Fantasy Trade: Writing Commerce in your World

So you want to become a merchant? It's long hours, the pack animals don't appreciate you, and you're never quite sure whether your investment will pay off. But if you're still certain, here's a quick guide for the writer of a fantasy world: a list of tips and tricks to help you to flesh out your fantasy trade.

I'm Ryan from the Red Quills, and this week, we're changing our format from shorter daily posts, to a longer weekly post. We'll be updating this site with more tips and tricks for your writing and worldbuilding, and let us know in the comments below if you find our work helpful.

This guide goes hand-in-hand with our YouTube tutorial, Drawing a Trade Map, which releases this week. If you want to check out that tutorial, go to our Red Quills channel here.

Or, head back out to our Journal to see all of the articles we've made on fantasy writing and worldbuilding.

Trade is the lifeblood of civilisation. While many put the credit of innovation in technology on war, it is trade that makes invention and expansion possible. But the world that we live in is totally different to the market reality of cities in history - and fantasy - and here are four points for you to think about and work with as you flesh your system out.

1. THE COMMON GOODS

You could not fall into a mediaeval European market and expect to be able to buy a bag of coffee beans with ease. Or a gold crown. These were definitely goods that we're traded - to some and in some specialist markets - but the majority of the population bought and sold the same four commodities at the market.

- Food & Drink (60%)

The vast majority of what a market will trade in is the food and drink of the people there. The food stalls may not outnumber the other stalls, but they have the steadiest traffic and the easiest sell.

- Cloth, Fur, & Leather (20%)

Everyone requires clothing, and not everyone can make it. A bolt of cloth in the modern day is made easily and cheaply in a factory across the other side of the world, and the quality cannot be guaranteed. But a length of handwoven silk, soft cotton, or spun wool will last years - if not decades - if treated well. Lower in traffic, but still needed. The higher qualities and patterned fabrics also count as luxury goods.

- Homegoods (15%)

Plates and bowls, candles and lanterns, string and rope: necessities, not luxuries. They are also goods that could be made at home, but require a great deal of time and effort. Most of these goods will be made by a local, who relies on the steady trade with neighbours for their living.

- Luxuries (5%)

The last of the goods for fantasy trade: they can be locally made, like local wines or sweets, or jewellery and precious metals. But luxuries are a statement piece for the wealthy, and mostly our of reach of the common folk. Still, the average family may scrimp and save for one bottle of expensive brandy over the midwinter every year.

- Transport

The last thing people can buy at the market: if the traders themselves aren't leaving, their suppliers will. Anyone who wants to leave town but does not have transport will be guaranteed to find it at the market.

2. TRADE ROUTES

Like webs spun over land and sea, trade routes crop up naturally wherever there are people with pack animals or ships and a hungering for profit. They don't require currency, oversight, or much organisation: just a willingness to make the effort. But the more trade happens, the more those single strands of silver silk will twist themselves together for ease. They'll find the easiest paths, make the same stopovers, grow wealth in their wake, and begin to make patterns over months, seasons, and years.

When you're writing fantasy trade, trade routes are a critical part of worldbuilding: their effect on the world is massive, and easily overlooked. But roads and infrastructure, markets and trade posts, and the passage of currency and exotic goods, all stem from trade routes. The closer a town is to a trade route, the more access they will have to specialist goods and equipment, allowing their townsfolk a richer life and the ability to engage in more specialised services.

First point, then, is:

- The Weight

All trade, including fantasy trade, is based on one very simple ratio: the relationship between value and weight. A good which is high value and low weight is perfect for trading: it requires less effort to move, and is easier to travel with. A good which is low value and high weight may, in fact, be a bad.

- Centralised Points

Like water, trade will follow the easiest trail from Point A to Point B. As more and more fantasy trade takes place along your trade route, caravans will find the best places to stop overnight: safe little corners with food for animals, warmth for people, and no predators. Little campsites will turn into shelters and inns as people realise they can sell to the caravaneers. Those inns will turn into villages as the locals realise they can buy some goods off the caravans before they reach the market. And the growth keeps going.

- Exchanges

Universal currency is something we still don't have in our world, and the further back in history you go, the more divided it was. The idea of a casual currency - something that you can be value-certain of in any market - is something you can play with. But fantasy trade can always fall back on the easiest solution: traders deal with an exchange at their market.

