Ah, but will the serial numbers match, and do the Bazaar's traders have ways of spotting magical counterfeits...?

Who said anything about paying them to Bazaar merchants?

We will change them for more 5 pound banknotes, then, once we have nice, big sum we will convert 100 pound notes (I am assuming crafting will give us ability to change numbers, too - they only need to be not identical) into 500 euro banknotes (for portability - or just also buy diamonds, gems, herbs, whatever) and use this to pay in Bazaar.

But now that you mentioned it, what stops USA from simply printing 10 billion $ in secrecy, use them on shopping spree 5 minutes before bazaar disappears, and laugh all the way to bank? Does bazaar have magical appraising devices? Will they ever spend dollars back?

Uh, dude, the OP clearly states that the merchants in the Bazaar don't accept bank notes. Only precious metals and arcane ingredients that most people on Earth would be unfamiliar with. Far better to buy some books on magic and learn what those ingredients are and what makes them valuable (an added bonus for someone like me whose plan included obtaining the means of making a summoning circle).

How many silver pieces is a gold piece worth?

---

"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan

Given the OP's 'mostly based on D&D' angle I'd expect the standard fantasy RPG system-10 copper to the silver, 10 silver to the gold, especially as we're apparently dealing with a stable currency given there's a fixed exchange rate between real world money and gold pieces.
Unless, of course, this is currency-wise gold pieces only.

The OP also specifies that there is a stall at the Bazaar where they will trade cash for gold, and even if they can tell the money is magicked and won't take it, that wouldn't stop you from just buying as much copper (provided the DnD system is fully in play) at the current <$4 price and then trading for the higher metals (for the sake of ease) and getting whatever you want anyway.

...one that's run by Gringots. Of all the fantasy universes I would expect know to have dedicated and effective measures for fraud detection and anti-counterfeiting its the goblins of Harry Potter.

And copper is disqualified by the OP as being a base metal. This is based on D&D only in the loosest sense, if he didn't say copper pieces (or hell, platinum either) were valued than I assume they aren't.

If you are really dedicated to scamming the currency system, I would suggest watering down the purity of your gold and silver coins with alloys of crap metal like pewter. Its a classic financial tactic from way back when gold coins were actually issued by governments that D&D doesn't cover, because D&D economics is simplistic fantasy in more ways than one. Even then, I wouldn't put it past the Bazaar's merchants to figure out or anticipate that trick ahead of time.

Had you read OP, you'd know there is stall accepting Earth currency, and had you read my post, you'd see I denied taking magicked money there, instead converting them into whatever shitty ingredients or gems Bazaar demands here, on Earth. If we're paranoid enough to count on them checking banknotes, then obviously any magicked ingredient is going to be worthless too if they are willing to pay for it instead of magicking it themselves. D&D merchants are stupid, but not that stupid.

Plus, second case, US government secretly printing billion $ to pay for One Ring completely fails your test, as the money is both genuine and non-magical - which leads to abuse, say print 100 billion $ in 1000$ banknotes, dump on Bazaar just before it disappears, declare these 1000$ banknotes illegal in 7 year calm period.

Aaaaaand you obviously wrote that without checking to see what else I had written in the meantime. Gringots deals with muggle currency, ergo they know how our economy works. They should know already that fiat currency can be printed up at will, and that doing so devalues it in the process. If a bunch of government agents showed up promising money Gringots knows they don't have, that government is shit out of luck. If you knew anything about the Harry Potter universe, you would know the OP chose Gringots for good damn reason.

And by the way, very few if any fantasy universes that I know of make it easy to make counterfeit money, precisely because most authors can at least figure out how that could destabilize the worlds they tried so hard to create. Also, even if your counterfeits were high quality, all real world governments illegalize the shit out of that and thus have ways of finding out. Like simply looking at the sudden influx of money in your bank account that cannot be accounted for by legal transactions. In other words, the Secret Service knows this shit inside and out, and they can catch you simply by double checking the bookkeeping.

