Merchant

Trading, services, shops and property, with progression through guild time and paid customer calls.

Merchants earn their living through services and trade. A customer might need a blade repaired, a garment made, a parcel delivered or a house deeded. Larger transactions include ships, farms and hired staff. The guild records the work, handles the agreed payments and pays the merchant's commission where applicable. A merchant earns no experience from fighting, so the class levels through time in the guild and paid work instead.

Joining#

Merchant is a base class for Explorers who have reached level 10. The guild does not take walk-in members. Go to the Merchant's Guild on Merchant Way in Aurin, find Hollis Pell at the Registrar's desk in the Lobby and ask hollis about joining. Once she has written your name on the roll, type join merchant there. join merchants and join the merchant's guild work too. Joining starts the class at level 1.

A guild is chosen once. A character who already belongs to another base guild cannot join the Merchant's Guild; that route is remorting at level 100 (remort merchant shows the terms).

Hollis is also the guild's trainer. Advance at her desk, and ask her about your kit if you lose the guild's satchel, ledger, seal ring or sash.

Progression#

Merchant learning comes from connected time, repeatable work board jobs, paid customer services and completed calls. Quests and roleplay bonuses also pay; kills, fishing and healing do not. Idle connected time counts, while offline and link-dead time do not. All 24 hours of a day can count. The clock pays in five-minute batches and keeps fractional XP.

Rank follows trained level: Peddler to level 19, Trader from 20, Broker from 45 and Magnate from 70. Guildmaster is appointed. Each rank learns at its own rate.

At the Peddler rate alone, level 100 takes 8,760 connected hours from level 1; at the Guildmaster rate it takes 5,840. Promotions and the other rewards below shorten that. The online bonus adds one hour of rank-based learning for every 24 connected hours. These are connected hours, not calendar days: a merchant online eight hours a day takes three times as many calendar days as one who stays connected throughout. Banked XP counts when setting the reward rate, so putting off advance neither gains nor loses time.

Joan Carter keeps the work board in the Aurin Post Office. For a merchant its jobs repeat with no daily limit, but you carry one at a time and must choose a different job before taking the same one again. Each assignment gets its own quota, and patrol stops must be visited in the order printed on the slip. Short, standard and long jobs need at least 4, 8 and 15 connected minutes before hand-in and pay the equivalent of 40, 80 and 140 learning minutes. Dropping and re-taking a job never resets or recovers its work. Other classes keep the limit of five jobs a day and a 24-hour wait before repeating one. First-completion gear is still awarded only once per job.

Customers on Merchant Way ring for a merchant with callmerchant. Use calls to see waiting requests, your learning rate, today's trade XP by source, connected time and your ratings. Take a request with answer; answering alone pays nothing. The call is served when you do paid work for that customer, who can then rate it. A good rating pays 45 learning minutes, fair pays 30 and poor pays none. An unrated served call becomes fair after ten minutes. Up to twelve calls pay each day, one per customer account. A customer needs two hours of play before they can ring, and calls from your own account never reach you.

Paid work also pays ten learning minutes for each of up to eight different established customer accounts a day. Unpaid and self-service work pays no service XP. A served call can earn both its service reward and its call reward. XP events and boosts do not multiply trade learning; a leading guild's standing benefit still applies.

Chapters#

Hollis Pell hands out the merchant's chapters: 23 tasks from level 1 to level 58, each opening when the skill it teaches does. They walk a new member round the desks, from appraising the seal ring and crying goods to a caravan on the Olympus Road, setting a rune and ringing a market day. Every step can be done alone. Where a chapter asks for a service, you perform it for yourself with for me, which charges no fee.

Costs and premises#

Active services spend SP. Some also need payment, consent, supplies or a particular workplace. Use tariff for current prices and help <command> for each service's requirements. supplies shows what is in the guild satchel; restock it at the Supply Counter in the guild. The table costs below are the first tier of each skill. A later property, animal or ship tier may cost more and take longer to reuse. Stocking and managing a shop do not repeat the SP cost of opening it.

