Topic: An odd question: how much is the bull?

Hi everyone,

supplement I read recently suggested to offer a prize for a successful monster hunt in the form of a couple of cows and one bull. I think that this is a GREAT idea, as not every NPC (not an even a noble) will be able to lure adventures into service with tremendous amounts of silver or gold.

But, he comes my itty-pitty nit-picking question: how much is a bull, how much is a cow?

The core rules include "life stock", which may be head for about 10sp/5sp (city/rural). I guess that is the price for a sheep or such, as a dog is 5sp/2sp, and a mule is 50sp/25sp.

A riding horse is 100sp, and as those were valuable I guess cows/bulls will be somewhere between them and a mule. Do you think 75sp /50sp per animal is okay? Yes, I know.. "DETAILS!"...but bear with me for being a stickler.

Any feedback is welcome!

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
__________________
My blog

Re: An odd question: how much is the bull?

A dog is only 1sp/2sp (city/rural), right?

Anyhoo, ACKS has a pretty detailed economic model, and is supposed to be at least broadly grounded in historical research (albeit of the Eastern Roman Empire in late antiquity / early middle ages). I don't think it's anywhere close to 100% realistic, because it aims to rationalise the already-existing price lists from B/X D&D in order to maintain backwards compatibility with other OSR stuff. Still, it's not a bad start.

In ACKS, a cow costs 10sp (converting everything to the LotFP silver standard). That's two times less than a mule (20sp), and roughly 8 times less than a light riding horse (75sp).

For comparison: a sheep is 2sp, a pig is 3sp, a goat is 3sp, and a chicken is 1sp.

So, putting aside the precise costs for a moment, ACKS suggests that:

A cow is more expensive than a sheep
A cow is cheaper than a mule
A cow is much cheaper than a riding horse

Basically, I would say that 10sp seems about right for a cow.

As for a bull: if it's an average bull, then make it maybe 20sp? I saw here that an old saying among farmers in Illinois is apparently that a bull is worth "2 times the value of a fat steer" - https://www.drovers.com/article/how-muc … -pay-bull.

If it's a prize bull, then it could be worth much more. Maybe even the 75sp / 50sp you suggested.

Honestly, though, make it whatever price you want. Personally, I would just say a bull is 10sp. But if you want to reward your players, then decide how much you want to give them and say the bull is an extremely rare prize bull, and worth much more than normal bulls.

A bull was sold for $800,000 last week: https://www.drovers.com/article/angus-b … cord-price

tl;dr - Make it up.

Re: An odd question: how much is the bull?

I bookmarked this awhile ago, it may or may not be of use
https://regia.org/research/misc/costs.htm

Re: An odd question: how much is the bull?

nikolokolus wrote:

I bookmarked this awhile ago, it may or may not be of use
https://regia.org/research/misc/costs.htm

This one IS actually quite interesting, thank you for sharing the link!

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
__________________
My blog