The Merchant

Taking the job

Talk to any convoy master: the trade packs window has a Merchant job button, which opens the Merchant window. The Merchant is a service: it takes no place among your two trades or your professions, so a gatherer or a crafter who packs their own goods keeps their trades. Trade packs work exactly the same without the job (see Trade packs) - but if you carry them often, or are starting out with them, the job is worth taking.

Experience

Every trade pack you sell as a merchant gives merchant experience: more the farther it was carried, more for a pack that takes two places, +10% for each hired hand riding along (five at most) and +25% on a convoy contract. A finished contract gives more experience on top.

Levels and ranks

From level 2, the job adds 1% of each pack's profit per level, paid to you at the sale (+10% at level 10). Your level also sets how many hands your crew may count, and a convoy contract may hold 4 packs a head - you and the full crew of your level, as many as a wagon and a horse carry.

Convoy contracts

1. Choose a route

   At a convoy master, the Merchant window shows the same price map as the trade packs: what each town pays right now for your pack. Pick the destination - another town's convoy master within 8 km, the route of the day marked.

2. Choose the size

   Then choose how many packs to deliver: 2 at least, up to your level's limit: 4 packs for you and for each hand your crew may count (12 at level 1, 24 at level 5, 64 at level 10). The window tells you the time you are given - the cart's road there and back, half an hour to pack and a few minutes more per pack - and what the contract pays.

3. Pack and carry

   The packs must be packed in the town you set out from, then sold to the destination's convoy master as usual. A pack counts when you sell it there, or when a hand of your party sells it with you within 70 m.

4. The bonus

   When the last pack is sold in time, you are paid a bonus: 15% of the packs' profit, plus 1% per pack, 27% at most (a 10-pack convoy: 25%; 12 packs and more: 27%), and up to 6 groschen per pack for every kilometre of the route.

One contract at a time, six a day. A contract that runs out of time is lost, and the next one waits 10 minutes; one you give up waits 5 minutes.

Your crew

From the Merchant window, hire players as guards, drivers or porters, each for a wage per pack (up to 200 groschen). Each wage is paid out of the price of every pack you sell, to the hired hands who are in your party and within 70 m of you; the job's profit share stays yours. Your crew holds as many hands as your level allows (see the table). Call the crew sends an invitation to your party to every hand who is in the realm. You can also name your trading company.

Milestones