Draft:Village merchant
| @ Village merchant | |
|---|---|
| Form | Village horse seller |
| Attacks | 1 attack, 1 defensive action; physical roll 0, but a landed non-immune hit still inflicts 1 HP |
| Special abilities | Village-wide alarm when hostile; horse sale when peaceful |
| Base level | 0 |
| HP | 16 |
| Hit | 6 |
| Defense | 6 |
| Action interval | 6 ticks; lower is faster |
| Kill experience | 6, when death is in sight |
| Generation | Four villages |
| Carried items | No fixed item or random starting treasure |
| Immunities | None innate |
| Remains | Dead merchant; 50% on normal death |
| Remains use | No alchemy; eating is cannibalism |
Traits
| |
| Reference | minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, line 18[1] |
A village merchant is the red @ who offers horses in four villages. This is a stationary horse seller, distinct from the travelling itinerant merchant.[2]
Locations and trade
One merchant is placed in each of Star View, Woodmere, Stormwatch and Skorch. Thaumaris and Whorfen have none in their fixed layouts. Re-entering a village from the countryside recreates its fixed population.[3]
A peaceful merchant asks 250 Au for a horse. Accepting without enough money changes nothing; paying removes the money and makes the merchant vanish. The seller tells you to choose a horse and warns that its food is not included. Outside a village, this merchant's conversation only directs you to the stables.[4]
The payment does not tame a horse or create a riding permission checked later. Give a horse grain, then talk to the peaceful, fed horse to mount it; the horse interaction does not test whether you paid.[5]
Hostility
The merchant starts without hostility or a fixed carried item. The template has normal melee, no ordinary movement routine, no ranged strike and no innate immunities. These ratings do not make attacking him safe.[6]
A hostile merchant refuses conversation and, when his special action runs in a village, awakens and turns hostile every creature in the village's monster list, not just its guards. This alarm runs once for that merchant. The ordinary monster scheduler controls when that action is attempted; it is not a guaranteed immediate response on the same input as an attack.[7]
The merchant's damage rating of one produces a zero physical roll, but ordinary damage still inflicts at least one HP after absorption unless prevented by immunity or another applicable defense. His normal death has a 50% chance to leave a corpse. Eating it counts as cannibalism and shifts alignment ten points toward Chaos; it has no alchemical transformation.[8]
Strategy
The seller's low HP hides the cost of provoking the entire settlement. Feeding and speaking to a horse is the interaction that actually secures a mount. Ordinary food buckets do not replace grain, and giving money to the seller does not remove the horse's hunger.
References
- ↑ village.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 199–208; lev.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 373–394; mon.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 134–203; mmelee.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 8–51; aux1.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 498–513; time.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 47–74; itemf1.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 668–688. Village construction, combat, timing and remains.
- ↑ minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, lines 10–18; mtalk.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 707–737.
- ↑ lib/village1.dat in Omega 0.90.4 through lib/village6.dat in Omega 0.90.4; village.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 74–78; aux2.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 984–1042.
- ↑ mtalk.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 707–737.
- ↑ inv.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 427–447; mtalk.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 576–600.
- ↑ minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, line 18; lev.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 354–399.
- ↑ mtalk.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 732–737; mspec.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 705–719; mon.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 12–68.
- ↑ minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, line 18; mmelee.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 8–20; aux1.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 498–513; mon.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 134–203; itemf1.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 668–688.