Opening the Arts Confusing me!

[loke]

@callen

Now, we might note that when scaled against other books, their quality/level combination puts them at the equivalent to vain summae, which would typically cost 2-3 pawns from their author at this level. Damaged summae are readily available for 1 pawn or as sweeteners in other trades, so it's unlikely the roots would go for 1 pawn. Due to the "widely and cheaply available" comment along with these, my guess about 2 pawns is standard using the costs in Covenants.

Going back and checking my saga notes, I can see that was the same conclusion I came to a while ago, as I set their fair market price at 2 pawns.

I think that sounds fair as a price to rent. As a price to buy, it does not really cover the work to copy and transport it. Did you think price to buy or price to rent?

There is a difference between a vain summa and a roots summa. The roots are very good books for a very specific purpose, and the people writing and/or copying such books know what they are doing, and will only do it if it pays their wages. A vain summa is a bad book for a very broad purpose, and the author has an inflated evaluation thereof. Being very proud of the book, the author may make copies just to promote himself, and once a copy exist, nobody wants it so the seller will be happy to get 2 pawns; the time to write it has already been wasted. In other words, I do not think the comparison between vain books and roots is fair.

But there must be an abundance of damaged roots copies around, so I am sure you can get a L6/Q20 for a pawn to buy.

It really annoys me that roots summa become very expensive in build points [Cov] compared to high-level books. They are much cheaper to produce, and supposed to be plentyful in the order.