Commerce and Prices (Magic Vegas)

v60e Chapter 2 continued
By definition, professional magicians support themselves by marketing their services to a select clientele. As members thereof, player characters can enter the game with the benefits of Fetishes, elixirs, and lasting rituals by spending starting wealth; if they could have performed the magic themselves, this represents opportunity cost. Even thereafter, they always have the option to just spend cash for such things, again even if they do the work themselves. For the GM, this saves the time involved in multiple rolls for the rituals and associated Symbol-Drawing, performative skills, Religious Ritual to coordinate acolytes, and research to collect bonuses from the laws of contagion, sympathy, and name. For the player, it bypasses the associated risks of critical failure and further corruption. For a summary, see the Price List in Appendix II.
====Fetishes and Spirit Services ====
Each service due from a Bound spirit of a given strength costs a tenth as much as a Fetish below, and transferring the balance of services uses up one service. So does consent to a Spirit Trap or Fetish. A magician must Summon a spirit back in order to redeem a service (unless he stored it in a Spirit Trap, using up one service).
This table shows base cost for a Fetish of indicated ST with bare success (no margin); decrement ST to increment margin of success the better to resist Countermagic (a single application of Dispel Ritual, if Fetish is the ritual in question, could dismantle all the Fetishes carried by one person at no penalty for area of effect). Eidolons cost half (just $500 for ST 10) but Djinn cost double and non-allied spirits quadruple. Except for an Eidolon, multiply by the years of service due. Buying a Fetish as Signature Gear is less point-wise efficient but automates renewal.
Fetish cost by spirit ST (halve for Eidolon, double for Djinn) – use 10% for each service due
	10	$1k	20	$4k	30	$16k	40 	$64k
	15	$2k	25	$8k		35	$32k	45+	Whatever			market will bear (unavailable to start)
Creating a fetish involves multiple rituals, and yet the cost is lower than the sum would imply. Demand is high, especially for Eidolons to sustain rituals, which would drive up their price if it didn’t generate economies of scale. Other rituals are commissioned case-by-case, and their pricing has to cover “free” consultation, whereas a fetishmonger can sell on the internet. Before he can start, he must Summon and Bind a spirit, but anyone skilled enough for the last step can handle the first two in seconds or minutes, an incidental cost just like the Very Fine fishing lure or the like in which the spirit resides. The net result is that weak (ST 10) Eidolon Fetishes are the closest thing to a magic commodity. Fetishes made from expensive things like weapons pass on the cost, but for the purpose of a PC’s book-keeping, remember that Cost of Living subsumes apparel, home appliances, and vehicles.
==== Commissioning Rituals ====
A ritual performed by a professional magician with path skill 12 costs $500, net $1000 if sustained by a weak Eidolon Fetish. Anyone can use a Fetish, but if a magician requires one to sustain a ritual, then he performs it at -2 if the Fetish came from another tradition (just -1 if the traditions have multiple Channeling paths in common). To compensate for risk, double cost for a Horror ritual (but not for the Fetish that sustains it). For simplicity, assume a success roll of 12 for any ritual whose effect could be known; otherwise roll at the time of activation. A professional will have arranged the best possible circumstances, performing the ritual with the maximum bonus of +15 (or assume +10 for an unspecified subject), so the margin of success may be generous even after accounting for the ritual’s base difficulty. Add $200 per additional skill level, which can represent a higher path skill, expertise with the Technique, assistants to address the parameter penalties if applicable, or even a luckier success roll, but there are limits:
1) The target number for the roll must be at least 16. Even though the margin of success assumes a roll of 12, the magician always anticipates a chance of disaster. Greater risk of failure will drive up the price requiring negotiation be roleplayed.
2) The target may not exceed 35 (just 30 in the case of an unspecified subject), which assumes expertise (skill 20 with the Technique) plus the best possible bonus shy of human sacrifice. Further levels come from assistants who mitigate parameter penalties but can’t add to the margin of success.
3) The maximum positive skill, before subtracting parameter penalties and base difficulty, is 50 (just 45 for an unspecified subject). Thus, certain rituals like Create Gate don’t appear on the rate card. Some magicians have greater skill and charge accordingly; larger covens can be assembled adding logistical overhead; and well-led acolytes or great Symbol-Drawing can raise the bonus for an unspecified subject, again requiring negotiation be roleplayed.
Consider the case of Weapon Blessing. It has a base difficulty of 6, takes a parameter penalty equal to weapon weight in pounds, grants a benefit equal to half the margin of success, and doesn’t stack with Grace. Julius wants a Weapon Blessing on his gladius, and he already has Grace at +5, sustained by a Fetish.
First, he considers hiring a professional magician with the lowest prices, one who has skill 12. He would get +15, the maximum bonus, before subtracting the base difficulty of 6 and the shortsword’s weight of 2 (pounds), net 19. That exceeds the minimum target of 16, no problem there. Assuming a success roll of 12 yields a margin of 7, and halving that yields a bonus of +3, less than Julius’ bonus from Grace +5, so that would be pointless.
Next, he considers doing it himself, substituting his own path skill of 16. While he must burn some downtime, he could just take the assumed success roll and not risk a critical failure. Unfortunately, that would only raise the bonus to +5, still no better than Grace. Of course, he could roll for success in-game, but the result is unlikely to be significantly better.
