[Thaumatology] Setting magic item prices to make economic sense

[ehrbar]

The use value of a species-specific Beast Speech item for talking to hedgehogs is almost nothing under most circumstances.

The cost to have such an item made under the standard enchantment rules is pretty high, though. 1,000 energy is 1,000 continuous mage-days of labor under the Slow & Sure rules. Even if you could somehow hire a TL3 enchanter for a Struggling wage and no premium for making him work every single day straight through for 2 years and nine months, it's still going to cost you in the neighborhood of $11,550 to commission a talk-to-hedgehogs item. In a more reasonable case (the mage charges a Comfortable wage and demands extra pay to implicitly make up the lost weekends and then an additional premium), $50,000 is likely.

So, what's the market-clearing price? Frankly, it's usually going to be about $0, since that's the likely place where the demand (nobody wants one) and supply (nobody has ever made one) curves actually cross.