taxi transport services.
Ok a little context. The party im currently DM'ing will soon ender a major elven city. This city is strange as it is built on a "tear" in reality that seperates the Material plane from the Feywild. Now in my brainstroming I'm looking to create a market place that is in the feywild, that occupies the same space as the citie's primiary market, on the material. The city iself has a feywild equvient. in the exact same spot. Think the troll market from Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.
That said, im thinking that Fey of all walks of life come to this market, and by extention these fey can bleed out into the material world as a result. How would you go about buildng a Fey Market. Im thinking there'd by wacky and danergous merchants, like a merchant that could sell you an untrained manticore for example xD. Im thinking of created a Fey Lord for this Market "The Merchant King" or something, and MAYBE create a Shadow Fell equivenlant of the market and by extenstion the city. Any ideas?
I think I'd go for some sort of time lock device. For arguements sake, have the material plane market available 24 hours a day with various mundane options such basic armourer and weapon dealers, fresh produce sellers and hawkers of day to day items but from midday to sundown the Fey side comes into being and from midnight to dawn the shadowfell side comes into effect.
When either the Fey or Shadowfell side appears you get more mystical vendors such as Eladrin selling Pseudodragon familiars or Shadar kai selling magic weapons and the occasional more powerful merchant such as an Archfey or Nagpa that sells extremely rare and powerful items, magical components or acts as some form of information broker.
You can use a "never the twain shall meet" approach so the stalls operated by the Fey are in the same place as those operated by the Shadowfell which can lead to some political shenanigans as maybe the merchants know of each other and are jealous and want to saboutage the others etc. This also means depending on the time of day the party go to the market they will get different experiences.
I think you;d have to have some sort of Magnificent Mansion effect on each of those stalls though so when its "closing time" and the Fey or Shadowfell stalls disappear any matreial realm patrons are not shifted back to the Feywild or the Shadowfell.
For a Lord running the market I might go for something akin to a powerful Genie or Hag as they might have a more vested interest in allowing mortals on the material plane to access items form teh Feywild or Shadowfell.
I'd try to go funny both in terms of mundarnity, and obsurdity. As an example, they Fey work a 9 to 5. 5pm hits and they stop whoever they're dealing, quickly pack a suitcase and leave, mid-transaction, leaving their client just slack-jawed.
Similarly, you might have charts with things for sale and their prices:
Pixie Dust Ramen - (Cost) Your tears for 48hrs.
48 Tooth Silver Necklace - (Cost) 1 Goblin Tooth and 1m of string - NO SUBSTITUTIONS
What the PC doesn't notice is that these aren't sad tears. These are eye moisture for 48hrs... and the necklace is worth 48x the cost of materials, but you can't give them anything else. Just a Goblin Tooth and string.
Lastly, I'd just make Goblin Teeth as currency a re-occuring theme. (It's actually a thing a normally do for Goblin culture.) So the PC's might see a Goblin punch himself in the face to give a tooth to a Faerie for some big shiny sword he shouldn't be able to lift, but magically can.
Many ideas. Most of them depend on how the fey work in your world and how much you enjoy/can get away with screwing with your players.
Picky Pixie Merchant: this pixie sells interesting and valuable goods, and she'll even take simple coin for her wares! But not your coin. No no, your coin is ugly. She wants coin from a batch that was minted a thousand years ago; that design was so much prettier and nicer than your stinky new coins with the ugly face on them. The players may coincidentally have a few of the correct coins, but if they want some of what the pixie is selling, they'll need to locate and loot an ancient stash of the proper coins.
Love is Strength: A merchant offers to sell the party a special potion that can permanently* increase their Strength and Strength maximum by 2, and the cost is within the party's means. Yay! Drawback: the potion is actually a fey-jiggered philter of love; the next compatible party member they see after drinking it becomes their undying love. For one hour each day they can invoke the potion's power and improve their Strength, but only if the object of their affection is within sight and able to witness them use their power. Effectively, the player who drinks the potion becomes afflicted with a tricksy Fey curse that leaves them with power that only works in defense and support of 'Love'. Because to a fey that's how love has to work, right?
Pay the Toll: To even gain access to the Fey Market, one must give a secret to the night hag that controls it and acts as its Fey Lord. Once given to the hag, the player physically cannot share that secret with anyone else. Once they've given up a secret they can access the Fey Market, but occasionally the hag will threaten to revoke their access if they don't give up a fresh secret. The more secrets the player gives up, and the more important each secret is, the more influence the hag has over the player. If she gains enough influence, she can compel the player to aid her in ferreting out others' secrets and occasionally imposes a fairy quest on the party. The players can curry favor with the hag and earn special discounts and expanded access in the Market by giving up secrets and by trading in other people's secrets they manage to puzzle out, but if they ruin a secret by sharing it? They incur the hag's wrath, and everything goes south.
Just a few notions off the top of my head, may or may not be useful. I do enjoy the idea though. May have to purloin the notion of a 'Fey Market' for future games myself, even if my players are sadly far too hyper-paranoid to do anything interesting with it.
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Can I just say that I love this? All of this? It's fantastic. You should be proud.
Be sure to have the local law enforcement only enforce the law of the Elves in the Elven realm. Things that happen in the Feywild or Shadowfell are out of their jurisdiction. The punishment for breaking the law in each of those places may be very different than on the Elven market. The "laws" may be very different too.
Stealing from the Elves may be punishable by a fine or jail time.
In the Feywild it might mean a service (quest), an item the PC values (a magic item, their voice, or their left eyebrow) or the PC's first born.
In the Shadowfell it might mean a year of the PCs life payable right now, their sight, or a time of servitude.
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, chapter 1 (Witchlight Carnival), has a table for ways the players can buy extra ride tickets. None of it is with money.
Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus has a market that wanders around that sort of fits too.
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There could be Arcane, these blue giant magic items merchant.
Sprite Fey drug dealer selling a veriety of intoxicating substances from the Feywild.
Eladrin selling elvish artwork.
Goblin opera music concert somewhere.
Like in every major cities' marketplace, you could find beggars asking for coins, but instead, these invisible pixies would ask for extremely sad or joyful stories to feed on emotions it evoke in the listeners.
Talking multicolored Parrots could be found offering translation services for sylvan, and other Fey dialect.
Hags offering escort services for accompagnying you to any public or private events
Security assured by small korred squads at every corner.
A dryad offering charm identification and beast and plant interpret services, where you exit even more charmed than you were before meeting it!
A charlatan nereid fortune-telling water fountain.
Quickling fast mailing services throughout the marketplace, guaranteeing minutes delivery or money refund.
Poor looking Satyr in every corners playing music for money, that are in reality richer than you!
A yet hound selling his service as creature tracker.
Air and ground pegasus and unicorn taxi transport services.