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Howdy all,
I'm building a town (a few actually), that I want to populate with some unique businesses. I'm thinking interesting characters, odd means of selling, and the types of businesses that one would visit after just hearing the name. I've used some generators to build a basic town with some flavor, but was hoping to get some good ideas from here also.
So, what businesses have you come up with for your campaigns, and what sorta characters are in there?
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If you want to buy some shady goods you may well want to contact a fence. That might mean a bunch of teenagers playing knucklebones (with real knucklebones) in a dark alley who refuse to say who they're working for, a stable hand who insists he's just selling off stuff people accidentally left behind, a miller who keeps the rest of the villagers in debt (& who gets odd stuff handed to her in trade), or it might mean doing a deal with the sheriff's deputy by the evidence locker. Or ye olde pawnbroker of course.
How about a fantasy version of an internet cafe, serving food and non-alcoholic drinks and offers instantaneous plane-wide communication services for cheap?
Those are great! I like the Town Crier a bunch. I already have a Bath House, which is very much like you describe (where aristocrats go to spread gossip).
I've also been running a Pastry and Coffee Shop, but I like the idea of them having communications. The society is extremely isolated, so maybe it'll be only communication within the city, maybe it'll go out farther; I'll have to settle on that at some point...
Pest control!
Having a trouble with termites, ants, wasps, or spiders? Acarus Spiderhill, mite expert 1, will use his vermin empathy to spirit them away for a small fee of 5 silver!
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Every old-timey town needs a:
Blacksmith: banging away making his goods from sunup to sundown.
Tanner: just follow the chemical smells to the local tanner.
Weapons shop: grizzled old soldier who is probably missing a limb or two.
Baker: sweet smelling bread who is probably on the opposite side of town as the tanner.
Inn: Where mcost of the townspeople visit for a lively weekend and mix with the myriad travelers and merchants.
Alchemist/potions dealer: Has his own little corner of the town, away from the other buildings due to the occasional fire or explosion.
Mercantile: For all your sundry goods. Also probably buys trapper furs and the like.
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How 'bout a tattoo parlour? For all your magical and mundane body adornments.
Ulgas' Candy Store is a great idea! Totally going in, just as advertised.
I like the lich dealer too. He could be someone worth getting to know, as he'll have a lot of cool stories, information, likely more than a few quests.
The tattoo parlor is good. I have one in the game already, run by a bunch of tattooed greenskins. Thinking they'll be a variant on Alchemists, who have a very specific craft.
Slim Jim's Laundromat, a continent-spanning franchise, in which for mere coin the commoner will load his soiled, fraying duds into marvelous machines which will treat them with Clean (Mending +75cp). -- Never be inconvenienced by stubborn stains or tears ever again! Phosphate-free and environmentally-friendly with no waste runoff.
You need a gnome family shop; what do they sell? Who knows? Who is running it today? Could be anyone!
Maybe you are buying fresh fish for dinner, maybe you are buying lit firecrackers stuffed inside fresh fish.
Its easy to tell which building is theirs, because its new every month.
In the same vein, an old confused fey tribe has taken up commerce in an abandoned mill the town grew around (When the river shifted). They say it is bad fortune to deal with fey, but the businesses and homeowners nearby have never had more luck since they arrived.
Some understand the use and value of gold and silver, others, eh not so much. But they will trade almost anything for almost anything else (not Cold Iron). Great chance to find strange things (Either evil or good is up to GM).
Ye Olde Herbalist: For when a draught of potion is too costly (or there is no wizard nearby to brew one). Run by a healthy clean cut older woman who always smells of the earth and woods, she wears flowing dresses that never dirty and has vest, pouches, and bags stuffed with ingredients. Her shop is modest and prices reasonable (But the neighbours complain about the ghostly glow and odd sounds coming from her garden at night).
Where do your thieves fence their goods? At Danglar's Horshoes, a "horse stable" without any horses at all. "Riders" come in to "stable" their "horses" and then leave with some extra gold.
