Commerce
In smaller settlements, most people make the goods they sell and there are few middlemen in commercial transactions. Usually, the only cost associated with a good is the cost of materials and the crafter’s time.
In larger settlements, merchants buy their goods from the craftsmen and producers, usually paying in coin. Wholesale merchants conduct business with other merchants, and payment is usually made using trade bars, trade gems, and promissory notes. Guilds oversee and legally regulate the work of merchants and craftsmen.
Taxes
The ruling body of a settlement is allowed to levy certain taxes, which fund the numerous public works required to maintain the settlement. What to tax, and how much, is a local matter. The following are accepted instruments of revenue generation for a settlement: aids (taxes on trade goods), herbage (right to pasture animals in the settlement’s meadowland), work service (citizens owe a certain amount of labour), multure (fee due for grinding grains at the town mill), scutage (payment in lieu of military service/guard duty), and tallage (tax on land and buildings).
Settlements, in turn, are obliged to support the monarchy, sometimes in the form of monetary taxes, other times in service.
International trade
Beyond the basics of survival, novelty is a powerful motivator, and items from across Tem are available at larger markets and from specialist sellers.
Not all foreign items are perceived as positive, despite their novelty. Items from Agopea, for example, are generally thought of as being primitive, and are not sought after.
Ursinican items and fashion are regarded as being simplistic and uncultured, and are not particularly sought after.
Goods from Malanthea are taboo, and designs in a Malanthean style are not used. Clothing, artworks, music and other materials in Malanthean fashion are not illegal per se, and some are on view in elite museums. Wealthy individuals may have several such pieces, if they wish to appear risqué, in their private homes. These items are extremely expensive as they are not for sale on the open market, and are smuggled in to Kalderesh.
The style of the Gallentene Empire is much admired by some, and regarded as inferior by others. Items of Nubian design are regarded as exotic and adventurous, and command high prices. Items of unknown provenance, presumably from beyond Brundonica, often command extremely high prices.