Help needed designing a magical store catalogue

[Teflon Billy]

I'm trying to come up with areas that a High Magic campaign might aid in mundane things.

Rumpold & Lloyds: The oldest and largest mail order merchant in the kingdom. They specialize in general non-magical merchandise, being the primary point of sale for durable goods in rural parts of the kingdom for centuries.

R&L have been at the forefront of mystical inovations in mundane commerce. One of the first things that they were able to create was a magical Mail-Order Catalogue. Instead of incurring the enormous expence of producing millions of new catalogues every season and the cost of postage, they created a catalogue that a customer would purchase once (at any of R&L's thousands of local stores or by postal request) and it would be updated automatically from the corporate central offices in the Capitol.

Families have been known to pass the catalogue down generation from generation, it has even become a tradition in some areas for the family scriptures to be passed onto the first born son and the R&L Catalogue being passed to the first born daughter.

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General qualities:

OAF, Independant: The Catalogue, a hardbound book 1-2" thick about the size of a modern phone book. Nothing about it prevents it from being stolen. Although, this is for a Heroic style campaign with regards to equipment so point costs are actually imaterial.

Regeneration (1 BOD per 6 months or whatever is appropriate to counteract aging, wear & tear, and even casual destructive damage.)

Ok, now the effects I can't figure out how to implement:

Automatic Updating: From one central location, the millions (possibly billions) of catalogues are updated at once. However, to keep a certain feel and style, this catalogue is not a website. The updates are not dynamic, they happen all at once about once every 3/6 months.

Number of Pages: The catalogue will hold however number of pages that it needs to. As R&L's has grown in size and areas of offering, the current Catalogue runs into the 10's of thousands of pages, the book itself does not change in size.

Thanks for any ideas.

TB

[ghost-angel]

Your looking for ideas of things to put in the catalogue? or for ideas of things like the catalogue for the game world (magical but not fantasical items)?

[Teflon Billy]

Your looking for ideas of things to put in the catalogue? or for ideas of things like the catalogue for the game world (magical but not fantasical items)?

Nope, I'm trying to figure out how to write up the catalogue in game terms.

But I'll gladly take more ideas for magical but non-fantastic items.
TB

[ghost-angel]

Ah! Ok, some more questions ... it just provides a list of items for sale, or can it provide other information? I'm assuming just a list of items..

I would use the Access Perk, the access being a giant list of available items.

As for a suggestion for items, if Hedge Magic exists for many of the common folk components for those spells are sure to be in demand.

[Teflon Billy]

Ah! Ok, some more questions ... it just provides a list of items for sale, or can it provide other information? I'm assuming just a list of items..

I would use the Access Perk, the access being a giant list of available items.

It gives a little more than a listing. It has pictures and descriptions as well.

Think of it more like a self-updating Sears & Roebuck catalogue.

I'm leaning right now for the only overtly magical property the catalogues themselves having when not being updated is that they don't wear out and they hold more pages than their physical size would permit. The pictures don't move (like Harry Potter pictures), the pages don't reformat dynamically to the user's wishes.

Now, the reason is due to expense and the level of sophistication used by the original Wizard who cast/created the item creation spell. I plan on having a merchant house that specializes in magical items/supplies, their catalogue (that shares many of the properties of the Rumpold & Lloyds catalogue) would have these extra perks, like dynamic pictures, auto-search, etc... But that's because Wizarding Clearing house like this would be targeting a more discerning clientelle.

Does the Access Perk describe a store catalogue? If it does, then I'll just slap OAF, Independant on it and call it a day.

As for a suggestion for items, if Hedge Magic exists for many of the common folk components for those spells are sure to be in demand.

In general, no, common people do not have access to Cantrips. This is a high magic campaign (Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk style mainly), so people know of magic. As the campaign is set in a more modern setting, due to modern process development and centralized planning, common people (unlike in Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk) due have access to magical items if they so choose to seek them out.

Magic User's however are still fairly rare, not everyone has the mental aptitude to learn how to practise magic/psionics (Wizards, Psionicists), the personal desire to devote their life to divine service (Priests), nor the physical/spiritual gifts to manifest magic or the Force (Sorcerers, Jedi)

However, mundane people are perfectly capable of using magical items, potions, ointments, etc... that don't require magical effort on the part of the user.

