Re: Trade goods in Glorantha

From: Ian Borchardt <iborchar_at_t0VBIEIyrURcmxTSWma_I6yytPKvyME7zw4AAImkzyLmJXfaPJBe0A7dgEB2ZhrG2Cv>
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:55:22 +0930

I think a lot of the impetus for the Lunar Empire to expand to the sea was to establish (beyond the natural religious struggle with Orlanth), in the old Soviet parlance, a workable safe warm water port. For ideological reasons, in the main. The potential really. Get it now, and once we've got it, we'll find some us for it. Besides, all the great empires of the past had a heavy trade focus - shouldn't we? The fact that it may not be logistically supportable until Afghanistan/Dragon Pass is fully pacified is irrelevant.

Since the Opening there has obviously been sufficient trade to support the existence of organised piracy, and for the pirates to follow the trade around from the seas of the West (and probably the East too, although there is no documentation available to hand for this, but it is likely). After all, the sea offers a much safer method of communication with both the West and East than caravans through Wenelia (as shown by the decline of the Trader Princes of The Great Wenelian Road) or the Wastes. The fact that the Lunars maintain the hellhole of Corflu is proof that there is profit to be made.

It's doubtful that bulk goods would be traded at all. The majority of the trade goods would be the exotic luxury goods that would bring high prices in the Heartlands. Much the same as in our world. So silk, rare spices, coral, rare dyes, and so on. Stuff whose price rises for each middleman that it passes through. making the eventual caravans through Dragon Pass quite profitable to plunder.

You definitely wouldn't be looking at the general sort of trade you'd get along the Oslir (most of which is bulk goods designed to support the city states along it), and I doubt that anyone knowledgable enough to engage in such trade would be fooled into thinking the Creekstream River could be used). [Admittedly, that wouldn't stop conmen from selling the potential to ignorant fools.] Besides, the roads that King Sartar built to create the Kingdom of Sartar are an ideal route to the south, since you'd need to go overland from Tarsh anyway. And yes, there would be extensive dealings in possible monopolies in the Heartlands, but most of that would be speculation based on the eventual worth of the monopoly, rather than it's actual worth (which is negligable at the moment).

The conditions that drove monopolies in [our] the New World were heavily based on an existing trade base and undeveloped resources
"free for the taking" - something that doesn't really apply here. I
think the momopolists in the Lunar Empire are going to focused on exploiting Sartar.

Ian

-- 
Ian Borchardt    (iborchar_at_s4GbV6OEw8fCBBfHhS80XxuOv7K0219JhDZuhIwGD0gVAliZDGaKO_ZdlzyWUeuiNZpxQkQ6BYw.yahoo.invalid)
Philosoph, Fool, and Magician


"That is not dead which can eternal lie,

  And with strange Ians, even death may die."