Katapesh—the Bazaar of the Bizarre—is the greatest marketplace in Golarion. Built upon trade and commerce, every street or alley in Katapesh seems to have its own unique market. From the Tiny Song Market where only hummingbirds are sold on up to the Great Tannery where each street and plaza, each footpath and square has its own character and wares, the markets of Katapesh are a truly varied lot. A thousand markets cram these narrow streets and alleyways—and those that exist today may not exist tomorrow. It is not only a place of vast variety, but a place of constant change. Today, colorful tikka sellers haggle with farmers for better prices on coriander, while tomorrow that spot might house a camel trader singing of the fine quality of his wares while a tall sailor sells a smuggled cargo of diamonds to a pesh addict. Trade is everywhere and always in Katapesh—the city never sleeps while money can be made and bargains can be had. If you can find a way through the endless markets without being robbed, hoodwinked by conmen, or dragged off by slavers, you may well find your heart’s desire in the Katapesh marketplace.
Katapesh has a vast population, all needing to be fed, clothed, and watered. In a city where every inch seems to be given over to commerce, it is possible to obtain most things day and night—when they must, many traders opt to sleep at their stalls with tiny bells above their heads that customers can ring to wake them.
The city represents an incredible opportunity for players to purchase practically anything they wish, especially since Katapesh, with its population of over 210,000 souls, has a gp limit of 100,000. This does present the GM with an unusual challenge, though. Simply telling your PCs “you have a 100,000 gp limit—buy anything you want from any sourcebook,” is a surefire way to break your game. Conversely, you don’t want to limit options by saying something like, “You have a 100,000 gp limit, but the only things available are what’s in the core rules.” It’s also unlikely that you want your game session to simply become a bland shopping spree with everyone at your table sifting through books for hours to find the perfect item—where’s the roleplay in that?
When a PC goes shopping in Katapesh, use the following guidelines to encourage roleplaying and to invest a bit more verisimilitude into the more outlandish and expensive purchases. Anything of up to 5,000 gp value can be commonly found for sale in Katapesh with minimal work—a few minutes of shopping in the right marketplace can turn up what’s needed. For items of greater value, a customer must spend 2d4 hours shopping around multiple stalls and shops throughout the city (a DC 20 Gather Information check reduces this time requirement to 1 hour). After this time, and if you as the GM want the item in question to be available, the PC can purchase the item at the listed price (or perhaps at a slightly lower or greater price if you feel like roleplaying out the haggling session).
To add an even deeper layer to the experience, you can judge that some items are available but must be “special ordered.” A good rule to go by here is that objects in the core rules in the DMG are always available after the 2d4 hours spent shopping, but that items from other sourcebooks that have been approved by you, the GM, must be brought in from elsewhere. Katapesh’s more successful merchants aren’t above utilizing magic like teleport or wind walk to go out and find an obscure object for a customer—special orders like these are available in a mere 3d8 hours 50% of the time, but the remainder of that time they’re available in 2d6 days. Due to the extra level of service required for special orders, a merchant typically increases the final asking price by 10%.
Katapesh also hosts countless crafters of all manner of objects. In some cases, you might tell a shopper that a particular magic item isn’t available, but that it can be commissioned from a local spellcaster. Prices in this case are generally by the book, but the shopper must wait for the magic item to be created before he can claim it (typically requiring a wait period of 1 day per 1,000 gp value of the item’s cost).
There’s more to the Katapesh Market experience than simply handing a merchant a bag of gold and claiming your purchase, though. When your PCs decide they want to go shopping, you don’t have to gloss it over by saying, “Okay…sift through the book and buy what you want—I’ll be sitting here quietly reading up on the adventure.” At the very least, the first time the PCs go shopping in Katapesh, use the information presented here to bring the experience to life. Part of the excitement of shopping in Katapesh isn’t the fact that they have what you know you want, but that they have things you didn’t know you wanted!
Katapesh is a vast, sun-scorched city with narrow alleys, colorful, tall houses and, of course, traders. Be sure to emphasize the crowding, the smells, and the noise. Katapesh abounds in color and life; livestock roams the streets, beggars congregate around the temples and greater markets—as do the guards and villains—and calls to prayer sound out at all hours of the day. The air is hot and dry, with the city becoming quietest (but never truly silent) in the heat of midday sun. The markets truly come alive at nightfall. Adding color and flavor is an important part of the backdrop to any adventure, and emphasizing the strangeness of Katapesh helps to make the setting and hence any adventures here memorable.