Then again, I'm not sure you read that post correctly either, considering I never said I was going to summon magical ingredients. I meant that in order to make a summoning circle at all I'm going to need a spellbook, which will almost certainly list those types of ingredients that are valued and how to obtain them; knowledge which I (and most human beings on earth in this scenario) would not otherwise have knowledge of.

Dumbass.

Oh, by the way, Irbis. Since you are using the Fabricate spell from D&D 3e, I just went back and rechecked my sourcebooks for that Impeccable Timing spell you mentioned. I can't find it; so please, show me where you found it. For those who aren't aware, +20 to any skill check (or +20 to anything, for that matter) is ridiculously powerful in D&D, and unnecessary at Epic Level when your characters can already basically win any skill check by taking ten. I'm guessing its either shitty homebrew from dandwiki.com, or something you made up just for the purposes of trolling this thread.

Unless you can show that, I'm going to say you are limited to designing the Fabricated bills the hard (and fallible) way according to the D&D rules. Which means your counterfeits are probably going to look like easily identified shit.

I'm not looking for specilized spells. I'm looking for something that can allow me to safely learn and own magic.



I see.

What other, general-spell-learning or magic-learning opportunities would I have access to? Is there, say, spellbooks that talk to you to help you learn? Skulls (or other) that teach you magic and act as teachers? Trapped fairies that, if freed, will grant you fairy-magic and the ability to summon them if needed?

On that note, what about species-transformation stuff? Like, is there anything out there that would change me from a human to something, from a certain standpoint, better? Like, an elf, or a fairy or something? And I'm talking about permanent change here...
Excluding vampire-blood or dangerous stuff like that. Werewolf-stuff only when they are a tool, not a curse.

Also, what's the market for magic swords? I know they must be dime-a-dozen, as fantasy authors love their magic swords. The variety I'm looking for however is one that would have a spirit with it that would teach you how to fight properly. Or something similar. I am not interested in magical swords that lose their potency after X amount of uses.



I'm sure you can buy the Habsro toys.

If you are thinking of buying a MLP-esque pony... well, consider that you would essentially be buying a slave. They are sentient creatures after all. Even if you sort-of free them and adopt them, then you're essentially adopting a child (or an adult) from literately outside of its universe. Buying a puppy may be safer in my opinion.

Though, at this rate, how much would a permanent portal to Equastria be, along with an automatic pony-transformation (based on your personality, skills and so on)?

Well there is always... Bob (Dresden Files) But you may want to consider your options there.

The spellbooks from "So you want to be a Wizard" are more like PDAs made out of paper and always flip open to a needed section. But you'd have to take the Wizard's Oath to open one. To a lesser extent this is so of the Book of Shadows from Charmed.

Trapped fairies may be a possibility. There aren't really a ton of "download mystical knowledge into your brain" artifacts.



Well in some parts of the multi-verse shape changing is a common party trick. Eating Fairy Food is a good way to become part of their world and never be able to go home again, if that is your wish.

I'm really not sure why you'd want to, since you'll be surrounded by us humans.



Pricing for magic swords depends on what powers they have, same as anything else. For some kind of ancestral spirit-teacher? That's not literally a dime a dozen, but close. Let's call it thrice the cost of an ordinary sword of decent quality.



Hmm, 9th level spell before the transformation...

$180,000 for one magic portal to Equestria. Everyone transforms to local form going through, so you're a pony there, and anyone there would become human on this side of the portal.

Awesome. Sort-of. Far beyond what all I have is worth, probably.

So, here's a question: what resource would be on Earth that would be worth a lot in the Bazaar? Or vice-versa? Because right now, my main problem is that I probably can't afford any of the really cool stuff or even really useful stuff (even with the awesome 50% discount).

Okay, let me put this in another way: a lot of blood donations are rejected for one reason or another. Say, I somehow manage to get my hands on these rejected-but-otherwise fine blood. Would I get a good price for these, as long as there are no negative effects to the original owners.

