ashwoodThe second channel of the Merchant is vague enough to be seriously abused. This is my attempt to define it further and bring it into line with other avatar channels.
When a merchant finalizes a deal with his second avatar channel, all parties gain a clear understanding of what is happening and have the option of turning down the deal (even if they agreed to it verbally). Bargainers will also get a sense of how the merchant defines terms of contract (loyalty, for example, means different things to different people, the merchant’s definition is the one that applies to the contract)
Stats (Body, Speed, Mind, Soul, Wound Points) can’t be acquired piecemeal, only swapped. If you buy someone’s Body stat, he gets yours.
Health can’t be acquired piecemeal, only swapped. If one person has chicken pox and the second has the flu, a merchant can swap the diseases around, but he can’t make one person healthy and leave the second with both diseases.
Skills can’t be acquired piecemeal. Each purchased skill is a separate item. If you acquire two or more instances of the same skill only the highest one applies to skill checks.
Lifespan can be acquired piecemeal. Fatal diseases affect how much lifespan a person has to offer, so you can’t get 20 years of youth from someone dying of cancer. However, buying 20 years of youth from a healthy inmate scheduled to be executed tomorrow is just fine.
Charges don’t transfer between adept schools. A fleshworker charge (I stabbed myself in the face with a fork) and videomancer charge (I watched Blue’s Clues this morning) have very different values and therefore aren’t interchangeable.
The second channel of the Merchant avatar cannot compel someone to take an action. If a bargainer refuses to follow through with the terms of a contract, at a minimum the wronged party can void the contract and reverse any transfers of immaterial commodities. Smart merchants include a penalty clause for breaking a contract. Thus you can’t make someone a puppet, unable to resist obeying your commands, but if they agree to obey you or give up their life, the contract will instantly kill them if they refuse an order. Calling in a previously undefined favor always falls under this rule (they can refuse and take the penalty), even if the favor consists of the transfer of immaterial commodities, since the bargainer is basically being asked to give his consent to a new sub-contract.
ashwoodI’ve made several versions of my house rules and I’ve tried to make this set as simple as possible while preventing abuses that would make the merchant avatar an easy road to perfect 100 stats or an army of slaves.
A small addition to the rules was needed to close a loophole, see below.
Health can’t be acquired piecemeal, only swapped. If one person has chicken pox and the second has the flu, a merchant can swap the diseases around, but he can’t make one person healthy and leave the second with both diseases. Also, fatal diseases like cancer are inextricably linked to a person’s lifespan. If you swap a fatal disease, lifespans are also swapped.
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