Goods: In the markets, one may find Vudran carpets, salt imported from far Qadira, and all manner of colorful Chelish “Devil Boxes” (handheld wooden puzzle boxes, sometimes featuring dozens of moving parts). All goods from all places, it seems, arrive here to be sold. Katapesh gives you a great opportunity to root out those obscure equipment lists or scour the Internet for the weird and wonderful purchases of fantasy roleplaying worlds. However, the vast bulk of goods are commonplace ones—the staples of life. Such common goods are sold at every street corner; every market has its pesh-seller, every plaza its water-trader, and every souk its pan-maker.
Food and Drink: Cool, clear water is the most common drink sold on the streets of Katapesh, usually from great barrels at a price of a copper piece a tankard. It, along with mint tea, is the staple drink for Katapeshi people. Wine may be found but it is generally thin, while ale and beer are almost unheard of outside of specialty taverns. The staple foods are bread and rice, which are usually served with hot spices—the most common being a mildly spicy bread called khat. The most common meal served on street corners is an oily mix of pickled olives, limes, and rice called thal.
Clothing: Silk and cotton clothes are the most popular apparel sold, with heavier garments made of leather or fur being confined to specialties. The profession of tailoring is seen as a respectable one, as it exists to cover modesty.
Household Wares: Torches, candles, utensils, tools, and other goods referred to in common equipment lists are sold by traders across the city—such wares are generally laid out on silk cloth or rugs, awaiting only the start of barter. Occasionally, a great treasure might be found here, covered in dirt or filth, its seller unaware of its worth. Each day the PCs spend shopping, feel free to set a 1% chance that a randomly determined minor magic item (DMG 216) might be found for sale at a tiny fraction of its actual price. A DC 25 Appraise or Spellcraft check identifies such an accidental bargain, as can detect magic.
Fakes, Lies, and Scams: An uncountable number of fake potion makers, antiquarian dealers selling clever forgeries of rare documents, confidence men and snake-oil salesmen, perpetrate their schemes throughout the city. While some of these scams are easy to spot, many are well practiced—the art of the purse-slasher has reached new heights here, games that seem to be purely chance are anything but, and friendly offers to “Come with me into this alley to see the real deals” are often precursors to attack in quieter streets.
Although streetside vendors and traveling merchants are perhaps among the most prevalent salesmen in Katapesh, they are by their nature transitory. It’s impossible to get to know these merchants, since they move along so rapidly, and as a result, one can never be sure of the quality of the goods purchased, or indeed, if what you’re looking for is even available.
For the majority of Katapesh’s natives, it is to the numerous permanent markets that the buyer travels. Here, merchants have the benefit of permanent buildings to house their shops, and often ownership of a business can be traced back for generations. Pride in one’s shop translates directly to business in Katapesh, for it is to these renowned old shops that those most familiar with the city will habitually come to buy their goods. The rest of this article details many of these permanent markets, shops, and locales—if your PCs are interested in a particular type of good or service, the result of their Gather Information check could point them to an appropriate merchant from the list below.
1. The Great Plaza: The Plaza is vast—a bowl of noise in the center of the great city. It is the heart of trade in Katapesh, a place where all manner of common goods can be had—fruits and vegetables, life-giving water, and the flesh of animals. The Plaza is overlooked by a thousand ancient buildings variously used as homes, workshops, and temples.
Even in the dead of night figures move across torchlightkissed cobbles on their way to or from trading. A whole cant and set of bylaws has developed among the traders who frequent the vast plaza, with phrases like “Plaka ghul” (Plaza ghoul—traders who operate after dark), “rata gros quu-cul Plaka” (as fat as a Plaza rat—a portly or corpulent person), and “Plaka sorrol” (as silent as the Plaza—referring to an incredibly noisy place, person, or event).
2. Sweat Town: Some say that the endless narrow streets of Sweat Town show the true face of Katapesh—a vast populace slogging away in sweatshops. To walk in Sweat Town is to walk amid the desperate and the hopeless, their faces hanging heavy with toil and despair. These workshops have their own masters, their own rigid caste system, and their own brutal laws.