The ten guild desks are the Counting House, Stall, Criers, Auction House, Notary, Land Office, Stables and Mews, Harbor, Registry of Service and Workshops. They group related services along Merchant Way. Commerce covers appraisal, shops and workshop trades; Barter covers transactions and lending; Logistics covers property, animals, ships, transport and supplies; Influence covers publicity, favors, hired help and staff.

Trade Buyer, Trade Terms and Trade Empire apply automatically from their required levels. They do not occupy passive slots.

Talent points work differently for a merchant, whose skills strike nothing. Each point in a tree raises the merchant's cut of sales made with that tree's skills by 2%, taken from the realm's share, and raises the most they may ask for that tree's services by 2%. Buyers never pay more than they agree to, and the skills are still ready 2% sooner.

Skills#

Commerce#

Barter#

Logistics#

Influence#

Tiers#

Several commands open new goods as the merchant rises. Each later tier costs more SP and most take longer to reuse; help <command> shows the full ladder.

Stalls and shopfronts#

A level 45 merchant can raise a stall at an eligible pitch on Merchant Way, the Aurin docks, the Dawnhollow market or the Warfleet docks. One stall is permitted per merchant and per pitch. It trades while its owner stays within the same market. About fifteen seconds after the owner leaves that market, the stall packs up and returns its stock and takings.

Use stall raise <name>, then stall stock <item> <price>. Include a coin unit in the price, such as 5 gold. Customers use list, inspect and buy. stall pack closes the stall and returns its contents. Raising a stall costs 5,000 copper from the merchant bank. The guild takes 25 percent of completed stall sales at the default rate, and the owner keeps the rest. tariff shows the current figures.

Shopfront opens at level 32. Shopfront Row, east off Merchant Way, has four shops. Stand in an empty one and use shopfront rent <name>. Unlike a stall, the shop keeps trading when its owner leaves or logs out. Rent is due weekly from the bank, or from the shop's takings when the owner is away. If it stays unpaid for three days past due, the lease ends and the stock and remaining money are held for the owner's return.

Use shopfront stock, shopfront price and shopfront take to manage stock; shopfront collect withdraws the takings. shopfront close ends the lease. Check tariff shops before renting.

Property and later trade#

Build Home and Build Farm deed property to a buyer. Sell Deed supplies an additional room or pen, and Hire Staff provides workers. Each command has its own level tiers, prices and requirements. Use its help page to check the buyer's choice before arranging a sale. Transfer handles an agreed resale between players through the Notary.

Merchants also build clan halls with buildhall. A clan member who can sign for the treasury stands with the merchant, and the clan pays. Hall rooms can be sold from level 20; a Lodge needs a level 35 merchant, a Hall 50, a Keep 65, a Stronghold 80 and a Citadel 95, and each also needs the clan's rank. help buildhall has the details.

At level 99, Trade Empire pays the merchant 10% of the upkeep actually paid on homes and farms they deeded to other people. The payment is taken from that upkeep. It arrives at once when online or is held until the merchant next logs in. Self-deeded property earns no royalty, and leaving the Merchant's Guild ends eligibility. tradeempire shows the current entitlement and recent payments.

Charter, at level 100, allows merchants to form a trading company with a name, sign, livery and shared ledger. Its commands include invitations and a company ledger; help charter explains membership and management.

Work that goes on while you are away#

Several merchant services keep working after the merchant logs out. Exchange orders are filled by anyone who has the resource or wants it. Work orders are filled by any crafter who brings the piece. Raffles sell tickets realm-wide and draw at their hour, bounties pay whoever hunts the creature, consigned goods sell on a stall or shopfront, and warehouse bays hold a client's things until the rent runs out. The merchant's cut arrives by itself, in hand or at the next login, and clients who are away are paid into their bank or their post office box. Anyone can read the open work with exchange, workorders, raffle, bounties and consignments.

Related guides#

• Economy for currency, banks and shops.
• Housing for property and building.
• Progression for advancement and other classes.
• Remorting for joining from another class at level 100.