Miestras the Reaver’s Auction House
Location: Outlands / near Torch
A great deal of berks seem to forget that Primes (the place, not the people) have value. Every day a new lot of clueless primes come plodding into Sigil. Most cutters seem them as easy prey to be peeled and bobbed with ease. But many forget that these primes have powerful weapons, spells, and other assorted items of value. Now it ain’t easy for these primes to get to Outer Planes, so that leads me to my next bit of rather obvious dark: For every new magic spell or item brought to the Outer Planes, there must be hundreds left on the primes. There are near-on infinite crystal spheres, and so many planewalkers fully ignore what potential power these places could provide, and berk, power is profit.
Point in case: Miestras the Reaver’s Auction House.
For those of you who aren’t well-lanned on the prime civilisations, a reaver is a the name for a rogue neogi. The Neogi tend replenish their numbers by turning older neogi into large bloated egg sacks. As you can imagine, not all neogi look forward to that. Now this particular basher was a bit on the barmy side for a neogi. They thought it was possible for a creature to be neither slave, nor a slave owner. In neogi circles that’s an invitation for early “retirement.” So Miestras (prime neogi [they/them] / LE) packed up their kip and headed for where he thought would be the best place to hide from their xenophobic brethren; the Outer-Planes. Being a Prime-blood they knew the value of the Prime worlds, and set-up an auction house. Now I bet most of you berks out there want to know what is sold at these auctions? Well I’ll let you in on the dark of it: Spell books. That’s right, Miestras sells spell books. Every Prime has its fair share of spell slingers, and everyone one of them has at least a few spell books, and most of them have spells that haven’t ever been seen of or heard of on the Great Ring. On top of that, the prime has artwork, and artefacts galore, but he makes most of his money selling spell books with unique spells.
So Miestras set themself up with a very lucrative business. They pay cutters for suitable locations on backwater primes. Suitable as in out-of-the-way locations near moderately powerful mages, or similar deposits of magic goodies, then they pays a few more bashers to go collect the goods. Anything else the bashers bring back they can keep, but if the sods don’t bring back anything of “value” to cover the cost sending then to the prime, well they become the new slaves of Miestras until they either die, or repay them threefold the jink owed.
Four times an Outland year, Miestras holds an auction. Hundreds attend. These week-long auctions are divided into sections. The first day non-magical works get sold. Mostly tapestries, paintings, and sculptures. It isn’t uncommon to see representatives of some of the wealthier families of the Lady’s Ward there. The second and third days are devoted to arms and armour respectively. All manner of weapons can be found, but they’re all unique magical items. No simple +3 or +2 longswords here, cutter! If you’re itching for an intelligent weapon, you can be sure to find one here, and you will most likely get to chose one with a similar outlook as you! The fourth day brings rings, rods, wand, staves, amulets and other knickknacks. Once again, only ones with rare powers are up for sale. The rest of the time is spent on the scrolls and spell books. Some of the truly expensive books have true names of fiends in them. Prime wizards have a habit of trying to summon the blokes. Others simply have strange spells. On occasion, Miestras will have one of the wizards demonstrate a spell on a few slaves.
The auction house itself appears to be a small, well-maintained solid stone dwelling with no windows and only one entrance. Upon entrance, an arcanoloth greets the guests. Before going further admission, a fee must be paid for entry, and a binding contract must be signed. The contract stipulates that no fighting will be tolerated in the auction, and the penalties for failure to pay for lots won.
If the fee is paid, and the contracts signed, The cutters are allowed into the rest of the auction hall. It is assumed, by most, to be a more powerful version of Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion as the interior is far larger then the out side of the building, and semi-transparent waiters move about. While this would fit the spell’s description, bags of holding and similar devices still seem to work inside the hall, so there must be other forces at work.
Miestras is present at every auction, riding on a large silk pillow being carried by an umber hulk slave. They have never been seen away from this umber hulk bodyguard.
The auction house has no obvious defensive structures or people. The inside has a number of bodyguards such for Miestras and their guests, but nowhere near the amount of defence that you’d imagine an inter-planer raider would erect. Especially one that specifically targets primes with powerful magic items or spells. A cutter can only assume the defences are well-disguised.
The auction hall is located in what was once a small burg in the Outlands. Miestras bought up everything in the town and evicted the previous owners. Slaves, and currently employed raiders aren’t allowed inside the auction hall (neogi are xenophobic after all) so they stay in the surrounding buildings. Cutters interested in finding this anthill should travel to the gate-town of Torch, and then head towards the Spire.
Prices: Admission is 1000 gp per person, per day. Food, drink and board are all free with admission.
Jobs: Location for raid: 2000 gp. Prime Raider: 1000 gp, plus any gold or “normal” magic items found on the prime. (If you can make the cut).
DM’s Dark: Miestras left their crystal-sphere when they were very young, and thus only had one slave at the time (the umber-hulk). Miestras was afraid that their “radical views” would hasten them into becoming a grand old master. They was originally going to “hide” in Sigil because they felt it would be far too crowded and busy for other neogi to want to deal with. But Miestras found that it was also to busy for themself, and instead moved to the less crowded Outlands. Miestras still fears the brethren, although it is unlikely they will find them now. The actual auction hall uses a permanent “mansion” spell. Miestras used a number of wish spells to hide the location from the prime wizards they have stolen goods from (and the neogi brethren), and to allow all magic items and spells to work inside the mansion. Miestras sends raiding parties using what is more or less a round-trip plane shift spell. It requires expensive components, so Miestras is very careful who they employ.
Source: Brian Danford
