Which are the hârnic trade goods the realms of the continent and Chélemby is interested in?
I see
> gems and jewellry, gold and silver, weapons and armour from Azadmere
> Ivashu (especially Vlasta) and odd Gargun.
> maybe particular stone
> and some herbs and furs perhaps.

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everybodyTHINKShimselfSOwellSUPPLIEDwithCOMMONsenseTHATevenTHOSEmostDIFFICULTto PLEASEneverDESIREmoreOFitTHANtheyALREADYhave. RENEdescartes.

Harn is a net importer from Lythia, which means the silver mined on the island is effectively an export. There is also glassware from Evael, but only in limited quantities. Throw in some esoterica from Melderyn such as astrolabs and potions for bileous stomachs, etc. Probably even some fur trade since Harn has so much wilderness, though local consumption may eat up most of the production.

However the lack of trade is what makes Harn a backwater as much as anything. If your party are tying to become merchant princes they would be better off basing themselves in Chelemby. If they are in Chelemby they have more profitable places to go then Harn.

Of course if someone is hunting them, Harn isn't such a bad place to hide out ...

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IMPH besides what's been cited above, a selection of Hârn's finer pottery, copper-ware, wool cloth, non-dwarven arms (knight's swords mainly), imitation elven glasswares, and even some foodstuffs, etc., leave the islands each year, being popular abroad either as fads, as luxury staples or as traditional status symbols.

From the dwarves an export often overlooked is toys, which make up (don't laugh) a sizeable part of the Azadmeri exports down the Silver Way.

There also will be occasional opportunities for limited time windows, e.g. if a given year the price of pickled herring falls low enough in Thay while it is high enough in Chelemby, there will likely be a spike in pickled herrings exports that year, all 12 barrels of them.

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«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius

Is that dwarven toys in the Midgaadian sense? IIRC, Tolkien implies somewhere that dwarven toys are practically magical (or appear so; this might just mean clever wind-up toys, music boxes, and the like). Those would probably be a small but extremely desirable export.

Correct, that's part of what I'm thinking of. Cleverly carved and articulated puppets also, and sometimes larger toys too, like a miniature castle and its soldiers and siege engines, etc., complete with working details and posable figures all in 1/49 scale, all hand engraved in pewter and hand-painted; that's a medium-sized crate or two, if you include all the packing material.

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«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius

My list is pretty similar.

--Goods from Azadmere
--Goods from Evael
--Exotic 'mystical' goods
--Wool (my guess is that this would be the biggest 'normal' export
--Furs
--certain alcoholic beverages. (Based on British history, I'd normally say 'not wine', but a few comments in some modules suggest Harnic wines are better than British wines were).
--Amber, other gems, precious metals (mostly from Azadmere, but not all, especially not the amber)
--While not especially big yards, Harn does have some decent ship builders.

Wool: There is a significant wool production in Hârn, but would it be more than needed in Hârn and is there need elsewhere in Lythia because auf lack of wool? I don't know.

Furs: exotic furs will be a good articles of trade for sure. I.e. such as Dracofelas and Seals

Cider from Racyn?

amber or ambergris ?

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everybodyTHINKShimselfSOwellSUPPLIEDwithCOMMONsenseTHATevenTHOSEmostDIFFICULTto PLEASEneverDESIREmoreOFitTHANtheyALREADYhave. RENEdescartes.

The economic map in the Lythia article in the HârnWorld 2nd edition shows that Hârn exports whale oil, jewelry, metalwork, glasswares, wild beasts, and wool. The text says "The economic map shows only the major resources and products of a region available for trade. Items noted are either unique to the region or are of such high quality as to be in demand elsewhere."

Wool is not one of the exports. While Harn may look a lot like England, there is no Flanders or Lombardy on the other side of the Channel.

I base my wool comment on the obvious significant wool production in several parts of Harn, and on the canon export list, but I'll readily admit not having a flanders just accross the channel might impact just how much.

As for booze, if the booze is quality booze, there is ALWAYS an export market (assuming it travels well...)

How about Emelrene? I believe that linen is one on their exports, why not finished wool products?

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I don't know about Emelrene, but there is regular trade with Karejia in Cherafir, so the presence or absence of an analogue to medieval Flanders seems like a non-issue to me. Whoever it is that buys it, canon clearly lists it as an export. However, the quantities are probably not comparable to those of medieval England. At least, not yet. Another fifty to one hundred years could see the development of a thriving textiles industry and the beginning of Hârn's emergence from "backwater" status.

Emelrene has reserved a lot of its hinterland for the free Emela, which probably reduces the wool production. Their coastal centres might be able to absorb some imports of wool. Melderyn is both near and traditionally well connected.

Chelemby certainly imports raw materials, too, alone for local consumption.

I doubt, though, that Harnic wool will travel much farther in raw form.

In other words, a lot like the England/Flanders connection on Earth.

As far as I'm concerned, THE major export of the island of Harn is wool, and much of it goes straight across to Emelrene who turn the raw wool into spun wool. Whether they make woolen cloth is a matter for more debate, but it makes sense.

This doesn't mean Harnic merchants then bring the cloth BACK to Harn in any kind of volume; home-grown industry will supply the island's markets with woolen cloth. The very BEST wool (ie, the finest grade) will probably end up as royal robes throughout Western Lythia.

I have some thoughts on how the raw wool makes it to Emelrene; after all, it has to travel from where the sheep are all over southern Harn (from Kanday all the way to Melderyn Island), but that's for a different post.