Sweat Town specializes in simple trade goods—clothes and tools, basic weapons and armor, as well as camelsaddles and basic transport. Sales are handled by a “d’hakor” (overseer), but buying goods directly from workers reduces the initial price by 25%, as long as the transaction isn’t noticed by a d’hakor (most d’hakors have Spot +10)—if they notice, the worker making the sale is punished by the lash and the hopeful customer is told to leave Sweat Town or suffer the same fate.
3. The Pesh Quarter: If the Great Plaza is the city’s heart, then the Pesh Quarter is its arteries and veins. The streets here are broader than those of Sweat Town, and its occupants of a higher caste—afforded rank and respect by the word of the Pactmasters. Pesh is made, bought, and sold here in vast quantities, the boiling vats working day and night to reduce the cactus sap to a slurry which is compressed into resin and sold. The scent of pesh drifts everywhere, and the workers bear the terrible signs of addiction—many have lost their noses or even whole parts of their faces.
4. Streets of Silver and Gold: The shops and merchants that throng in these two narrow streets specialize in trade of gold and silver, gems and jewels, and are home to some of the wealthiest and most powerful merchants in the city, many of whom dwell in huge townhouses surrounding great courtyard gardens full of flowers and huge trees.
5. The Great Camel-Mart: The camel-mart operates every Fireday—a confusion of dust and noise, the low call of the stock, and the scent of musk. This area of the city is a low, dirty bowl of earth surrounded by and infested with hundreds of small corrals and stockyards. On good days, some one thousand camels are traded here, and it is said that Katapeshi camels are the most noble and sought-after of all of their kind. While a general riding camel fetches around 300 gp, beasts from the more noble lines can cost 10 or even 20 times that. Such beasts may grant a +2 bonus on Ride checks, have maximum hit points or elite statistics, or simply come from a line celebrated in some song or tale.
6. The Water Market: Here amid Katapesh’s docks, boats and ships of all type vie for space. Tian dhows skirt great Qadiran galleys, tiny local fishing vessels cower beside Nexian caravels. All trade ships must register their cargoes here, a process that can take hours or even days. Many of the shops here cater exclusively to ship crews waiting for their cargo to be registered. These traders ply the waters around the docklands on small, nimble barges, selling everything from water to cure-alls, offers of guidance and lodgings, prostitutes and poisons, alcohol and pesh—in short, the sorts of things many sailors hold dear.
7. The Grand Tannery: The stench of the tannery can almost be felt, a reek so overpowering that many find it impossible to even approach. The Great Tannery is a huge, open yard along the banks of the River Scorpius, a colorful wound in the sprawl some 200 yards across. Here, countless tanners work at open vats, curing, coloring, and drying their wares for all to see. The place is a riot of noise and color and stench, with its not-quite-so-foul-smelling borders delineated by a ring of leather and skin traders eager to sell fresh hides brought forth from deeper within the tannery.
8. The Cattle Market: This great street winds through the slums, lined on each side by uncountable cages, pits, prisons, lock-ups, holds, and pounds. The Cattle Market—the greatest slave market of Katapesh—lurks at the end of this street, a large crumbling amphitheater where slaves are sold and auctioned. Slaves that don’t sell are often given over to the Grand Coliseum. Gnolls, in particular, are common here, with many such savage slavers arriving astride hyaenodon mounts with another horde of chained slaves to sell.
9. Peculiar Emporium: The magical souk of the city, this is where many wizards, sorcerers, bards, and alchemists come to trade their wares and shop for bargains. The Emporium is a maze of buildings connected by bridges and underground passages—without a guide, a DC 15 Survival check is required to avoid becoming lost every hour. The scale and amount of wares for sale here is breathtaking, from simple potion makers and scroll scribers (who often have to make their wares in tiny stalls on the streets) to the greatest crafters of mighty wondrous items and masters of the darkest magics.
10. The Mechanical Market: The groan of machine and the screech of iron commands here. This small quarter is filled with engineers, inventors, tinkerers, and madmen, all eager to advance their understanding of mechanics—some for the sheer joy of discovery, but most for greed. The market is home to hundreds of smithies, ore smelters, alchemists, weaponsmiths, and tinkers who toil at advanced water-wheels, toys, cranes, clockwork wonders, and stranger inventions.