Instead of selling their cargo for a thousand coins and taking it home, they can go to an exchange, which sets a reasonable price for every cargo that comes in, and rather than deal in currency, a merchant can drop their cargo off and pick up a new cargo of identical value that they believe will sell quite well.

3. THE RICH AND THE POOR

We can never escape the wealth divide: as long as things like free markets or monarchies exist, one subset of society will always be richer than the rest. That division spurs a great deal of political unrest and philosophical conjecture, but we're looking at the effect it has on fantasy trade.

Generally, because the poor naturally outnumber the rich, the rich conglomerate only in large towns, where they have access to the exotic and luxury goods that set them apart from their socioeconomic lessers. But here are some things to think about:

- The Roots of Wealth

Where does wealth come from? In our modern capitalist system, wealth comes from the ownership of land, labour, or capital (tools or resources). More increasingly, money begets money, thanks to advanced banking systems. But earlier systems did not have the same methods of wealth generation.

For a long time, the predominating theory was that wealth was a set value - in order to gain it, you had to take it from somewhere or someone else. Goods had value, and land had value. Otherwise, it was up to the individual to eke out a living.

- Tradition or Freedom

Speaking of earlier economic forms, the current free market, where individual businesses and traders can decide what they trade and with whom has not been universal through history. Other methods of deciding what is traded include: government oversight, tradition dictating social norms, or superstition and religion.

- The Responsibilities of Rank

Lords had to take care of their serfs. Kings had to defend their countries. Emperors had to answer to their courts. It is rare in history for a person with power to not be answerable to their inferiors - at least, it is rare for such a system to last. There is always a boundary to power, and the boundary is set by revolt or exodus.

What are the acknowledged responsibilities of the rich in your world? They have requirements upon them, whether that is defense, diplomacy, or justice.

4. TOLL ROADS & BORDERS

We've discussed how people buy and sell in fantasy trade, but now we're getting to another aspect of the system often overlooked, and it can be easily summarised by talking about tolls.

The generation of value is the lifeblood of trade. A merchant's livelihood is determined by the profit they can turn at the end of a trip: a good merchant will be able to gauge the best deal, and a bad one will not.

Most of the population create wealth by simple commodity creation: they farm and make things for themselves and their neighbours. Their wealth is inherent and not measured in coin.

But there is another way of ekeing out a living: to single out those with disposable income and take some. It's a form of hunting, as it requires a balance between taking nothing and taking so much that you drive away the herd.

Toll roads sum up this effect nicely.

- What is the Point?

Simply put, a toll is - officially - the repayments of those who use an infrastructure to those who paid to build it. Generally, these are the rich nearby. The government can do it, but often it is local nobles, wealthy businesses, or conglomerates.

They make a nice, wide, safe road or bridge. And in return, everyone that crosses pays a small free. Over years, they make back their investment. Over decades, they grow very rich indeed.

- Who is Farmed?

Generally, they will take from travellers and traders. There's a good reason for this: the theory I mentioned above - where wealth is set and can only be taken from somewhere or someone - means that if you take money from people who have traded overseas, you are taking money from that place and bringing it to your place. Over time, if you take more from them than they do from you, your national wealth will increase.

Taking coins from the poor is a sure move to annoy them and cause some civil unrest. Only the politically foolish or the greedy will do this, and they won't be able to for long.

- But Wait, There's More!

Wherever there is one innovator to come up with another brilliant way to squeeze money out of people, there are many more, smaller mimics that swarm around them. Toll roads are, again, an excellent example. Because, yes, the roads themselves take their toll.

But the guards on the roads can take their toll of their employers.

Corruption is a standard amongst any government or organisation. Anywhere there is a person that would rather they profit over another person, they will take a bribe. It's rife, it's easy, it's everywhere. This means two things:

Firstly, that honourable conduct takes on a whole new meaning in a world where the standard is some level of corruption. And secondly, that some forms of government and trade - even in the modern day, looking at a certain south Asian subcontinent - rely on corruption to even function properly.

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There's so much more than can be said for trade in a fantasy world, but hopefully this guide has given you a bit of insight and some new perspective to help you to construct your own.

As always, please comment below if you found this helpful. Thanks again!