TB

[ghost-angel]

It gives a little more than a listing. It has pictures and descriptions as well.

Think of it more like a self-updating Sears & Roebuck catalogue.

I'm leaning right now for the only overtly magical property the catalogues themselves having when not being updated is that they don't wear out and they hold more pages than their physical size would permit. The pictures don't move (like Harry Potter pictures), the pages don't reformat dynamically to the user's wishes.

Now, the reason is due to expense and the level of sophistication used by the original Wizard who cast/created the item creation spell. I plan on having a merchant house that specializes in magical items/supplies, their catalogue (that shares many of the properties of the Rumpold & Lloyds catalogue) would have these extra perks, like dynamic pictures, auto-search, etc... But that's because Wizarding Clearing house like this would be targeting a more discerning clientelle.

Does the Access Perk describe a store catalogue? If it does, then I'll just slap OAF, Independant on it and call it a day.

I'm sorry - I was thinking of Computer Link Perk, not Access. And here's why (becuase it sounds weird I know).

The Catalogue they sell is nothing more than a magical interface to the Main Catalogue in the Home Office, they update the MC and all the remote "Links" are merely viewing that book - hence Computer Link (renamed of course). And because it's magic different people can view different pages at the same time.

As for the repair aspect .. you could go with Healing but that doesn't feel right to me. How about Transform.

Minor Transform 2d6 (Damaged Catalogue into Repaired Catalogue, normal wear and tear), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (50 Active Points); No Conscious Control (-2), Independent (-2), OAF (-1), No Range (-1/2) [8 Points]

The Trigger is when the catalogue is Updated - every Update magical repairs any catalogues out there at the time it does the update. 2D6 should cover it nicely.

If you wanted to go the Healing Route I would decide how much BODY a catalogue has and give it a Regeneration at 1/2 that with a 1 Month Rate.

Edit: Here's what I see happening, the Main Catalogue is updated, sending out a magical signal to all the catalogues out there that does two things: Repairs the Catalogue, and in doing so alerts the owner that the new Catalogue is out with new items.

[Thia Halmades]

That's much more elegant than a Megascale Images which was my first thought, but then, I didn't know about computer link (which is why I read the threads). Amazingly cool idea, though, TB. Very Eberron of you!

*glances around*

swipe.

What thread?

[The Monster]

Computer Link should cover it - after all, what you've really got is a magical analogy of a dedicated web browswer, one which only goes to that store's website.
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Another possible build is to use a highly limited Clairsentience, limited so that it only perceives what is in the current catalog.

[Markdoc]

in addition, simply make the focus unbreakable, universal. Then it doesn't wear out and can't easily be detroyed, but can be stolen.

cheers, Mark

[Thia Halmades]

What book is Computer Link in, I didn't see it in FREd, and is a large part of why it didn't even cross my mind. Because I either missed it, or don't have the source material. Is it a Dark Champions/Star Hero option? Or am I digging in the wrong place?

[LoresLost]

Pg 79 of the 5er has Computer Link, It's a perk so if you are using FREd look in the perks section and hopfully it's there.

[Thia Halmades]

PERK. This would explain why I didn't find it under Powers.

Thanks, LoresLost!

[Old Man]

in addition, simply make the focus unbreakable, universal. Then it doesn't wear out and can't easily be detroyed, but can be stolen.

cheers, Mark

Make it bulky too, otherwise players will use it for armor.

[Markdoc]

Make it bulky too, otherwise players will use it for armor.

But note, I said can't be destroyed - not can't be shot through like it was made of blancmage.

Thus any player who uses it as armour - and the catalogue - gets a hole in it. But the catalogue magically repairs itself.....

As a side note, this not so bizarre - we have actually had a situation where a PC attempted to use a focus to block an attack using exactly this logic. There's nothing so bizarre some player, somewhere, has not attempted to use it.

Cheers, Mark







Note: honesty compels me to admit, that player was me. And the focus in question was a floppy hat. But hey, it was life or death!

[Old Man]

Note: honesty compels me to admit, that player was me. And the focus in question was a floppy hat. But hey, it was life or death!

Ref: Car Wars
I don't remember the stats exactly, but...
Road Cone, $5, no space, no weight, indestructable.
Put Road Cone in car cargo space. Damage does not continue into car until cargo is destroyed.