Now he considers hiring a specialist, a magician with skill 21 in the appropriate path (or he might for example have path skill 15, Weapon Blessing Technique at +4, and a couple of apprentices). That’ll cost $500 as usual, plus $200×9 for the extra skill levels, plus $500 for a craft spirit Fetish to sustain the ritual, total $2,800. However, the margin of success is 16, for a total bonus of +8, or net +3 over Grace.
Still unsatisfied, Julius asks the question a different way: “What’s the best bonus I could get, and how much would it cost?” Well, the maximum target number for the success roll is 35, less an assumed success roll of 12 yields a margin of 23, for a total bonus of +11, or net +6 over Grace. Of course, a 34 would yield the same thing, so that saves a couple hundred, but he’ll have to pay for 2 more levels, the contribution from assistants to handle the parameter penalty. Is that too much? Base difficulty 6, plus 34, plus 2 assistants equals 42, which is less than 50, so this isn’t rocket surgery (or gate magic). How much will it cost? Well, of these 42 levels, the first 12 cost $500, the next 15 are a free bonus, the remaining 15 cost $200 apiece for $3,000, and Julius needs at least $500 for a fetish to sustain it, total $4,000. That’ll get him an enchanted gladius that can handle -6 in combat penalties, such as the Rapid Strike penalty for two extra attacks!
Need another example? Consider the case of Banish. Cassandra wants to “hang” this ritual on a fetish, in case any spook jumps her. She’s really good, with skill 20, so she can use that instead of 12, to which she adds 10 for an unspecified subject, net 30. From this, she subtracts the base difficulty of 4 and the parameter penalty of 10 for the HT of a weak spirit. Her result is 16, the minimum target. Oops! Sandy needs a complexity parameter in order to activate the effect, which will drop her below the minimum. Too bad.
If she wants this to work, Cassandra needs to go big. She wants a target number of 16; anything higher is wasted according to the Rule of 16. However, she wants to be able to banish even a powerful ST 40 spirit, which would have HT 16, with a couple of buddies in tow, and she needs to handle that pesky -1 Complexity parameter plus the base difficulty of 4. Add all that up (16+16+2+1+4) to get 39. Again with the same math: $500 for 12 levels, no cost for the next 10, $200 apiece for the remaining 17, plus $500 for the fetish to sustain it equals $4,400. That’s a very expensive single-shot item with a 50/50 chance of working, but a ST 40 spirit is no joke. For better odds of survival, Sandy should carry spares!
=====Commissioning Elixirs=====
Start with the basic rule above, but divide by the number of doses in a batch and add $25 per dose for ingredients. Like Fetishmongers, professional alchemists work with covens, alleviating the parameter penalty for multiple doses. Employees must be paid, driving up cost, but that’s defrayed by large batch sizes such that the net cost per dose is about 40% as much as a commissioned ritual. If such a ritual were sustained indefinitely by a Fetish for delayed activation, total cost would be $1000 or more (including a $500 refundable deposit for the reusable Fetish), versus $200 per dose of an elixir with a 3-month shelf life that’s also conveniently less susceptible to countermagic (because there’s no sustaining Fetish to dispel). Most elixirs lack the benefit of a connection to the subject, and in addition they must accept a penalty for duration, typically -2 for 1hr. Pastilles accept a further penalty for the area they can fill with smoke, in addition to the Multi-target (multi-dose) parameter already accounted for. At least there’s no Complexity parameter for activation; just drink them.
Consider Skinchange, base difficulty 6. Rowan wants to make elixirs of Skinchange to swan form, for the kind of cross-country flight that doesn’t require check-in to an airport. Take the minimum target of 16, add 6 for difficulty and 2 for duration – wait, make that 3 for a 12hr duration, sufficient for hundreds of miles. The result is 25. For a commissioned ritual, such as might be sustained by a fetish, the cost would be $500 for the first 12 levels, no cost for the next 10 (because the drinker isn’t specified in advance), and $200 apiece for the last 3, net $1100. However, by the economics of large batches, the cost per dose works out to about 40% of that, or $440, competitive with conventional air fare. Swan juice works great for unobserved Believers, but it’s iffy for Skeptics. If Rowan wanted to make batches for her own use only, she’d pay just $200 apiece, because she’d have the benefit of Contagion and Sympathy with the subject.
====Eligibility====
The foregoing are “insider” prices for professional magicians (skill 12) in good standing (Claim to Hospitality), someone who knows the seller personally and has the potential to return the favor someday. Members of the community, Believers who aren’t professional magicians but who have an Ally or Patron who is, pay double. As a Contact, a dealer in magic can commission rituals of foreign tradition for quadruple that price, but a starting character can’t enter play with them (except as Signature Gear), though he may immediately check the availability of his qualifying social advantage.
Sustained rituals typically won’t be for sale to non-magician Believers but rent for 10% per month, and even then, it will be under the control of the magician according to whatever Complexity parameter he accepted, and the Fetish that sustains it will not be in the Believer’s custody. For a buyer who wants to control the magic himself, elixirs are the better choice.