Trade Goods as Treasure

This is one of these “I made this, so I might as well share it” things.

In my setting, travelling merchants are supposed to be a really big deal. And I also enjoy the players having to deal with encumbrance. Making exotic goods into a type of treasure that can be found is the sensible thing to do.

In my encumbrance system, weights are rounded up to the next multiple of 10 and then divided by 10. So the average weight for an item with an Encumbrance load of 1 is around 5 pounds. (Equally, the encumbrance limits for characters are divided by 5 to get the number of items that can be carried instead of the weight in pounds.) The quantities listed in this table have been chosen accordingly and the resulting prices and container capacities are based on the numbers from the 5th Ed. Player’s Handbook. If players come across these goods and want to take them as treasure, the only relevant number at that moment is how much they can carry while staying under the Encumbrance limits. Players won’t be trading in silk by meter but by encumbrance unit.

For the sake of simplicity, the numbers for kegs and barrels of ale and wine are rounded to easy number. The actual values for any of these goods are completely made up anyway.

Item Quantity Price Encumbrance
Sack of grain 30 lb. 3 sp 3
Sack of flour 30 lb. 6 sp 3
Pouch of salt 5 lb. 2 sp 1
Pouch of ginger 5 lb. 50 sp 1
Pouch of cinnamon or pepper 5 lb. 100 sp 1
Pouch of cloves 5 lb. 150 sp 1
Pouch of saffron 5 lb. 750 sp 1
Keg of ale 20 l 10 sp 4
Barrel of ale 200 l 100 sp 40
Keg of wine 20 l 20 sp 4
Barrel of wine 200 l 200 sp 40
Bottle of expensive wine 1 l 100 sp 1
Keg of expensive wine 20 l 2,000 sp 4
Canvas 6 sq. yd. 6 sp 1
Cotton cloth 20 sq. yd. 100 sp 1
Linen 12 sq. yd. 600 sp 1
Silk 24 sq. yd. 2,400 sp 1
Iron 5 lb. 5 sp 1
Copper 5 lb. 25 sp 1
Tin 5 lb. 100 sp 1
Silver 5 lb. 250 sp 1
Gold 5 lb. 2,500 sp 1

 

2 thoughts on “Trade Goods as Treasure”

  1. The encumbrance for a bolt of silk seems low— is it supposed to be more valuable by weight than cloves or saffron?

    1. The trade goods table does not list any weights for the items. It says 15gp for one pound of safron and 10 gp for one square yard of silk. I had to research the weight of silk, and apparently 5 pounds of silk come out as about 24 square yards.

      If those prices are in any way realistic for 16th century Europe, I have no idea. My goal was mostly to convert the given table, I did not bother to research historic prices.

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