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For a campaign I am brewing, I want Vidrian to be putting together an expedition to head up the Upper Korir River, across the shattered range, to Anuli to look into establishing a trade route. In this version of Golarion, Anuli is looking to build up for their eventual war with Geb.
What resource does Vidrian have that Anuli would desperately want to make an incredibly dangerous overland trade route worthwhile?
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The easy answer is "Whatever You Need Them To Have" but let's dig in a bit deeper.
-More people in Vidria to trade with is always a plus
-Access to the Arcadian Ocean trade network (probably the biggest draw)
-Pineapples (I remember they grew a lot around Elidir)
-Artifacts from Ghol-Gan
-Access to the Magaambya (assuming the Vidrians hook up with the magic academy along the way, don't see why they wouldn't)
-You should have different flora/fauna differences. These are opposite sides of an entire continent, after all
-Salt mines are canon (see Serpent's Skull book 2)
-Pineapples (I remember they grew a lot around Elidir
Elidir is the capital of Isger.
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-Access to the Magaambya (assuming the Vidrians hook up with the magic academy along the way, don't see why they wouldn't)
Nantambu is a few hundred miles out of their way, for one.
-Artifacts from Ghol-Gan
This is really the only novel draw. Vidrian's economy is otherwise fairly mundane, canonically producing salt, gold, sugarcane, and (strangely) lumber for export. It also produces fruits, cattle (thus meat, milk, and leather), and seafood, largely for domestic consumption. It used to *ahem* export labor under Chelish and Sargavan rule. But it mostly served as a commodity and capital dump and doesn't have much in the way of developed industry.
Sugar and salt might be worth something to Holomog as preservatives. But really Vidrian will probably just pay for whatever they buy in gold specie.
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I have been thinking about it, and maybe the good they trade could be something imported from the west coast of Avistan, that the Holomog might have trouble finding. Then it hit me that Vidrian have relations with Ravounel, and that anyone planning on fighting the undead would probably be in the market for silver.
This will create an interesting tie in for the players who played through Hell's Rebels. Thanks everyone!
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I have been thinking about it, and maybe the good they trade could be something imported from the west coast of Avistan, that the Holomog might have trouble finding. Then it hit me that Vidrian have relations with Ravounel, and that anyone planning on fighting the undead would probably be in the market for silver.
I doubt that Vidrian's imports from Ravounel are of all that great a volume, despite their military alliance and despite the association of powerful political parties in these countries. Prior to 4717, Kintargo merchants were locked out of the Garundi trades (both on the Arcadian Ocean and the Inner Sea) due to Corentyn's monopoly. Also prior to 4717, Cheliax likely prohibited the export of precious metal ore, partially-refined precious metals, or specie. Three years is an eternity in a developed capitalist economy, but perhaps not so much in a developing handicraft and mercantile economy. Even if Kintargo merchants have gotten used to the trade route and the new market, the Eye of Abendego and the Free Captains form formidable barriers to trade. Alseta's Ring could open an alternative trade route from Dreamgate near Cypress Point to Huntergate near the Vanji River and thence through Bloodcove to Anthusis, but that route requires significant infrastructure development (both in terms of roads from Huntergate to the river and in terms of navigations on the river itself above the existing Aspis trade stations) and Bloodcove's tolls are likely prohibitive.
There's also the question of what Ravounel would be buying with silver. Most of Vidrian's export products are products that Ravounel also exports, with the exceptions of gold and sugar. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense either qualitatively or quantitatively to exchange specie for specie, or finery for finery, of the same value. Ravounel could thus buy raw sugarcane, or more likely molasses or rum (these being less bulky than cane - refined sugar probably would not survive a sea voyage). It could also import crystallized tropical fruits. Ravounel does have a cultural sweet tooth.
Well, the initial expedition to find the overland trade route is likely to take a year or more, so the trade can be speculative at this point. Sugar that is not produced by slave labor could be a highly sought after commodity in Ravounel that would justify a fairly steep price. The risk of piracy was always very high, and if the alliance between the three nations was intended to be strategic as well as economic, all sides might see value in taking certain risks.
I am playing AoA in another group and we have just completed the first book, but one of the backgrounds linked to Kintargo, so I kinda figured that there would be a connection there. Maybe Ravounel is also trying to entice Isger out from under the thumb of Cheliax (by negotiating use of the gates), so there can be some more global political intrigue advancing behind the scenes while the party is completing the exploration phase of the adventure. Maybe the higher level shift in the campaign is going to include a full on world war that draws in Geb, Nex, Cheliax (mostly the Navy), Mzali, and the Free Captains. All over the attempts to establish of a trade route of sugar for silver. I kinda love it.
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Sugar that is not produced by slave labor could be a highly sought after commodity in Ravounel that would justify a fairly steep price.