11. The Souk of the Magnificent and Inscrutable: A warship towers over this souk, raised from the sea and put on stilts for all to see. Naturally this ship, like everything else in the city, is for sale. This souk specializes in the grand—five sphinx statues 100 feet high have had stonecarvers diligently working on completing their creation for decades in one section, while in another, war machines of almost impossible complexity are slowly constructed under the nervous gaze of their creators. One particularly large project, a working model volcano 60 feet in diameter, is being created for an eccentric Taldan lord. The geniuses of Golarion come here to learn and trade, and any manner of weird and wonderful grandiose objects may be found.
12. The Roof Market: Lashed across the rooftops near the Great Plaza, the Roof Market is a relatively new addition to Katapesh. One of the largest flea markets in the city, the Roof Market specializes in second- or third-hand goods. The Roof Market can get very busy—dangerously so at times as thousands upon thousands of locals crawl up its rickety ladders and wander its creaking boards in search of a bargain. Goods for sale at the Roof Market vary greatly, but as a simple rule of thumb, there is a 30% chance of any mundane items of equipment being found here, with a starting price before haggling of 50% of their original cost. Some 20% of such goods are shoddy or substandard in some way, and this may only be noticed by a DC 20 Appraise check—otherwise the item breaks 1d6 times after its initial use.
13. The Menagerie: The market for exotic animals, strange beasts, and even monsters is strong in Katapesh, and the Menagerie is its epicenter. This market occupies a dozen streets that wind amid a score of disused temples converted into cages and kennels of all shapes and sizes. Here it is possible to purchase a trained owlbear, a chained ogre, griffon eggs, and a whole host of other exotic or more mundane creatures. From the goliath moth of the Mwangi Expanse to the tiny Thuvian fey-ferret, the Menador Mountain great griffon to the Andoren black pegasus, they can all be found at the Menagerie. At rare times, even subdued dragons were traded here, although such trade is now largely a thing of the past. This market is particularly renowned with those seeking more exotic familiars, as many are likely to be found here.
Katapesh’s most infamous markets are not as much a physical location as they are a state of mind. In most cities, trade of lives, poison, souls, and other vile merchandise is regulated to the black market, yet in Katapesh, these wares are legitimate mercantile offerings—as long as their peddlers keep their payments to the Pactmasters on a timely basis and as long as their wares don’t disrupt trade.
The Nightstalls does the majority of its business after dark, seeming to sprout up amid shops closed for the day like strange shadow-versions of diurnal business. The Nightstalls is ostensibly run by Khafira Blacktongue (Level 5 Female tiefling Rogue). Karfira oversees the Duskwalker Guild, a group of shadowy merchants who take a cut of every Nightstalls transaction in return for granting these unsavory merchants a safe place to ply their trade. The Nightstalls is spreading as fast as its infamy, and the market “overlays” much of the city today. Many of the merchants who work in the Nightstalls maintain dynamic locations, changing often as customers and their customers’ victims seek their own justice against the unsavory merchants. The following presents the most infamous of the Nightstalls’ merchants, but is by no means an exhaustive list.
The Violet Fire: Khafira Blacktongue herself has worked the brothels and sin-pits of various port cities across Golarion and has developed a fine understanding of the needs of more discerning (and wealthy) clientele. The Violet Fire is at once a brothel, a fighting arena, a drug den, and her own palace. A quartet of female and a pair of male tiefling prostitutes work within the themed chambers of this garish townhouse. These tieflings love their work and tend to perform in outrageous costumes, masks, and accessories. Khafira has taken an enslaved fiendish satyr as her lover and business partner. The satyr, Sayyid Farokh (Level 3 male satyr bard; Level 5 social interaction and musical checks), is currently engaged in an interesting case of double-cross, intending to relieve Khafira of her brothel and wealth and claim it as his own. Part of Sayyid’s plan has recently failed, with one of the male tiefling prostitutes being unmasked as an Eagle Knight spy who was attempting to discover something about the Nightstalls that he could present to the Pactmasters to encourage them to shut the Nightstalls down. Despite this intrigue and treachery, the Violet Fire has a reputation for entwining cruelty into its vice, and the games overseen by Sayyid Farokh, woven with liberal use of pesh, and his pipes to charm then cast fear on its clients, has ensured a steady stream of well-paying customers.