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Aud's Oddities - a zoo / freakshow run by a gnomish spellcaster who allows people to believe that he uses some form of transformation magic to change people into the creatures in his menagerie, which include a fantastic assortment of aberrations, monstrous humanoids, exotic animals and the like. For the most part, it's all a lie, and he betrays anyone who comes to him with a person they want transformed, turning them over to local authorities and freeing whomever they wanted to get rid of in this manner.
Many of his more intelligent menagerie exhibits are in fact volunteers, who play act being savage beasts, or primitive humanoids, while in fact being paid entertainers.
The gnome himself (and two of his exhibits) are in fact dopplegangers, who find the whole thing to be an interesting joke played on humans of the city, who pay them to be fooled.
had done it in rise of the rune lords
'Zift's garbage disposal service'-
basically the town used to throw their garbage over the cliff, where goblins would go through it at the bottom. then one goblin that got accepted into town started operating a wagon service to collect the garbage from people houses and shops and carry it there (after shifting through it for himself though ;) .
(wagon was a sledge driven by goblin-dogs)
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A gnome expert tailor with the master craftsman feat. He can make wondrous items but only out of clothing. He could make something for most item slots, but you'd have to be creative.
There's one small caveat. If a player doesn't really specify what they want he'll unleash his "creativity". For example, if a player wants a cloak of resistance they'll get a beautiful yellow cloak with pink fur. You could add a little benefit, like a prestidigitation effect that keeps your clothing clean, a mending effect that automatically repairs any damage, extra resistance against damage or maybe this particular tailor is popular among the nobles and wearing anything that's made by him gives a bonus on diplomacy checks against the nobility.
Here's one I often use in my campaigns - regardless of what city/town the players are in.
"Tuesdays and Thursdays"
This strange shop isn't always there. Those who've been to it say it only appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though nobody is quite sure what a Tuesday or Thursday is. The shop is run by a mysterious merchant who buys and sells all manner of magic items, though he has no interest in mundane items. He always seems to have exactly what the buyer wants, but the store isn't always there, naturally existing in another dimension altogether. There's a 35% chance of finding this store on any given Golarion day, and it has unlimited resources.
Another one I played around with in a Mummy's Mask campaign that could be extrapolated to basically any campaign anywhere:
"Osiriani Wizards Guild Local 851"
A pair of old men sit outside of an unremarkable door playing chess. Closer observation reveals that neither of them are actually touching the pieces and no building lies beyond the door. The door actually leads to the guild hall in a demiplane. Doors like this can be found anywhere the Guild operates, all leading to the same extradimensional guild hall. Inside is a comfortable place for members of the Wizards Guild to sleep, relax or work. Dues-paying members of the guild are inscribed (or refreshed) with the Guild's Arcane Mark every month when they pay their dues, and automatically know this location without needing to make a check. The benefits of membership depend entirely on what level of membership the wizard is willing to pay for, but include things like purchasing scrolls, laboratory and enchanting room rentals, room/board, research library, and spellcasting services. Members may bring guests with them, but are responsible for their behavior while inside.
Gnome Depot is now a staple, thank you.
I do love using junkers all throughout, and added both Zilt and some of the others here.
As for the clothing gnome and the unusual item makers, I'm a huge fan. I tend to use DonJon's generator's for what folk are carrying, and (since wands come up so much) I constantly convert one item into a different item slot. Instead of a Wand of Color Spray, I made a hand cannon, which has to be loaded (comes with 50 charges). Instead of a Wand of Fly, some clockwork wings. Also, I let anyone use these items, as it's way more fun that way.
In one of my more lawless cities, I had Cid's Armorshop, Better than Cid's Armorshop, and Better than Better than Cid's Armorshop, all kitty-cornered to each other at a 4-way intersection, and all 3 of the shopkeepers would be shooting pistols at the other shopkeepers, and the 3 shopkeepers only stop firing when customers come by, but if any customer actually walks into one of the shops, then the other two shopkeepers begin firing at the customer.
It was pretty fun for the PC's to have to do their armor shopping while trying to duck and cover ;)
LOL!