My point is that, like medieval Flanders or in our case Emelrene, if you have the capability to turn flax into linen, you also have the capability to turn raw wool into woolen cloth; same principles, same equipment. Well, mostly (I'm sure there are experts here on the forums that will tell me I'm over-simplifying). But the reality is that spinning and weaving "stuff" is pretty much the same, regardless of what the "stuff" actually is (flax, wool from sheep, llamas, goats, or yaks, or something more exotic like silk).

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i
Which got me to thinking (a dangerous prospect even on my best days); what if the raw wool gets to Melderyn which converts it to spun wool, then the spun wool goes to Emelrene to be made into cloth. This would give you a two-fer, a industry for Melderyn (the most populos kingdom on Harn) which currently only exports (unique?) esoteric items and a industry for (the still undefined) Emelrene economy.

Which probably brings up a pet peeve of mine. I'm for expanding the depth of the Harnic mileau instead of having it limited by the Canon, either stated or implied. While I respect Robin's vision, I simply have trouble imagining him as being able to foresee all the possibilities that the Harnic community has brought forth.

We now return to our regular posters ...

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...and I'm not dead yet...

Wool by canon is a Harnic trade good. However, according to the sheep article the wool produced by the sheep mentioned in it produce long wool. The top grade wool that made English wool so popular was short wool. Even now, short wool is the better quality wool.

With that in mind, the wool being produced by Harn is a low grade type of wool, even though it may be top grade long wool. That said, the sheep article may have not mentioned the breeds of sheep that produced the short wool and since the south-western regions of Harn are more conducive to that kind of sheep maybe Aleath is a prime trade center in the west for quality wool.

One of the reasons England got into the cloth trade was that it tended to produce more long wool than short wool and it was more economically feasible to make cheap cloth in England from it and then sell that cloth to distant regions like the eastern Baltic Sea for bulk goods that were needed in England.

Thus maybe Harn has a budding cloth industry using all of that long wool to supply some of its needs from regions short on cheap woolens. Gulf of Shorkyne (IIRC) or specifically the Chelembian merchants trading in that region.

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Roy Denton - the title says Baron, but Queen for a year. (Cheselyne I)

"Nathamh na hoibre an t-eolas"
(Knowledge comes through practice)

What do you think what price can be fetched for an exotic beast as a Vlasta at the market of Chélemby (as an example) and for an evil creature like a Gargu-Arak?

Catch it,
pinch and keep it in safe custudy,
pay duty on it,
ship it overseas and
present it on the market (or for the Pàmesáni Arena).

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everybodyTHINKShimselfSOwellSUPPLIEDwithCOMMONsenseTHATevenTHOSEmostDIFFICULTto PLEASEneverDESIREmoreOFitTHANtheyALREADYhave. RENEdescartes.

The other piece of evidence in the "wool theory" is the level of urbanization. Harn is just as urbanized as Emelrene (or pretty much all of Venarive. Cities are spread across Venarive like creamy peanut-butter - thin and even. That's a topic for another thread on fractals and population.) Obviously Harn's city folk need jobs, too. It's hard to imagine any other industry that could absorb Aleath's and Tashal's urban labor pool other than weaving.

A significant wool trade would be evident if Harn was largely rural, Emelrene (or other district) was much more urban. Whatever wool trade exists is clearly too small to affect the distribution of labor. In fact, the urbanization pattern in general indicates that there is little long-distance trade in raw materials anywhere in Venarive. Fiber, metals, and grain are consumed close to their sources. We don't see anything like the Baltic grain trade or English and Iberian wool trade where large rural hinterlands supplied bulk materials to a highly urban center. (Not even Karejia is particularly urban.)
Venarivan trade is oriented towards items higher up the value chain - cloth rather than fiber, for example.

That's why I propose a cascading supply chain. Kanday and Kaldor ship raw wool to Melderyn where it is converted to spun wool and shipped to Emelrene, at which point it is turned into cloth. Emelrene cloth is (I believe) high enough quality to be traded all the way to the eastern end of the Venarian Sea as well as all the way north to Ivinia. I doubt that the trade network (or the value of the cloth) would move it much beyond those points. I suppose a bolt of cloth might eventually get to the Rekenyi (-2 sp?) horse clans of the Ketarh Plataeu, but that would be a very unusual occurance.

As far as Harn's raw wool, I doubt it's value would ever take it beyond Chelemby or Emelrene.

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I got to thinking about the wool trade on Harn and came to the conclusion it may have two main focuses.

First is the wool produced in Kanday and its surrounding regions. The areas has plenty of inland waterways to assist in bring raw wool to the port of Aleath. From there it is shipped on to Cherafir. I doubt that it goes much beyond that since Aleath is just a small regional port and its merchants and shippers will be more concerned with regional trade than anything else.

Kaldor on the other hand does has the inland water ways to get wool to Tashal where the summer fair will empact its sale. However, since the closest viable sea port is a long overland route to Burzyn, which is itself a long river route before the open sea. Therefore, unlike Kanday, Kaldor is a producer of woolen cloth. This makes good since because the kingdom's clothier's would have two key markets available to them with the summer fair as the means to move the cloth to those markets. The first, which for some reason we see as a market for grain but I wonder, how do they cloth themselves. This would be Azadmere, Habe does not have the means to produce enough to cloth the kingdom and Kaldoran woolens would be readily accepted. Second is the Orbaalese settlements to the north who also would have need of woolen cloth. In addition to these two key markets would be the smaller markets with the tribes surrounding the kingdom and high end woolens to the west and south.

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Roy Denton - the title says Baron, but Queen for a year. (Cheselyne I)

"Nathamh na hoibre an t-eolas"
(Knowledge comes through practice)