Answers to Many Questions: Pesh-addicted M’hem (Level 4 male human sorcerer; energy manipulation and minor conjuring spells, Level 6 local and planer knowledge checks) uses a small army of imps (20 in all) to assist him in learning secrets and spying for clientele. M’hem was hideously burned 3 years ago in a mysterious fire which, unknown to him, was caused by other imps in the service of Hashcuss H’rann, proprietor of the Nightstall known as “The Brewer.” M’hem’s charges depend upon the difficulty of the information to be found; an easy task, such as finding where someone in the city lives, costs 100 gp, but something as complex as a floor plan for the Immaculate Repository would cost many thousands of gold pieces.
Ancient Tomes: A quartet of Eagle Knight spies have managed to infiltrate the Nightstalls with this bookstore. Here ostensibly to bring down the Katapesh slave trade, the spies are beginning to unravel an even darker story and are presently plotting to break into the Royal Palace. The huge collection of banned texts and forbidden tomes here is a cover for the spies’ real purpose, and the spies have gone through great lengths to make this cover believable. Many spells and secrets may be found in this small minaret-topped townhouse. Generally the bookish H’kul Mushain (Level 4 male half-elf bard; Level 6 social interaction and knowledge checks; minor illusionary and audible spells) deals with customers to ensure a fabric of normality. He uses illusions to appear as an aging cripple who speaks with a pronounced stutter. H’kul has a great knowledge of tomes and arcana, but his attention span, driven by his dangerous mission, is very short and he is prone to bouts of infuriating forgetfulness—he often agrees to carry out works or find tomes, only to have forgotten his promises completely a few hours later.
The Tongue that Tastes, the Fang that Slays: Ebrahim Nashoord (Level 4 male gnome rogue) sells poison snakes. The Katapeshi ringback viper is his best seller; this Small viper sells for 200 gp and comes complete with wicker basket to carry it away in—as do all his wares. The blue-eyed hood viper (Medium viper) costs 800 gp, while his most expensive snake, the red-scaled burning cobra (Large viper), costs 2,500 gp. Burning cobras are elite Large vipers, and available only on special order.
The Cabal Inquisitor: Unknown to most, the Seer (Level 7 male human lich wizard; necromancy spells), one of the Nightstalls’ more secretive and dangerous merchants, is in fact a lich. This mysterious figure claims to be able to obtain any secret ingredient for any spell, and is prepared to meet a high price for new and rare magic. His library and shop is a spiraling tower of stone rising to a great dome at the rooftops, a megalithic, artificial mushroom. The Seer is as twisted as his crumbling manse home, which is widely avoided by the locals. For his rare public appearances, he wears a faded, red velvet robe that conceals many useful items, and hides behind a bone-carved mask that depicts a smiling human face. The Seer is attended at all times by the One Who Is Travesty, a four-faced, eight-armed, unusually intelligent flesh golem who acts as both a guard and an assassin. The One Who Is Travesty wields eight razor-sharp scimitars in combat and is said to devour the bodies of its master’s enemies to prevent resurrection.
If a magic component is required, the Seer is likely to be able to locate them, either through local intermediaries or through a network of spies and contacts across the Obari Ocean. The Seer is presently at work translating the insane contents of one of the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, smuggled in by his accomplice Kolra Kazbegi (see Antiquaries, below).
Those Bound and Forgotten: Squint-eyed Marquin Ortstone (Level 5 male gnome cleric of Asmodeus; necromancy and divination spells) is a mummy smuggler. He presently has some 10 sarcophagi, of various ages and types, within which lie seven mummies that serve him as henchmen and thugs. Marquin hires out his undead slaves to carry out deeds to be determined by the purchaser (at a suitable cost). Marquin is a strangely colorful character who wears a magnifying lens like a monocle and who has an addiction for fine gems. He also trades in loot gathered from tomb-robbing, selling mummy rot (flesh gone foul by the disesase), and various antiquities.
