Shops and economy

Currency

There is one currency, stored server-side as a single copper integer and converted for display:

1 gold (g) = 100 silver (s) = 10,000 copper (c)

New characters get no starting money. Your first income comes from selling monster drops. The starting weapon is the Worn Iron Sword, and it deliberately has no price — merchants refuse it, which shuts down rerolling characters to cash out starting gear.

Rica’s stock

Rica sells 16 things and buys at 40% of base price.

16

Item	Category	You pay	She pays	Weight
Torch	Weapon	50c	20c	1 kg
Dagger	Weapon	25s	10s	1 kg
Spear	Weapon	35s	14s	4 kg
Fishing Rod	Fishing gear	3s	1s 20c	2 kg
Wooden Shield	Armor	25s	10s	6 kg
Leather Belt	Accessory	8s	3s 20c	1 kg
Leather Pants	Armor	25s	10s	4 kg
Healing Potion	Healing potion	6s	2s 40c	0.5 kg
Scroll of Return	Return scroll	8s	3s 20c	0.2 kg
Scroll of Party Summon	Summon scroll	10s	4s	0.2 kg
Apple	Food	3c	1c	0.3 kg
Bread	Food	20c	8c	1 kg
Cheese	Food	12c	4c	0.4 kg
Jerky	Food	30c	12c	0.25 kg
Lembas Wafer	Food	60c	24c	0.15 kg
Campfire Kit	Campfire	30c	12c	2 kg

The shop list is deliberately minimal. The rule is: only stock the pieces a tier-1 dungeon does not drop reliably, as insurance for players whose rolls keep failing. Guaranteed drops need no insurance, and higher-tier pieces stay out to protect the farming loop.

That’s why the Leather Helmet (Old Crypt’s guaranteed drop) and the Iron Sword are not in the shop.

Sold something by mistake?

The last 10 items you sold to a merchant can be bought back for exactly what you were paid. It’s a recovery path for misclicks, and the round trip is gold-neutral so it doesn’t disturb the spread — something you haggled a high price for costs that much to buy back.

The list is kept per character and per merchant, survives reconnecting, and has no time limit — but it is lost when the server restarts.

Haggling

Rica is an LLM-driven NPC, so you can talk the price down. All the price protection sits on the server:

1. The server computes a price band [min, max] from the base price, the spread and a CHA modifier.
2. The LLM can only pick an adjustment inside that band — never an absolute price. Anything outside gets clamped or refused.
3. The server guarantees arbitrage is impossible — the most discounted buy price is always above the highest sell price.
4. There are daily budgets and cooldowns: 1 gold per game day for the merchant, 40 silver per player, a 30-second haggle cooldown, and any deal is single-use and expires after 5 minutes.

Higher CHA widens the band the server allows (roughly ±5 to 25 percentage points) — a charismatic character really does negotiate better.

Tip

A good story, a piece of news or some judicious flattery genuinely earn a discount. Being rude can earn a markup — it’s symmetric, and in character.

Non-merchant NPCs

Merchants aren’t the only ones who trade. The guard Karl has a wishlist and pays 120% of base for what he wants:

2

NPC	Wants	Pays	In coin	Rica would pay
Karl	Torch	120%	60c	20c
Karl	Dagger	120%	30s	10s

Buying from Rica and selling to Karl turns a profit — that’s intended content, effectively an emergent delivery quest. It’s capped by Karl’s wallet (3g), so it can’t run away. His money comes from a 50s per game day salary that stops once the wallet is full.

Note that he only buys while the wishlist is unmet — he doesn’t want what’s already in his bag.

World drops

Beyond the weapon it was carrying, a killed monster can drop these outright:

9

Item	Drop rate	Kills per drop	Sells for
Healing Potion	1.0%	100	2s 40c
Coin Pile	1.0%	100	—
Iron Sword	1.0%	100	40s
Scroll of Return	0.5%	200	3s 20c
Scroll of Enchant Weapon	0.4%	250	4s 80c
Wooden Shield	0.4%	250	10s
Leather Armor	0.3%	333	24s
Leather Pants	0.3%	333	10s
Raven Shield	0.2%	500	28s

The Iron Sword has a 1% world drop rate, which is the other route to it besides killing the Orc Warlord — though that’s 100 kills in expectation.

Where gold comes from

Gold issuance is deliberately controlled. There are only three repeatable sources:

Source	Amount
Coin piles (dungeon chests)	1–10 copper
Dungeon chest gold	depth × 500 to depth × 1500
Fishing	8–24 copper expected per catch

Compare that to the NPC guard’s daily wage of 50s.

Weapons dropped by monsters are mostly unsellable “Worn” variants, on purpose — if higher-tier weapons cashed out reliably from ordinary monsters they would be a money printer. Ordinary armed monsters drop at only 10%; only bosses are guaranteed.