The following was based on a joke I made on Peter Dell’Orto’s blog Dungeon Fantastic about delvers bringing loot back from the dungeon. For Gaming Ballistic, I often had to deal with import/export items; my current Day Job at Tokyo Electron even more so.

The HTS is the Giant List of Stuff used to say what can and cannot be imported/exported, and what tariff rate applies if any. So I pictured what that might look like for a tabletop roleplaying game and made a few suggestions to an AI engine…and was amused enough by the result I thought I’d share.

Free City of Gate watch — Office of the Town Guard, Bureau of Recovered Goods

Revision 3.15 (“Geometry Conceded; The Money Is Still Talking”)
Not to exceed three pages. The annotated edition lives behind the counter and is produced only when a delver asks to speak to a manager.

Issued under joint authority of the Captain of the Gate, the Coin wrights’ Guild, the Temple Council (on days they are speaking), and the Wizard’s College (on days they remember the rent). All persons arriving from below, sideways, or “just the road” shall declare goods before sale, melting, wearing, eating, animating, or reciting them in a tavern.

General Rules of Interpretation

1. Classify the thing as what it is, not what the fighter insists it is.
2. If two headings fit, use the more specific. “Magic sword” beats “pointy metal.” “Screaming sword” beats both. A coin that files its own heading beats the clerk.
3. A container is classified with its contents unless the container is nicer, cursed, or chewing. Then classify the container and clear the hall.
4. If the item is wearing a person, classify the person (Ch. 06 or 10), then the item.
5. “I don’t know what it is” is not a heading. It is an inspection fee.
6. Alignment of the finder does not change the heading. Alignment of the object might. Alignment of the clerk after stew is not a legal factor.

Columns: Duty = coin taken at the gate. Inspection = who must look, and how they will feel. Disposition = what happens when you argue.

Chapter 01 — Currency and Fungibles

Gold, silver, copper, bars, gems that do not blink, jewelry with no residual screaming — and specie that will not shut up (0102.T is for coins that speak).

Notes.

Electrum is determined whichever metal the assessor saw less of before dinner yesterday.
Surface-area erratum. A stack of coins has more face than an equivalent-mass ingot. More face means more mouths. The stack is a committee. The ingot is a spokesman. Duty is per talker, not per pound. Anyone citing this fact to reduce duty is charged the assay twice: once for the metal, once for being correct.

Chapter 02 — Mundane Armor

Chapter 03 — Mundane Weapons

Chapter 04 — Mundane Consumable Supplies

Chapter 05 — Mundane Durable Supplies

Chapter 06 — Corpses, Parts, and Formerly Living Persons

No one is happy when this classification comes in. Doubly so if odiferous. Triply so if it smells worse than durian fruit.

A skeleton that stands up during weighing is reclassified at once. Duty waived. Dignity is not.

Chapter 07 — Wizardly and Alchemical Supplies

One chapter, because two guilds dueled and we lost a clerk.

Chapter 08 — Religious Objects

By theological bellweather, not by the paladin’s speech.

A relic that works on the blotter is an incident, not a demonstration.

Chapter 09 — Enchanted, Cursed, and Unnatural

Chapter 10 — Living Things You Should Not Have Brought

Chapter 99 — Special Provisions

• 9901 Personal effects: one blade, one outfit, one incoming lie.
• 9902 Share dispute: Guard holds all of it until the shouting stops. Storage bills do not care about friendship.
• 9903 “The dragon will want it back”: liability. Leave the item or the city.
• 9904 Self-classifying objects: accept the heading. Do not fix the spelling if the letters walk.
• 9905 Found in a vanished clerk’s desk: do not classify. Fetch the captain.

 

The Guard does not need the correct code. The Guard needs a code, a number, and the feeling that the wall is still worth defending.

Stamp the form. Take the cut. If the purse starts a second conversation, start the form over and pretend you have always been calm.

Vocal specie declared. The money is still talking.