Extraordinary Slaves: Noseless, blind, pesh-addicted Y’aalay Quam (Level 4 male gnoll fighter) imports beasts and slaves that are extraordinary. His stock moves frequently, but at any given time he has at least six monsters (Level 1–4 each) and the same number of unusual humanoid slaves available, which he sells at a cost of roughly 300 gp per Level.
The Brewer: Hashcuss H’rann (Level 5 male elf assassin; level 7 checks on alchemical checks) toils in his alchemical workshop, a brick tower held together by the dozen iron chimneys that throttle it. Hashcuss trades and makes poisons with the aid of a trio of imps who also act as ingredient gatherers when the need arises. These imps are jealous and frightened of the superior numbers of imps in the employ of M’hem D’jall, and are always seeking to undo the group in some petty way.
One Whose Touch Corrupts: Klane Raicht (Level 5 male human wererat druid; necrotic and poison spells) specializes in sickness and disease—he has a quartet of caged otyughs in his basement which he uses to harvest filth fever (usually by allowing an otyugh to bite and infect a dog or halfling slave), and has also purchased creatures infected with mummy rot and devil chills in hopes of distilling the sickness into elixirs. Klane is a foul creature, with oily hair falling across his pimply forehead. He walks clumsily with the aid of a stick, as one of his legs has been eaten away by leprosy. Klane’s prices for infected slaves and creatures varies, but a dog or halfling carrying filth fever is usually for sale for 500 gp.
Master Reapesmoor: One of Katapesh’s most notorious Nightstalls merchants dwells in a rotting timber church overlooking the ocean. This is Master Reapesmoor (aka The Shanky Benefactor, the Kind Gentleman, and Master Smiles), a horned devil exiled from Hell who usually uses a magic ring to appear as a tall, well-dressed Taldan man (light bronze skill and long waivy brown hair and amber eyes) when he steps out in public. He finds the ability to peddle infernal wares legally and in public amusing, and is curious about the Pactmasters. In time he hopes to learn why they allow such depravity to exist, and has recently begun courting Khafira Blacktongue as a way to learn a little more. He holds many lesser Nightstalls merchants in some sort of thrall, and most of his direct trade with customers is handled through these proxies. Even though he usually appears in disguise, maggots occasionally appear in his mouth and the noises he makes while crunching and swallowing them are particularly vile.
Master Reapesmoor deals in souls, and always has a plentiful supply. In the dungeon below his church, he keeps a number of lemures held in great bell jars to punish cruelly for amusement. One of Master Reapesmoor’s favorite tricks is to claim to have the soul of a saint within a receptacle and offer to free the soul in return for some suitably horrific task. Master Reapesmoor likes to haggle over the cost of his souls, and generally does not trade in anything so vulgar as money—preferring instead tasks and favors, such as making the purchaser lie to a loved one or perform some act of violence, hate, or aggression.
Antiquaries: Pesh-addicted smuggler Kolra Kazbegi (Level 5 male human ranger) is one of the Pactmasters’ most valuable accomplices. A Varisian by lineage but a citizen of Katapesh by birth, Kolra’s specialty is the smuggling of dangerous magic from his Sczarni contacts in distant Ustalav. Operating from the sinister town of Carrion Hill, a place infamous for its connections with ancient magic, Kolra risks the wrath of the province princes to smuggle objects for the Pactmasters as well as valuable items for his own profit. His home, a teetering, steep-gabled manor, has its own private dock, where the Carrion Storm, his caravel, lies moored when he is in the city.
Kazbegi likes the finer things in life, and is always on the hunt for beautiful foreign women to expand his considerable harem. He also keeps a small staff of loyal followers in his sumptuously appointed and expensive home. He is a black-hearted, arrogant, and tyrannical man who regards himself as a folk-hero and ensures that tales of his heroism are frequently spread. A close accomplice and valuable ally of the Seer, Kazbegi’s most recent triumph includes the delivery of a terrible book from the Charnel Libraries of Carrion Hill—one of the infamous Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan.
Vudran Secrets: The Vudrani Slajeev Djincan (Level 4 male human fighter) imports wares from Vudra—great brass and copper objects, as well as more infamous Vudrani produce such as the poison breath of a tiger (cost 3,200 gp, inhaled Level 5 Might Defense, damage 4 Might/6 Might), the incense of Megeer (cost 1,200 gp, inhaled Level 4 Might Defense, damage nausea/6 Intellect), and even strange psionically-charged items capable of magical effects both unique and frightening. Djincan is keen to establish a Vudran pesh den in the Nightstalls, but all his efforts have so far met with failure at the hands of agents of Huzshak.
