Low Market and Bazaar

The stalls, tents, and booths of the Greyhawk Low Market offer a maze of tiny stores. Some merchants ply their trade from more or less permanent locations here, but most simply pitch their tents wherever they can find space.

The market is open every day from dawn until dusk. During six days of the week, the pace of buying and selling proceeds comfortably. There is no frenzy of activity, and the market seems plenty big because there is a lot of unused space. Foods and drinks, as well as common household needs (cloth, wood, tools, utensils, clothing, tacking, toys, inexpensive jewelry, paint, etc.) are available here at all times.

The market truly comes into its own, however, on Starday- the start of each new week. On these days, the number of stalls and booths in the marketplace doubles, as does the number of potential customers browsing through.

On Starday, virtually every readily obtainable item in the campaign world is offered for sale here-and a few not-so-readily obtainable items. Weapons and armor, horses, dogs and birds, imported silks and dyed cottons, art work, and a host of other unique services and activities can all be obtained here.

Prices are generally slightly lower than a merchant in a permanent shop might ask, but the quality of goods here also tends to be less than fabulous.

There are exceptions to both generalizations, of course. Some trinkets are offered at incredibly inflated prices, while other works of skilled artisans and craftsmen can be purchased for a song.

The Low Market is not the place to buy items of luxury. Naturally, such goods as expensive perfumes, rare jewelry, exotic spices, and the Like can be obtained only at the High Market.

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Low Market: The Low Market, also called the Old Market or Petit Bazaar, is open every day of the week from dawn to dusk. Booths, tents, tables, and stalls are everywhere, and some folk sell goods hung from their clothing or belts, walking among the shoppers with a small handcart or wagon in tow. Nearly every common item used in Greyhawk can be found here, from eating utensils to tools and weapons, from clothing to minor jewelry, from toys to farm produce. The atmosphere is calm and business is good, Prices are about average, with some variation as merchants and guildsmen try to undercut each other while making as much money as possible. Luxury items appear almost exclusively in the High Market.

On Starday, the number of booths doubles and the market is packed with buyers in search of bargains and special items. Almost every item typically found in the central Flanaess will be here, including livestock and fowl, imported fabrics and clothing, artwork, unusual fruits and vegetables, writing implements, lanterns, and specialized tools. The area takes on a circuslike air with jugglers and games of skill everywhere.

The Low Market is divided into the West Market, which is ane disorganized and where most out-of-town merchants gather, and the East Market, which has reasonably straight rows of local traders and sellers. The two are divided by the Processional, which wanders a bit between the two, depending on how the booths have been set up. At the north end of the West Market is the Hanging Tree, a very old roanwood of great size from which criminals were hung in the days before the New City walls were built. This is considered a ptize spot from which to sell goods, and the price for a space around the tree is double the usual. The activity of the whole Low Market is overseen from the Grand Tent (A10).

Renting a 6-foot-by-6-foot space in the Low Market for one day costs 5 sp. Larger spaces can be rented for proportionately more money. The fee is paid at the Grand Tent in the southern part of the East Market, with a colorful wooden plaque given as a receipt. The plaque, which has a number on it, must be displayed on the stall, booth, table, or tent that the seller erects. At day's end, the plaque must be returned to the Grand Tent. A lot of people look for these plaques to make sure no one is cheating the city government of its revenue; the punishment invariably consists of a large fine.

Items marked in italics are available only on the Starday market. All other goods are sold daily.

Low Market Booth List
Copper and silver Jewelry
Colognes from around the Nyr Dyv
Swords and daggers, made in Greyhawk
Axes and halberds, dwarfmade
Cheap jewelry , halfling merchant
Portraits while you wait
Apples and other fruit
Bolts of colored cotton
Dresses and petticoats
Melons in season
Colorful woolen capes
Boots and shoes
Leather armor
Fruity ice treats (rare!)
Shields and plate mail
Pennants made while you wait
Dried pork sticks
Saddles
Feathered ornaments for dandies and their ladies
Gambling games of all sorts
Wine of all sorts
Whisky imported from Dyvers
Fortune-telling
Carved wooden soldiers, painted
Toss the dagger at the target for a prize trinket
Freak show (one large tent)
Freshly baked bread
Hunting hounds and puppies
Steamed sausages on a stick
High- and low-quality arrows
Flowers (in season)
Tiny dolls
Freshly popped corn

DM's Notes: The Low Market is the training ground for novice thieves in the Thieves’ Guild, and it is also a hangout for beggars and homeless immigrants from the Slum Quarter. Local people know the basics of protecting their money from theft, adding a —5 penalty to pickpocketing attempts. Characters going to the Low Market have a 10% chance of being gaacy, the subject of a pickpocket attempt, the chance rising to 25% if personal wealth is displayed or discussed. Poverty-stricken, diseased, or very threatening individuals are usually left alone; lower class citizens are pickpocketed much less often than strangers and local merchants.