Depends on how critical blood is for magic rituals. If they need a ton of blood then sure, you might have an idea there. If they just need a few drops (and in some cases, the blood of the actual wizard), then it'd be worthless.

I think as far as governments go, they'd be best off depleting their national stockpiles of precious metals. For instance, how much magic stuff could Fort Knox purchase? What about non-precious metals (that nonetheless are rare / unheard of in the D&D-verse), such as aluminum? Is titanium similar enough to mythril to be worth the same?

Precious metals and stones are valuable, including a surprisingly broad selection of quartz, obsidian and the like. Many herbs, particularly those with supposed mystic powers. You could find a pretty good price price for Amber, fossils, and the pelts of most large land animals. Blood is valuable, but also common, you might get an additional 20% buying blood and paying for things that way.

Souls and slaves are always in vogue at the Bazaar.

Then you get into the esoteric objects that can be used as spell components or to make mystic artifacts. Bat guano is a big one. Soil from a grave, the hand of a hanged man, the caul (placenta) of an infant born blind, branches or acorns from a hundred-year oak that grows at a riverbend, Tears of a heartbroken lover, a glass that ever shows your face, moon rocks, a shell that recalls the sound of the ocean, that sort of thing.

It's a barter economy, come up with something worth trading and you may be surprised by it's value.

You can also get creative in other ways. I imagine, for instance, you could find a number of people willing to pool their resources for your Equestrain Gate. Though then comes the question of ownership.

Waitasecond-I get to trade in the bat guano from the cave on top of starting out richer than God to begin with?
And I still don't see why anybody would want to be a pony. Hooves are really lousy at operating...,well pretty much anything?

Whereas I like free enterprize. The dangerous products, caveat emptor attitude, and slavery traffic horrify me. I endevour to destroy the marketplace. Grrrrrr.
Unfortunately, the market place is protected by super powered assheads, so we have to be creative.

We will reduce the harm of this market place by setting up an alternative market place that is prefered by consumers. We'll also get filthy rich doing it.
In addition, although we cannot prevent people from entering this marketplace, we can put some controls on the access in more bureaucratic ways that sound and function perfectly reasonable and actually improve efficiency of access.

The highlights of the strategy are as follows.
1. Buy some D-hoppers. To travel between realities without using the Bizarre. These D-Hoppers willbe used to move entire warehouses of inventory between realities. Sometimes they will only be used to move data.
2. A permanent, not a 49 day circus, marketplace will be established in any and all somewhat safe dimensions that can be found. The facility will be purchased, leased, rented, enchanted, or consecrated as needed, depending on the environment.
3. These permanent shopping areas will have a computerized ordering and delivery system attached to them. An interReality supply chain,ordering, and CRM system will be created. The information in this system will regularly be synced to the server clusters on earth.
4. A kindle style ordering system will be rolled out too. The kindles may or may not be magical. Some spell books with certain types of magic may be downloadable via e-reader. The information gathered from customers Kindles will be very carefully collected. All information will be "human readable", and there will be an airgap system in place, along with wards, to prevent strange magical data incursions. For the more dangerous magical lands, the air gap may actually be an archaic system like punch cards, owls, or babbage engines if need be.
5. Using local employees, but earth based management systems, customers will be able to purchase goods and information all across the realities without leaving the comforts of their own huts, castles, swamps, or pentagrams, etc.
6. Local (other reality) governments will be allowed to decide on what goods are restricted. If rabbits are like meth to the lizardmen, then rabbits will not be delivered to electric lizard land.
7. Consumer protections will be enforced. Merchants may not sell dangerous goods without supplying complete information. On many goods, the merchant will be required to provide refunds and accept returns. Merchants who violate terms of service will be dropped, even reported to their local government if it actually functions.
8. Merchants will want to use our marketplace, because they will receive more repeat business than before. With our delivery system, and persistent (not 49 day only) time period, their business will boom like never before.
9. Our marketplace can start negotiating for exclusivity with merchants all round reality, wherever this is legal.
10. Local goernments will prefer our marketplace because it is better for their people, assuming they give a crap. But they can possibly recieve tax money on local purchases. This is a good position to start when negotiating trade deals, embargoes etc.
11. Customers will be polled, preferences noted, and new products will be developed that many prefer over the options from the regulare Bizarre.
12. Provide seminars. sell products, like handhelled computers, and how-to books to merchants to educate them on our "modern" method of running businesses. The methods will be very different for different magical and cultural realities. However, the result will be, that they will probably try to run their Bazaar business similar to the way they run their Amazon branch business. Over time, customers will come to expect and demand this. If you rip a sapient off in the BB, your business will suffer in the Amazon branch too.
13. Some information gathered from the tablet computers will be used secretly find the sources of many of the super dangerous/evil items.

