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what are some non standard (mercenary company, shipping, tavern) business ideas for characters in game?
Some of the ideas I have already: A Loan office with steep interest rates, green house that specifically grows rare herbs and regents for Mage schools/alchemy, and a messenger pigeon between cities/towns.
Need some more outside the box ideas
Furrier: place to sell animal pelts
Trade house: place to trade goods directly instead of using coin
Exotic pet store
Zoo/ botanical garden
Construction
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Start an underground coin reminting organization that melts down currency and then remakes it with less valuable metals. Then turn the extra metal into your own original form of currency which you control the flow of and guarantee is 100% pure. Make sure the reminted currency gets found out and make a huge deal about it. Offer an exchange rate of 1.1 to 1 from the "fake" currencies to your own and now you control all money flow in your area.
Prestidigitation.
• Need stuff cleaned? No problem.
• Want to try exotic dishes on the cheap? Got it covered. (Texture might be a little off, but that's why it's cheap.)
• Trying to quit drinking? Prestidigitated water will help.
• Reheating or cooling stuff.
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A friend and I designed a unique restaurant for an original NPC to run in Hell's Rebels last night. Rupert's Campfire is run by a lumberjack and hunter who chops the finest wood and hunts the most glorious beasts. He then uses the wood to make a barbecue pit upon which he grills the meat, and serves it to his customers. The restaurant has a courtyard in the center with a magically-sustained bonfire and the taxidermied bodies of various kill, and balconies look out onto it for bands to play. The primary bouncer is an androgynous gnome barbarian that takes pleasure in enforcing Rupert's strict policies on patron infighting.
Run a carnival!
Centaur courier service. Practical, but fantasy themed enough to seem exotic.
Banking/travelers promissory note network. Put those ridiculous gold reserves to use.
Midwifery. Seriously, can you imagine an adventurer having to be on call for delivery times?
Magical Audio/Visual conferencing specialist.
Running an eveningwear boutique.
A master summoner working as a mine surveyor: he can summon up a ton of earth elementals for minutes/level- the number, time, tremor sense, and earth glide all make them fine choices for looking throughout the area.
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Frontline/dungeon journalist- because the TRUE methods and deeds of adventures need to be reported, even in the face of monster related death or crossfire of combat. And by TRUE I mean highly sensationalised, possibly biased and possibly being more like fiction than anything else. Plus the chance for free treasure if you find any unlooted by adventures.
Rule 1. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Rule 2. Live long enough to tell it.
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Frontline/dungeon journalist- because the TRUE methods and deeds of adventures need to be reported, even in the face of monster related death or crossfire of combat. And by TRUE I mean highly sensationalised, possibly biased and possibly being more like fiction than anything else. Plus the chance for free treasure if you find any unlooted by adventures.
Rule 1. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Rule 2. Live long enough to tell it.
Well, yes, if we don't produce an ample supply of penny dreadfuls, then how are we going to trick the youth into volunteering for the job as disposable meat shi...I mean valiant warriors sent on suicide mis...I mean epic quests.
Consider a Temple to a luck god (Tyche?) with attached casino. You can have even payout odds on the games, and make money through gate fees. Or leave it up to luck.
Counterfeiting can be tough, depending on the GM. From ancient through medieval times people handling large amounts of cash typically weighed their coins to ensure good weight. Players and specific NPCs might be better targets than just trying to shift large quantities into the economy. Let them do it for you & take the blame when found out.
One way I did this in the past was:
1) I found a cursed bag of holding that transmuted any metal placed in it into lead. You might be able to create or buy such an item.
2) I collected a large amount of non-local copper coins, from a dragon's hoard. This was good, because the coins were old and thus weren't ones people were accustomed to - so they didn't twig to the fact that the coin face was that of a common copper coin
3) I bought a large amount of gold paint from a distant city (no local purchase - didn't want to leave a clue that would point back to me)
4) Transmute mass quantities of old copper coins into lead, then paint them gold & bake the paint on
Note that the coins didn't have correct gold weight, but were passable. If you're dealing with a rival PC or PC group, setting it up as a treasure hoard they can find can make for more fun as they pass the money into the economy for you. In my case, I used it as decoy money in a vault (Temple of Tyche next to the casino) I expected would be robbed by another player. Kept him from getting at the real treasury, and got him declared 'persona non grata' in his base country.
