Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder 2 for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week it’s time to hustle up the best deals anywhere, as we dive into the Bazaar of Baghdad.
Bazaar of Baghdad
The Bazaar of Baghdad, or the Bazaar of the Bizarre as it is also known, is a huge sprawling marketplace, filled to the brim with tents, shops, stalls, and even just up-turned barrels – anywhere that someone can display goods or a trade, is being used. The noise of the place is overpowering, like a low-conversational murmur, blared out at the sound level of the loudest concert. Snippets of conversation can be heard here and there, but only rarely is it possible to make them out, if you’re not part of the conversation. The smell of the bazaar is one of a hundred different beverages, thousands of spices, and the smell of animals and humans in close proximity to one another. It is a smell (some would say stench) unlike any other. To any merchant though, it is the smell of profit.
Lay of the Land
Making a map of the Bazaar is an exercise in futility, as the layout is constantly in flux. While a few shops and stalls are permanently there, most are there on a “first come, first served” basis, with the choicest spots constantly being vied for – sometimes this even breaks out into open street warfare between the mercenaries of various merchants. There are also occasional raids from “elsewheres” as strange creatures drop in from other worlds or dimensions to get exotic ingredients.
Pretty much anything can be found in the Bazaar if you know where to look or who to ask. And this is where the touts come in. Young boys and girls who flit about the market, earning a copper here and there, helping visitors find the right booths. Most of them get a kickback from the merchants as well, to ensure that they’re led to that merchant’s booth. Most of them are liable to take visitors for small detours (“How about a bit of food to eat, before I take you there?”) before leading them to their destinations, but these are relatively harmless. Less scrupulous touts, however, find rich looking visitors and lead them into ambushes, once they’ve established that they are what they seem. Usually, the robbers come out on top, leaving the victim penniless (and occasionally dead), but sometimes this spectacularly backfires, when the robber-tout select a demon or angel in disguise, or who thinks that the “doddering old fool” is an easy target, only for that old fool to turn out to be an archmage.
Order is kept in the Bazaar by the Bazaari Guards – mercenaries that come and go, hired by the merchants. They are extremely well-paid for their work, and as a result, are almost impossible to bribe. Any guard caught in an act of corruption (such as taking a bribe) is put to death.
Dangers
Anyone performing an act of crime could run afoul of the guards (PF2, PF1, and 5e), but it is more likely that they’ll be ambushed by one of the bandit gangs (PF2, PF1, and 5e). Any creature could, in theory, be encountered in the Bazaar, and it is rumored that the Bazaari Guard’s leader is a very old Gold Dragon, who appears (in disguise) to deal with threats beyond the capability of the normal guards. It is said that the Bazaari Guard pay a tithe of 10% of their wages to this dragon, in return for its protection, but none of them are willing to confirm or deny the answer, instead simply staring deadpan at the questioner until they go away.
Kim Frandsen
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