075 – Panhandler

Trade is the blood of Posterra. Coinage, while issues and respected across various realms and dominions, still is commonly seen as a suppository to good old-fashioned barter of goods. And that means caravans of every imaginable shape and size plough new roads into the battered lands as they trudge on from town to town, from fiefdom to fiefdom with their myriad of goods, both mundane and esoteric. But travelling, even in number, even with paid guards, is a daring prospect. Posterra isn’t a globe of friendly interactions, and manifold of dangers awaits any caravan. There are many little ways that merchant clans use to diminish their losses. They employ couriers to distribute smaller items rapidly and through lesser known paths. They employ wizards to teleport crucial good of high importance. And they forge golems and enrol robots to cater to smaller communities and to automate singular route to maximum possible extend. These ‘traders’ often handle only one particular trade good and simply follow prescribed instructions, moving between few designated places in slow but regular progression, offering their goods until their stock runs out or until the Merchant returns to refill them with new prospect of good income. Machines were primarly used for this job, but since the waves of Awakening turned many robots against their erstwhile masters, golems became the new standard. Dumber. Less durable in general. Less reliable and prone to dim-witted mistaked. Nonetheless, their simplicity had some boons, as they are unable to cheat, hard to bargain or argue with and they trudge onward following simple chem-instruction in their core with relentless stoicism of simple construct.