I don't think the ethical consumption angle matters very much. A conscience is a luxury, but Ravounel is a poor country, and is likely to remain poor as long as it maintains a free trade policy that allows richer and more industrialized countries to export their finished goods to it at cheaper prices than domestic finished goods. Being a poor country, it will purchase two categories of goods: those that are cheap, and those it is coerced into buying by Cheliax (i.e., Chelish raw materials, partially-finished goods, and finished goods). To compete in Ravounel's market, Vidric sugar products must therefore be either naturally cheap or subsidized. Vidrian can't compete on labor or shipping costs, so it must compete by driving down production costs. Innovation in sugar-harvesting (to automate away some of the labor costs), sugar-refining and distilling technology will be a priority for Vidrian.
The risk of piracy was always very high, and if the alliance between the three nations was intended to be strategic as well as economic, all sides might see value in taking certain risks.
A military alliance between Ravounel and Vidrian on the one hand, and Holomog on the other, is a patent absurdity. The former have nothing to offer the latter in military terms. They can barely defend themselves, and cannot project power to Holomog's areas of interest. They have barely mapped Holomog's areas of interest. Holomog (which unlike Ravounel or Vidrian is a strong, rich country) might find them useful as bases or protectorates (or indeed as capital and commodity dumps) in the distant future, but at the moment it has no strategic interests to defend or advance on the Arcadian Ocean.
The risk of piracy was not always there. Sargava paid the Free Captains for protection and as long as it paid its shipping went unmolested. Kintargo was forbidden from trading in the area by Egorian's grant of monopoly to Corentyn, so it never had much shipping there until recently. For both Vidric and Ravounel merchants, therefore, the risk of piracy is entirely new.
Maybe Ravounel is also trying to entice Isger out from under the thumb of Cheliax (by negotiating use of the gates)
Why bother negotiating? The Isgeri government is weak, and Breechill barely even pays taxes to it. Just start using the thing without telling anyone except the AoA party, which is presumably charging nominal tolls. If Hedvend finds out, dare him to do something about it.
While Cheliax would be weakened by the loss of Isger, Ravounel is unlikely to benefit from this and thus little reason to intrigue for that objective. The territory would likely devolve to Druma.
I don't know, I think Holomog, and Anuli in particular, might have a very strong interest in acquiring a large quantity of silver if they are considering war with a nation filled with the undead, including vampires. At least enough to let the other two nations to do all of the work in figuring out how to get it to them. I probably oversold it as a world war, especially for the context of my campaign, but as far as nations with an interest in affecting the outcome of the trade deal, I think there is room to bring in a lot of different groups trying aid or destroy the deal. The overall wealth exchange of the trade might be minuscule in the grand scheme of things, but it could be very significant to both Vidrian and Ravounel, at least enough to make for fun campaign hooks that will allow for more political intrigue to add to what might feel like a wilderness exploration campaign.
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I don't know, I think Holomog, and Anuli in particular, might have a very strong interest in acquiring a large quantity of silver if they are considering war with a nation filled with the undead, including vampires.
Holomog is enormous, and silver is not that rare. It probably has its own domestic extraction and does not need to look to the world market.
But really, the question is academic. You don't need to foreshadow a grand world-historical development, all you need is a merchant in Anthusis with a stock of silver to sell. It doesn't matter where she got it. It (and indeed Ravounel and the whole Avistani political and economic context) should not come up in the context of a campaign revolving around a merchant caravan forging east overland from Vidrian. Although if the backstory is that she got it from Ravounel, it should really be partially-finished silver (ingots or powder). Ore is too difficult to transport long-distance and Ravounel would want to refine it domestically since that is one of their only actual industries. It should not be specie since specie should be too easy to trade on the domestic market or invest in domestic industry. Finery likewise would be easy to trade away without having to go across continent to do it. Silver powder, however, would be ideal for alchemically fixing to weaponry, and might not find too many buyers in a country that 1) doesn't have a vampire problem, 2) which largely dealt with its devil problem, and 3) doesn't mint its own silver coins.
On the other hand, Ravounel really should be developing an alchemical silver-weapons industry itself, even if it has to use imported iron (before you get ideas, even taconite pellets are probably impossible to transport from Holomog to Ravounel without magic).
Well the point is that the expedition is not carrying trade goods. It is to explore the best possible trade route for future trade, because it is supposed to be more of an exploration and survey mission, not a protect an existing commodity. In that sense, the actual trade goods may never fully materialize, but the threat of foreign traders is what is going to draw in Mzali resistance and force the explorers north, through the screaming Jungle and close to Osibu.
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-Pineapples (I remember they grew a lot around ElidirElidir is the capital of Isger.
The capital of Sargava was Eleder.
Those names are way too similar.