Longswords in Faerûn: Why Prices Differ, With Full Bills of Materials

In the markets of Waterdeep and beyond, a sword is never just steel. It is ore, labor, enchantment, guild sanction, and risk bundled into an item that must survive battle and audit alike. The Waterdeep Trading Company prices longswords according to their total cost of creation, adding premiums for scarcity, magical risk, and service guarantees. A mundane blade carries the costs of metal and craft. A +3 blade carries all of that plus rare reagents, arcane labor, failed attempts, and planar licenses.

What It Is

A Bill of Materials, or BOM, is the structured ledger of inputs required to produce an item. For the Waterdeep Trading Company, a BOM separates base materials, manual craft, arcane work, overhead, levies, and logistics. This lets our clerks forecast costs, post variances, and set prices that reflect both the forge and the spell circle.

Why Prices Differ

Prices rise with each enchantment tier for five reasons.

• Scarcity of arcane labor, senior enchanters are limited and booked.
• Rare reagents, residuum, mithral filaments, and diamond dust scale up sharply by tier.
• Failure rate and rework, higher tier work has more spoiled stock and scrap.
• Guild, city, and planar fees, seals, audits, and licenses add fixed and variable costs.
• Warranty and risk premium, stronger items carry longer guarantees and liability reserves.

Below are full BOMs with example standard costs in FGP. Use them as a baseline, then apply your local regional and guild modifiers as needed.

This table lists all inputs to forge a nonmagical longsword, useful for blacksmith contracts, shop pricing, and cost audits.

This table adds first tier arcane work and reagents to the mundane base, useful for uncommon enchantment contracts and guild review.

This table reflects rarer reagents, senior labor, and higher failure reserves. Use for rare items and contract bids.

Note. The selling price shown is a conservative mid rare figure. In high demand markets this often lists between 8,000.00 and 20,000.00 FGP.

This table covers very rare work. Costs include planar licenses and heavy failure reserves. Use for elite clients and quest collateral.

Final Thoughts

Acres, leagues, rods, and fathoms are more than quaint measures of the past. They are the scaffolding of Faerûn’s commerce, the unseen standards that let merchants, nobles, and adventurers trade fairly and travel safely. For the Waterdeep Trading Company, understanding these units is not antiquarian trivia: it is the foundation of every contract, shipment, and ledger line.

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