A Lian gets dropped on the Merry Band
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"Good point! It's also often not high-value information from the seller's perspective, especially if it's old or widespread."

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"But it sounds like your people really need it: so it's a win-win.

I doubt there would anybody who'd think resurrection-for-agriculture would be unfair for them. "

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"We also have a lot of assorted magical items people could trade for higher-value things. They're the types of things very few people have access to, but I suspect they'll be desirable as curiosities if nothing else."

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"What sort of things can they do?"

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"...Um. Everything magic can, if you're creative and rich enough? Provide a certain amount of alcohol once a day, or endlessly. Repeat a certain phrase. Make you at the peak of human-possible health. Make you undetectable to divination. Walk on water. Breath underwater. Hold a certain amount of objects in a much smaller, lighter bag. Increase your strength to inhuman levels. Make no sound when moving. Camouflage when still. Levitate. Clothing that automatically mends itself, or can be altered into any shape with a thought. Clothing with illusory effects, like making you seem wreathed in flame. Darkvision granting goggles. Telepathy. A lot more, too."

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"Ooh, those could be useful. And fun.

There's definitely going to be a market for the more practical ones. The 'fun' ones would also have a market, but it might be harder to find. There's a fair few Imperial nobles who'd like something like the alcohol one, but getting it to them would be the tricky part."

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"One of my party members had a tankard that would neutralize the effects of anything in it, so he could drink seemingly endlessly without getting actually drunk. Or avoid being poisoned."

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"...there are definitely some paranoid Imperial nobles who would love that."

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"It's not even comparatively expensive to make, so it'd be a very easy trade good."

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"That's good.

We would have to like, smuggle it though. The Imperium doesn't like trade with groups outside of it, much less non-human outsiders."

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"That's annoying. Trade protectionism rarely pays off long-term, too."

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"Yep. 'Doesn't like trade' is probably one of the Imperium's smaller problems. But still. It's annoying."

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"There's other places to trade with though, right?"

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"Certainly. The Craftworld's would want to trade, as would the Tau and the Exodites, probably. I'm not sure we'd want to trade with Commorragh, but we could. And there's a bunch of smaller civilisations around.

And the Imperium has a thriving black market."

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"You know a lot more about local trade than me."

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"Mostly because it's my job. Like, 70% of being a pirate is working out how to sell the stuff you have."

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"My mom would probably say something similar about being a merchant."

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"I'd imagine so.

...the Imperium actually has a whole group of people who are officially merchants, but actually pirates. The Imperium is weird."

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"There's places like that back home. People are weird in general."

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"Huh. The more things change, the more they stay the same,  I guess? It's good to know that the Imperium isn't like, entirely unique."

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"Usually people send their pirates after other people's merchants. Call them privateers. It's not the sort of thing that should be government sanctioned."

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"Yeah, rogue traders are basically that. With a side of being the only people who can handle illegal goods, like things made by aliens. Some trade legitimate goods through legitimate means, apparently.

I have a low enough opinion of governments that I'm not surprised that they do things like that. It's kind of ridiculous to watch."

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"Laws need to be consistent! For everyone! If you have a law you need to work around, it shouldn't be a law!"

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"Exactly! 'It's not illegal if I have this fancy bit of paper!' is just-- unnecessary. Overcomplicated."

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"Makes laws harder to follow if you're not well educated, too. There's so many loopholes my mother is always jumping through, both things that should be legal in all cases or should be illegal for everyone."

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