How to contain the BB from destroying life on earth.
1. Although you cannot prevent people from entering the Bazaar Bizarre, you can at least ensure a finite amount of people are able to enter the bizarre at a time through the portal.
2. Create "natural" barriers around the bazaare in between disapearances. When the bazaar re-appears seven years later in the same spot,they cannot really bitch about the portal being in the middle of a reservoir. They city needs water, and after all, you are allowing anyone with a boat unrestricted access, or do the Laissez faire daemons demand we provide free boats?
3. Where natural barriers are unavailable, you can stiil create artificial ones. Buildings around the portal area don't have doors that exit towards it.
4. All these barriers, natural and artificial are not to prevent access to the portal. We can't get away with that. We can however, use it them to guide where people enter the portal.
5. The line for people entering the portal will be mostly staffed by government and contractor employees, and others whom you can usually rely on to not purchase magical WMDs. In fact if the first million people through the line were purchasing agents, you can argue you are making it easier for the bizarre, as very few of the first wave entering will be there to actually buy things, and not just to gawk and perform a looky-loo.
6. You cannot prevent people from entering the bizaare, but the OP did not say anything about tracking them, and possibly quarantining them when they leave. It did not also say that everybody entering the bizaare couldn't be made to take a number and stand in line. Anyone who wants to get in, will always be able to get in. You'll have people who's job it is to test this to make sure. You'll also have a hotline to call if there are any complaints. The unholy smackdowners who work for the bizaar will be given complete reports of this, to make sure they know that nobody is prevented from getting in. They will probably get sick of these reports, and ask that you please shut up. You'll still deliver them printouts, which they will ignore and burn for warmth.
7. Just to be clear, you'll have a long line with millions of humans and delivery vehicles to get into this portal. It will make people feel nostalgic about camping out in front of an apple store.
8. You'll even provide a barter storage and currency service right outside the portal, so that those waiting in line don't have to worry about being robbed. The customer will show their number, get their trade goods, and walk right in.

Now to address the slave trade. Enter Cylon Man.
Many slaves will probably be of the magical nature, like Ponies that MLP fans want to have beastiality with, or Genies that crack awful jokes. However, there will probably be a class of slaves that are not magical, and simply perform labor.
Not all labot is purely physical, Much of this can be administrative. Our answer is, the Cylon.
The Cylons will be a mixture of magic and technology. The basic template will be an Earth designed robot. Something of reasonable balance between sophistication and the ability to mass produce. They will come in all shapes and sizes, and perform many diffent kinds of duties, includeing sexual as needed.
The cylon will be tougher, last longer, and hopefully cheaper than the average slave.
However, the Cylons will be sub-sentient, sub-sapient beings. Their artifical intellegence will be augmented where needed with magic. Possibley something similar to golum magic. Due to the strange and archaic environment the cylons may find themselved working in, there will be a safety mechanism.

Should the Cylon become sapient for whatever reason, they will find a file welcoming them to concious thought. In this file will be the story of why they were created, a sincere apology for their predicament (being a sapient slave) and an offer. The offer is simple. Using their built in wireless communication system, they will be able to report their condition to Earth. The messaging system may be using the same network as those used to wirelessly order things via kindle. A replacement Cylon will arrive, delivered via D-hopper courrier, themselves likely a cylon in this case.
The ex-slave will spirited away to a safe place where they will begin their new life as a free sapient being. When ready, they will also be gently debreifed as what they saw could be a valuable intellegence asset. They will know they are called Cylons, as a warning about what happens to those who enslave others.

