Carter Post

From The Authentic D&D Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Carter posts are stations for carts and wagons that haul freight, serving as units that temporarily store goods for loading to be taken somewhere else. Raw materials and farm produce is collected at isolated carter posts and taken to urban centres, where large carter posts unload these goods for sale and distribution. These posts are commonly owned and operated by guild concerns, specifically to collect those goods that are needed for manufacturing finished products, and then for carrying those products to distant customers. Carter posts form an integral link with seagoing trade, as goods are constantly moved from ship to wagon and vice versa.

Because delays and overnight stays are common, carter posts include amenities for teamsters and animal handlers, as well as their animals. Every post includes a bunkhouse sufficient for at least 8 persons, an outdoor paddock, a tether for two oxen, two stalls for sick animals and a galley kitchen. A roofed shelter with minimal walls serves to protect at least two wagons or four carts from weather. Storehouses collect and outlay goods.

Personnel

A regular staff supports this collection of buildings. Apart from cook, stablehand and housecleaner, the carter post includes a farrier, stockkeeper and head overseer, who in turn employs a scribe to keep accounts. The farrier and overseer each live in their own dwelling, counting 1-7 persons each (2d4-1). The remaining persons live collectively in two dwellings, supported by 2-5 additional persons including spouses, siblings and children. This makes for a total population of 9 to 24 persons. Most of these persons can handle themselves well in a fight.

Larger carter posts may include far more residents, depending on additional services offered. It's best, however, to see these larger posts in terms of collected individual posts, with attached other facilities, for the purpose of determining their importance in a community.

Bargaining

Carter posts in type-7, type-6 or type-5 hexes are willing to purchase raw materials such as ores, stone, farm produce, raw fibres or cloth, tanned leathers and skins or timber. Amounts paid out can't exceed 40 g.p., according to the amount of coin on hand, and will be granted at 50-80% of the material's value. Characters with bargaining skill can improve this by 10%, or by 20% through pressure bargaining.

In more advanced hexes, these matters are dealt with through other parties. As carter posts are contracted to deliver their existing stores, they cannot sell goods to other persons.