The Emporium

[rubycitymods]

The Emporium is currently OPEN.
It is currently located in the park, next to the forest.

The Emporium stocks objects and curios that moves around the city, presumably when no one is watching. It appears in various different but specific location on the city map (marked by gold stars).

It's difficult to see anything through the windows, but on entering even the least-attuned person would be able to feel the energy buzzing in the air. Everything stocked on the shelves and in the glass display cabinets is strange and foreign... but wait, doesn't that one item look familiar?

Perhaps it's a personal trinket, or that last piece needed to complete a project, but picking it up and carrying it out of the store won't work and if you try, it will dissolve into dust. Maybe it will appear again next time, if you're lucky. There's a price on everything here, written in cursive script on a paper label attached with string in a simple loop. Bring what's requested and place it in the box by the cash register marked 'donations' and the label will disintegrate into embers, leaving you free to take your... purchase.

* * *

The Emporium seems simple in function - you walk in, you find something that you recognise or something that belonged to you once upon a time, and you make a trade. In fact, the shop works on an internal system that almost qualifies as self awareness. When you find something in the store, its importance to you and how exactly you know about it has already been evaluated and is reflected in the price ticket found attached to every item.

Though not a definitive guide - as every request is judged on an individual basis - the outlines below should help you to see just how difficult it might be to get what you want.

Easy Requests

• Minor, non magical requests such as food items (canon or non-canon), and objects with little to no particular canon or non-canon significance.
• Items that belonged to the character at any point in their known canon.
• Items that belonged to close friends/family that they could have easily laid hands on at any part in their known canon.

Medium Requests

• Items that the character has seen in their own canon but has never touched or owned themselves.
• Items which will belong to the character at some point in their future.
• Items that the character knows about in their own canon but has never seen for themselves.
• Pets and companion animals.

Difficult Requests

• Items that do exist in the character’s canon, which the character knows about but cannot prove the existence of.
• Items that do exist in the character’s canon which the character is unaware of.
• Anything in the above categories which may have a potential larger impact on the game setting or characters therein.

Prohibited Requests
*note: characters may try to find these kinds of items, but they will simply not appear in the store

• Fourth wall breakers that would give the characters a vast amount of knowledge about their futures/canon universe that they would not ordinarily have.
• Items which would have drastic impact upon an entire cast. These may be considered if full cast approval has been gained.

* * *

Character Name:
Desired Object: Name and general description/picture if one is available.
Importance: How important is this object to your character? On a scale of 'I just want this thing' to 'my father gave it to me on his deathbed and every day without it is painful'. If it's a specific part of a project, tell us about it!
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Opt-in. If you answer 'yes', there is a possibility that the price may require a trade with another resident of the city (for example, the label may read 'three alicorn feathers', with the only alicorn available being Twilight Sparkle). This is an opportunity for CR, but we understand that not everyone would want to go down this route. Responding 'no' will exclude this option, but responding 'yes' will not guarantee the involvement of another resident, rather it will leave the possibility open.

(Note: If you are interested in this option but are worried about being pointed in the direction of a character/player that you don't want to thread with, let us know via PM in conjunction with your request.)

Price examples will range according to the importance of the object and the ability of the character and will include things that they can hunt or find in and around the city, as well as items that they can make or otherwise produce. They may be asked for something that they already own. It may be a certain kind of flower found in the forest, one of their own teeth, an honest written confession, a phial of water from the catacombs lake, or something as simple as a lovingly cooked meal.

<b>Character Name</b>: <b>Desired Object</b>: <b>Importance</b>: <b>Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities?</b>

✧ N A V I G A T I O N ✧

Comments

[radioactivedonuts]

Character Name: Fun Ghoul
Desired Object: A very familiar jacket.
Importance: Incredibly important! The jacket belongs to Party Poison, the (un)official leader of the Fabulous Killjoys aka the group that Ghoul was a part of and more importantly his family.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Heck yeah!