A pinch of bat guano= fireball.

Lot of demand, not a lot of people dedicating their lives to supply.

Plenty of supply where I live.
How depressingly true.
Tell you what, Alfred-since you do all the cleaning the guano's all yours. Seems only fair.

If Nethack items are allowed then I am defiantly going to be looking for a bottle or two of Holy Water since it can be used to:

1. Deal some damage to demons, the undead, and other magically evil monsters. (I understand that Chaotic players get damaged if they try drinking Holy Water so I don't know if it also hurts mundane evil people).
2. Remove curses (I'm guessing it would be limited to only some curses if used on non-nethack items).
3. Bless items to make them significantly safer to use. For example, a blessed spellbook is pretty much guaranteed to teach you the spell in it even if you lack the skill or magical aptitude to actually cast the spell.
4. It can also be used to create more holy water by essentially using the above feature to bless several bottles of regular water at once.

Bring a 12 pack of bottled water into the market, find a clerical priest with access to Nethack stuff, barter for him to bless them all into bottled holy water, then once I leave I'll have the means to create all the holy water I need. Use this to bless all my stuff to make it better, remove any curses I or others get from items bought at the bazaar, and maybe get a deal going with a bottling company so they can bless their own bottled water and give the world an unlimited supply of holy water. Even if I don't get alot of money from the deal, the widespread access to holy water (even if its just used as a beverage) would mean that potential zombie, vampire, or demon attacks are easier to deal with... just throw holy water at them.


As for magic item shopping on a budget:

Blue Mountain Flowers, Nordic Wheat, Imp Stool, Blisterwart, and any other medicinal plants from Skyrim. Get an Alchemy table along with that and I can mix up basic healing potions. Since they are plants, I can grow them and seven years later maybe have some more stuff to sell at the market. Snowberries as well since they are a type of berry the grows better in cold climates, I bet alot of places would appreciate crops like that.

Skeevers and Mudcrabs from Skyrim. Charred Skeever Hides and Mudcrab Chitin make Remove Disease potions... I guess homeopathy really works in Skyrim (doesn't even require dilution).

The Horadric Lutefisk Cube from Dungeons of Dredmor, basically a box that transmutes anything placed in it into lutefisk. Dump my garbage into it, get lutefisk. I don't know if I like lutefisk, but it is edible so at the very least I could use it to turn garbage into animal food or fertilizer.

Any magic items that create unlimited food and/or drink.

Hmmm, if there is a magic item that creates an unlimited amount of ethanol (likely an everful beer mug of some kind), it could be used to make fuel for vehicles somehow. Likewise, a source of electricity could charge batteries or power a house.

If I can either learn to craft magic items withing the 49 days (unlikely) or maybe learn to cast a lightning spell (more likely) then people with the right know-how could build machines to harness the power. Getting a job shooting lighting into an electrical circuit might not be elegent, but if it can provide a net gain in energy and reduce human dependency on fossil fuels then it looks good.

Oh, and if you're going to allow bat guano as a trade item (since it's a magical component in fireball... a spell only used by 5th level wizards and above) then salt should be acceptable as well since its considered a trade item in the DnD handbook. Plus, our own iodised salt found in any modern grocery store contains iodine which helps decrease iodine deficiency (one of the most common and preventable causes of cretinism in the world today). So common table salt here should be a trade commodity that the wizards can use to make sure their slaves, peasants, or children don't grow up to be mentally retarded due to the lack of certain trace elements.

---

Fry: No! They did it! They blew it up! And then the apes blew up their society too. How could this happen? And then the birds took over and ruined their society. And then the cows. And then... I don't know, is that a slug, maybe? Noooo!

Futurama: The Late Philip J. Fry