The Gables: This is an eating hall lashed to the rooftops. Here, visitors can indulge in outlandish meals, such as fried wyvern hearts with oysters, boiled eyes of bulette in jelly, and harpy hand poached in honey and coriander, among others. Private booths overlook the sea, while a pair of strange, four-armed slave girls plays multiple panpipes in the background. Lork Hlay (Level 5 female human bard) is always on the lookout for new ingredients and dishes, and often hires smart-witted adventurers to sail to exotic lands and return with a live catch for her chef T’zol (Level 3 male janni), whom she tricked into working for her for 40 years and a day.
Khumol Hask Huzshak’s Pesh Den: This notoriously large pesh den is run by a group of rogues who allow their pesh-addicted customers to carry out their dirty work for them in return for payment in pesh. Huzshak himself (Level 5 male human rogue) is a corpulent, greedy individual engaged in petty battles with other groups in the Nightstalls, most notably the Vudran Slajeev, whom he regards as a foreign interloper.
Acids and Spittles of Many Creatures: K’havass Mahurll (Level 4 male human fighter merchant; Level 5 animal handling and survival checks) harvests the acids of dangerous creatures and sells them to assassins, poisoners, and crooks throughout Katapesh. Mahurll’s acids all bear grandiose names, such as the Spittle of Hell’s Vipers, the Festering Juice of the Gargantuan Slug, and the Milk from the Teat of the Daughters of the Sphinx of Corrosion, although in practice most of these acids are identical to the standard vial of acid—in a lot of ways, his customers pay the outlandish prices (often 50 gp or higher) as much for the delicate artistry of the containers he uses to hold his acids as for the acid itself. Mahurll also proudly stores large, specially blown glass vials of green slime which he sells for 1,000 gp apiece—he refuses to buy the stuff, though, pointing out that he can resupply his slime quite easily by simply throwing a cat or a street urchin into the pool he keeps in his basement.
Listed below are 10 different strange and unusual objects that a character might find for sale at a curio shop or from a roadside merchant. These objects can also serve as things that someone might gain by using Sleight of Hand, or even as unusual items of treasure found in a creature’s stash of loot. Since each of these items is relatively unique, you might want to keep a list of which ones you hand out and then invent new items to fill the gaps you’ve created, using the following as inspiration for these new objects.
1) Tiny Bejeweled Vest: This red silk vest is sized for a monkey. Even though it has tiny pearl buttons and gold thread, the vest is unbelievably filthy after having been worn by a monkey for several years. A Level 6 Appraise check reveals the object’s true value—something its seller hasn’t accomplished. The vest carries a price tag of 10 gp, but cleaned up is actually worth 500 gp.
2) Jade Lizard: A three-inch-long jade sculpture of a lizard. The jade radiates faint transmutation magic; it is always pleasantly warm to the touch, but has no other properties. Carved into the lizard’s belly is a strange word: “Cazamazan,” a command word for a magic item, perhaps, or maybe the name of the jade lizard’s previous owner. The statuette is worth 250 gp.
3) Treasure Map Fragment: Half of a map of what appears to be the floor plan of a ruined church of Abadar, with a hidden vault clearly marked. Missing from the map is the top half, which presumably indicated where the church in question was located. The map sells for a mere 50 gp, but the merchant wants 10% of the treasure found in the vault if the map leads to riches.
4) The Songs of Shazathared: A beautifully illuminated, undersized book that contains a dozen short legends, as told by the legendary marid princess Shazathared to her cruel efreeti captor. These legends are reprinted on the inside front covers of the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path volumes—the booklet itself is worth 3,500 gp for its exquisite artistry, and could actually come in handy later in this Adventure Path in “The Impossible Eye.”