[meitori]

Character Name: Yuuta Matsukawa
Desired Object: His grandmother’s tea ceremony set (white porcelain with a pine needle motif painted in dark green), which includes the following items:

    Tea box (1)
    Tea tray (1)
    Tea scoop (1)
    Tea whisk (1)
    Cast iron tea kettle (1)
    Tea pot (1)
    Tea bowls (5)
    Tea caddy (1)
    Various tea utensils
    Various tea cloths

Importance: It belonged to his grandmother, who taught him how to perform Japanese tea ceremony when he was younger.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Sure! As this is a pretty large item to ask for, make it difficult to get :)

Reposting as requested

[manga_goddess_skuld]

Character Name: Skuld
Desired Object: Parts and tools en masse
Importance: Individually little, but what she can make with them would be massive.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Sure, why not?

And separate.

[believe_it_or_not]

Character Name: Ivy & Grey (a joint wish)
Desired Object: The Muse of History's tomes from their worlds. Not just these, but the whole series Basically, the Xanth novels exist in canon, and are referenced often. Grey has handled some of them, and Ivy and Grey saw a number of them when they visited the muse of history, so while the ability to get them is canon, so is it being very difficult to do so.
Importance: HIGH. These are books that tell them their canonical future, as well as that of their friends and family. Someone has officially mentioned it in game now, so they are actively looking to see if they can be found in the City.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Sure. They need a good quest before the wedding!

[originallutece]

Character Name: Rosalind Lutece
Desired Object: A collection of notebooks containing seven years correspondence with her brother.
Importance: Nobody is more important to Rosalind than her brother, and while she doesn't have him, it'd be immensely comforting for her to have their letters.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Sure!

[occultigen]

Character Name: Meridiana Everett

Desired Object: DELILAH's research into the Deadly Dolls project, of which Meridiana was the (allegedly) pioneer specimen.

Importance: While scientific data taken about the stuff she endured back in 1897 is probably one of the last things on Meridiana's personal wishlist, there's actually a lot she doesn't know or remember about her own resurrection or the circumstances that led to the position she was in back in canon (like what happened to her best friend Elise, for example, or what DELILAH was actually trying to accomplish by resurrecting her from the dead). Having those research notes would both give her reason to confront those things and inform her understanding of what actually happened to her back in 1897!

Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Sure!

[entrynumber0]

Character Name: Alphys

Desired Object: Blue desk lamp with a red fish pattern, as seen on her lab/home.

Importance: Looking at the design of the lamp, it is safe to assume that it was either a gift from Undyne, or something Alphys picked up at the dump because it reminder her of Undyne. Not only does it share Undyne's colors and motif, it shares the same pattern at the wallpaper in Undyne's home. Alphys has held a strong fondness on Undyne that she suspected to be unrequited, before the two confessed their feelings near the end of the plot of the game. Seeing it in Ruby City would strongly affect her, as she's been dealing with a lot of upset feelings about being away from her home world and most of her friends.

Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Yes.

[callbacks]

Character Name: Dave Strider
Desired Object: Terezi Pyrope's Double-headed Caegar (which has been in his possession since DRRP)
Importance: Well she used it to split Dave along the timeline once in a way that still does not completely make sense to me, and then cried when the resulting extra Dave got himself murderated. It's mostly a plaything and memento for Dave now.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Yeah!

[serenesuccessor]

Character Name: Naomi Mikano
Desired Object: One copy of Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Importance: She needs to prove to Polnareff that Cary Elwes is the superior Robin Hood!! But not actually too important.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Yeah!

[betrayedbylove]

Character Name: Kyrian Hunter
Desired Object: Greek statue of his three sisters that he commissioned shortly after his death
Importance: This statue is the one thing that Kyrian has brought with him from Greece throughout the millennia. He loves his sisters dearly, and the statue has a place of honor in his home.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? Yes.

[ginger_firebird]

Character Name: Psycho Mantis
Desired Object: Shabani's Necklace
Importance: Shabani is one of the only children in the game MGS5 who was capable of getting to Mantis and his instinct for latching onto anger. Mantis was present when Shabani died and the necklace was his indication that he was listening to Shabani's thoughts rather than Skull Face or the Man on Fire. To him, it's a memory shaped like a lion of when he realized, even briefly, that he was able to think and act for himself.
Would you like to include other characters in trade possibilities? I'd like that a lot.