- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Just had a neat idea on discord!
Bulk Ninja Transit: a solution to merchants dying on major trade routes
So one thing we've seen through the quest is merchants: ordinary civilians with a wagon full of goods moving from place to place to try and earn a living. It's hard work and high-risk because this world is full of ravenous monsters a merchant has no hope of defeating. We know that sometimes a merchant will hire a ninja escort for high-value cargo (see that one interlude with the meat merchant) but many are just hoping they don't roll snakeeyes that particular trip.
So why do civilian merchants need to travel anyways? Well, most goods aren't high-value cargo and even a genin escort is too much to ask, so the only way the merchant gets enough profit margin to survive is if they make the trip themselves. But what if a bunch of merchants all cooperated to buy the missions at once?
A properly-equipped ninja can hold a basically arbitrary amount of cargo (the requisite storage seals can be provided by us if needbe) so one genin can carry the cargo of, say, twenty traveling merchants as easily as one. The genin can travel at ninja speeds, with a ninja's ability to survive ordinary chakra beasts that would kill any ordinary trader. Ultimately there's one major problem: without the merchant making it to the other end of the journey, who sells the goods?
So here's my idea: we have two groups of merchants, one on either side, and they enter into a fixed agreement in advance. Group A in Leaf negotiates with Group B in Tanzaku Gai and forms a contract: Group A sends goods over for Group B to sell, Group B sends other goods back for Group A to sell, this goes back and forth for a certain amount of time until the contract gets renegotiated.
While it is not untrue that each group is trusting that the other group won't just run off with their goods, a proper legal contract with a ninja around to enforce fair play leaves precious few opportunities to pull a fast one. There are likely other edge cases to consider, but if we're dealing in proper contracts there's plenty of room to add clauses for them as we finalize the idea.
Ultimately what this needs to happen is for someone to a) provide a sufficient amount of storage seals, and b) organize the civilians on both ends of the route. Ultimately this will reduce civilian mortalities and boost economic productivity, and I don't think it will even cost more ninja manpower than normal because ninja are already getting hired as escorts for missions like these, this will just magnify the scope of those missions so they help a ton of merchants instead of just one. Kei and Shikamaru, with their logisitics skills, will be the perfect avenue to run this idea, with us providing the excess storage seals.
Thoughts?
Bulk Ninja Transit: a solution to merchants dying on major trade routes
So one thing we've seen through the quest is merchants: ordinary civilians with a wagon full of goods moving from place to place to try and earn a living. It's hard work and high-risk because this world is full of ravenous monsters a merchant has no hope of defeating. We know that sometimes a merchant will hire a ninja escort for high-value cargo (see that one interlude with the meat merchant) but many are just hoping they don't roll snakeeyes that particular trip.
So why do civilian merchants need to travel anyways? Well, most goods aren't high-value cargo and even a genin escort is too much to ask, so the only way the merchant gets enough profit margin to survive is if they make the trip themselves. But what if a bunch of merchants all cooperated to buy the missions at once?
A properly-equipped ninja can hold a basically arbitrary amount of cargo (the requisite storage seals can be provided by us if needbe) so one genin can carry the cargo of, say, twenty traveling merchants as easily as one. The genin can travel at ninja speeds, with a ninja's ability to survive ordinary chakra beasts that would kill any ordinary trader. Ultimately there's one major problem: without the merchant making it to the other end of the journey, who sells the goods?
So here's my idea: we have two groups of merchants, one on either side, and they enter into a fixed agreement in advance. Group A in Leaf negotiates with Group B in Tanzaku Gai and forms a contract: Group A sends goods over for Group B to sell, Group B sends other goods back for Group A to sell, this goes back and forth for a certain amount of time until the contract gets renegotiated.
While it is not untrue that each group is trusting that the other group won't just run off with their goods, a proper legal contract with a ninja around to enforce fair play leaves precious few opportunities to pull a fast one. There are likely other edge cases to consider, but if we're dealing in proper contracts there's plenty of room to add clauses for them as we finalize the idea.
Ultimately what this needs to happen is for someone to a) provide a sufficient amount of storage seals, and b) organize the civilians on both ends of the route. Ultimately this will reduce civilian mortalities and boost economic productivity, and I don't think it will even cost more ninja manpower than normal because ninja are already getting hired as escorts for missions like these, this will just magnify the scope of those missions so they help a ton of merchants instead of just one. Kei and Shikamaru, with their logisitics skills, will be the perfect avenue to run this idea, with us providing the excess storage seals.
Thoughts?