5) Frog Statuette: This is an incredibly lifelike basalt statuette of a frog, selling for a mere 6 gp. A Level 6 Spellcraft check reveals that the statuette is actually a real frog that’s been petrified by stone to flesh. The intrigue goes deeper—the “frog” is in fact a baleful polymorphed halfling con-man named Ildaki Shrevewort (Level 4 male halfling rogue) who, 200 years ago, conned a wizard out of his spellbook. Unfortunately for Ildaki, the wizard figured out the con, sought him out, and exacted revenge. If restored to life, Ildaki promises to lead the PCs to an old Desnan shrine hidden in the Katapeshi wilds where he claims to have hidden a nest egg. What Ildaki’s nest consists of (and what dangerous creature might live at the shrine now) is up to you.
6) Shrunken Gnoll Head: This shrunken head, barely over 4 inches in diameter and threaded with a leather cord, once belonged to a gnoll king named Balok Baaru. The head itself is somewhat poorly preserved, but functions as a stone of good luck. Unfortunately, it’s also cursed (a fact the merchant doesn’t reveal, using his Level 5 Bluff check to hide), and while it is carried, the user’s personality grows more crass and foul, resulting in 2 steps penalty to social interactions. This penalty applies as soon as the user is forced to make a check that’s modified by the item’s luck bonus, and persists until it is removed via remove curse, break enchantment, or a similar effect (the curse functions at CL 9th). The merchant tries to sell the gnoll head for its full 20,000 gp price, but if the buyer confronts the merchant with the truth, he agrees to drop the price to 10,000 gp.
Shrunken Gnoll Head (Cursed Artifact)
Level: 1d6+4
Form: This poorly preserved shrunken head, barely over 4 inches in diameter and threaded with a leather cord, once belonged to a gnoll king named Balok Baaru.
Effect: Eases any defense or skill checks attempted. While it is carried, the user’s personality grows more crass and foul, resulting in 2 steps penalty to social interactions. This penalty applies as soon as the user is forced to make a check that’s modified by the item’s luck bonus, and persists until it is removed via remove curse, break enchantment, or a similar effect (Level 6 curse).
Depletion: 2d20 (once the curse is broken)
7) Monkey’s Paw: A withered, mummified monkey’s paw, with one finger missing and the wrist capped with a tarnished silver bulb from which dangles a silver chain. This grisly charm sells for 40 gp. If the silver bulb is removed from the paw, a tiny silver key is found wedged inside—what the key opens is a mystery.
8) Pixie Dagger: The merchant claims that this is a powerful artifact of returning shocking burst giant bane tiny dagger used by a pixie hero to defend his magic mushroom home from a ravenous shadow giant named Uguthonk the Lisper. The dagger is, in fact, a Tiny returning dagger that periodically issues a bright spark when one unsheaths the blade, enhanced by several magic aura spells to make it appear to be more than it is. The merchant tries to get 98,000 gp for the dagger, but settles for its actual price of 8,301 gp if confronted.
Pixie Dagger (Artifact)
Level: 1d6+2
Form: Tiny dagger (2 damage) that takes the shape of a large thorn emerging from the center of a rose bloom as the crossguard and the hilt being the stem.
Effect: While small, the dagger does 2 damage due to the sharpness of its needle-like point. If thrown it returns back to the hand soon after its strikes. The magical aura radiates of a more powerful artifact.
Depletion: 1d100
9) Mummy Repellant: A silver ankh that glows in the dark like an everburning torch, the merchant tries to sell this object as an ankh that repells mummies. It does nothing of the sort, and is worth no more than an everburning torch (110 gp), despite the fact that the merchant (Level 4 bluff check) asks for 6,000 gp.
10) High Noon Fire Monsoon: This is a 4-inch-diameter glass globe that, strangely, contains a tiny model of Kelmarane (or whatever town or city is of particular importance to the person touching the globe). Peering closely reveals tiny people going about their daily business in the miniature town. Engraved in the globe’s silver and gold base is the phrase, “High Noon Fire Monsoon.” When shaken, a storm of fiery rain lashes the town, burning buildings and forcing the tiny people to race in panic for 1 minute before the fire fades and the scene within returns to normal. Those who hold the globe to the ear can hear tiny screams of terror. This effect is nothing more than a programmed illusion—while the fire “burns,” the globe sheds light like a torch. It’s worth 3,000 gp for the artistry alone, but could be of use later in the adventure in “The Impossible Eye,” as the strange bauble is in fact part of a set once owned by the efreeti warlord Jhavhul.