I am working on a homebrew world, in which a race inspired by Fetchlings live in the Prime Plane near a portal to the Plane of Shadows. They use their racial abilities to run caravans into the Plane of Shadows and bring back goods, substances and items which they then sell in the Prime Plane (their town acting as a trading hub where races from the Prime Plane travel to barter for their goods).
My question is: What sort of goods, substances and items would they be bringing back with them? That can survive on the Prime Plane without decaying too quickly (or able to be preserved in some way)?
Oil of Shadow, Shadowweave Cloth and stuff sounds fun but also very generic. I am looking for inspiration for something a little more elaborate and intriguing.
If you can, please suggest:
1) name
2) its function or uses on the Prime Plane
3) what it comes from or how it is made on the Plane of Shadow (e.g. is it a body part, a local plant or mineral, a crafted item etc.)
4) approximate worth / volume or quantity
:-)
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Bonewood - described as a special wood harvested from skeletal bony-looking leafless trees from the Plane of Shadow, these items appear as all sorts of traditional wooden items, but the wood is bone-white, and somewhat harder and less flexible and negligibly lighter than a normal wooden item of their shape and size. The material is hugely popular in Nidal, due to it's bone-like pallor, and the secret of it's creation is that it's normal wooden items from the material plane brought into the Plane of Shadow and left for some months, the natural properties of the Plane draining them of color and leaving this bleached 'bonewood' behind.
'Bonewood' is trendy, but just a big scam! Some fetchlings are careful to only bring items across that they have carved themselves, or are in a generic style, as it would beg too many questions if an item in an obvious regional style appeared as bonewood, but others have various stories about being able to alchemically transmute a normal wooden object to bonewood, or that the bonewood item that so exactly resembles an old oak chest carved with Calistrian revels is 'the shadow duplicate of the original chest, found in the Plane of Shadow at great expense!'
There's no real mechanical benefit to a bonewood item, as the slight increase in toughness is offset by a reduction in resilience (making it less flexible / able to spring back), and the weight reduction is maybe 10%, not enough to change the Armor Check Penalty of a bonewood shield or anything. It's purely popular for the aesthetics of it's bone white appearance. Value can be outrageous, for a collector seeking decorations for their Nidalese home, but typically no less than twice that of a normal wooden item, due to the long 'curing' process and uncertainty of recovering them after a month or more in the Plane of Shadow (where wooden goods left to bleach might not be where you left them, for various reasons, when you return...).
I like it, thanks Set! :-)