Think of the amusement park a wizard could create...
Check out Garrett Guillotte's Field Hands of Zyphus article in Wayfinder 13: Ustalav. Insurance racket, backed by sound theology.
Clandestinely sell a treasure map that leads to a distant dungeon to a group of adventurers. The journey is long, so they will need horses. Sell them horses.
Then for bonus profit, have an accomplice outside the dungeon waiting for the adventurers to enter the dungeon. The accomplice then steals the horses that the adventurers left behind.
Alternatively, the accomplice could pose as a henchman offering to "watch" the horses for a nominal fee, while the group goes into the dungeon.
With a high enough bluff skill, one could possibly scam the same group of adventurers multiple times, each time selling them the same horses.
Simulacrum slave trade.
Underwriting adventurers - provide them with equipment in exchange for a share of treasure looted, similar to how expeditions to the New World were funded.
Firefighters. People always focus on the more shiny emergency services, police and doctors, firefighters need more love. There's plenty of relevant spells & so on.
The track ship spell could greatly aid an insurance company in preventing/investigating barratry.
Learned sage is a well established way for many wizards to retire. Other characters may have unusual and valuable knowledge skills too. Charge mildly outrageous consultation fees.
For anyone who can fly, who has a reasonable perception and who has a little skill at math: surveyor.
Excavator, trap maker and/or monster-procurer for dungeons. Someone must be doing it.
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I have a sorcerer who started out as a male courtesan and then moved into the shipping business. Caravans. Specifically caravans than only transported young, attractive people between their homes and various harems and high end brothels for training and career opportunities after signing a legally binding contract drawn up by the Contract Devil that works as his business manager named Phil. They receive a set amount of gold upon signing the contract (which is usually transferred to the owner of whatever facility they end up at) and all food, clothing, education, housing and transportation is provided. The signatories agrees to forfeit 75% of all profits made until the total amount of debt incurred by the holder of the contract has been paid. The signatory may buy out their contract at any time during the life of the contract by paying the outstanding balance. There may or may not be some fine print about losing your soul should you break the contract. (There is a clause that frees signatories from their obligations in the case of accidental death and dismemberment however. My sorcerer is a businessman, not evil)
I have a Cave Druid (with the Craft Ooze feat) who started an Amorphorium where he sells custom-made oozes, and also offers a waste disposal service to the community (he feeds the garbage to his personal gelatinous cube :-D).
My group recently got the deeds to a plot of land in a city and in about 0.3 seconds decided to make it a bear fighting pit/bar where people can come to drink and fight beasts.
They call it the "Fight-a-bear Warehouse"
We're... Not the most serious of parties.
Firefighters. People always focus on the more shiny emergency services, police and doctors, firefighters need more love. There's plenty of relevant spells & so on.
?
...ok, which emergency service gets its own sexy calender series?
People riot over cops, thinking them corrupt. I've never seen anyone riot over firefighters. Police officers can be ambiguous... but fire fighters? As far as I am aware, they are rather well regarded.
I might see EMTs not getting very much love, since they usually have to leave fairly immediately after arriving, so they don't have time for thank yous on the side lines like fire fighters or police might get. Of course...with magical healing, I think the EMT is more just a cleric that does house calls...
Nobody yet started a Succubus Wrestling Ring?
Nobody yet started a Succubus Wrestling Ring?
Summon up some mud elementals, and you got a deal.
A care facility/trade school for orphaned monsters. Eliminate the arguments about what to do with baby goblins... for a very large price.
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what are some non standard (mercenary company, shipping, tavern) business ideas for characters in game?
Some of the ideas I have already: A Loan office with steep interest rates, green house that specifically grows rare herbs and regents for Mage schools/alchemy, and a messenger pigeon between cities/towns.
Need some more outside the box ideas
Fake villains for hire.
Hire villain to terrorize your town!"Vanquish" said villains.
Become the hero of your town!