A store that sells healing potions, but is stuck in a perpetual cloud of hallucinogenic vapors. Any customer that enters gets stoned out of their mind.
A store that sells healing potions, but is stuck in a perpetual cloud of hallucinogenic vapors. Any customer that enters gets stoned out of their mind.
The store next door sells "alternative medicine." The shopkeeper constantly drools a strange, oily, rainbow-colored substance and has questionable disposal practices.
Heh, Cid's and Pizza Lord's shops are great. I wish the city were lawless enough for those, but they will definitely make an appearance in a different setting.
I love the "perpetual cloud of vapors" idea for a potion shop. Little flavors like that, in my opinion, make the world. I'll add that in to Tinctures and Tonics, a potion shop I already have running.
How about a chamomile tea and sedatives store run by an Old (or another age category of immense proportions) blue dragon that's Chaotic Good? The showroom is too small to properly accommodate both the dragon and customers, but the dragon has crippling agatophobia, so s/he stays inside the building day and night.
Nancy the Spinner, an insane* drider works her shop selling hand-crafted silk items. Only open between sunset and sunrise, the daylight is hard on her eyes. She acts more like a doting grandmother and is glad to point you to that friendly wizard tower three blocks down if you want to get anything you just purchased enchanted. Has a sister named Charlotte in the next town over.
*by drider standards, she's actually a well-adjusted member of the community
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Silvar's Singing Stones
This shop started out in the seedier side of town, but has re-located to be more easily reached by the upper-class set (although it is still not quite 'there' enough to actually be located *in* the upper-class area of town, alongside all the places that make jewelry and fancy gowns). The proprietor is a pale dwarf with a shaven head covered with runic tattoos, and a prodigious beard that is parted and sub-parted and parted yet again into a complicated and heavily metal-decorated geometric display.
He sells crystal 'bric a brac' and decorations, and some of his higher-priced crystals have unusual properties, ranging far above the simpler ones that glow in the dark or hum when touched, such as glowing different colors in the presence of magic (someone with Spellcraft or able to cast detect magic might even be able to identify the school of magic being detected, based on the colors), or resonating with sound and 'singing along' with sound in the area (very popular) or resonating with *light* and magnifying and amplifying (and perhaps colorizing) light from nearby candles, braziers or lanterns.
Where he gets his mysterious quasi-magical crystals as unknown, but some say that he *grows* them in the back room. (And he does indeed sell strange crystals that grow like plants, in strange un-plant-like fits and starts, when fed a special mineral powder mixture he sells, and kept watered and warm and well-lit!)
The Gardenia Tearooms under the patronage of Lady Wizard Commander Hallae
The more genteel merchants and nobles who are not the richest like to go out to meet and entertain, rather than to invite others to their homes on a regular basis. The gently scented and peaceful surrounds of the Gardenia Tearooms provide a pleasant place for this. Socially acceptable adventurers may be invited to dicscuss business, and sneaky adventurers may wish to spy on other discussions there.
The manager, a halfling by the name of Daisy Undercrow, has runeward tattoos keyed to divination, enchantment and illusion, and will send a staff member to advise if it seems no one has noticed the casting of such a spell in her establishment. If serious problems arise - ones the city guard are unlikely to be able to handle - she will contact her patron, a wizard who loves to show off and blow things up, and who has people who are good at tracking down suitable targets. It's not an immediate solution, true.
Ulfgar's Freight & Portage:
A Dwarven conjuration specialist wizard who uses teleport spells and a bag of holding/portable hole to transport local goods to distant markets. He keeps teams of draft animals and wagons on hand as cover but he charges a premium for the guaranteed speed and safety of his transportation business. He refuses to take creatures on his teleportation runs as he wants to keep up the appearance of plausible deniability.
Slim Jim's Choppy Shoppe has no fixed address because Slim Jim loathes paying taxes and abiding by ever-evolving local ordinances forbearing certain weaponry. (Current inventory and pricing available only on InterScry. Precious metal currency only; no trades.)