Long-Term: Trading Partners

Do you enjoy fantasy? Have you ever played a game of D&D, and discovered the wonderful world of wagon and carriage ownership? Have you ever wanted to find love on the open road? Then let me present to you: Trading Partners~!

A basic premise:

So, my character, a humble bard, is working in a tavern that happens to sit on the border of five nations. The city the tavern is housed in is often times refered to as "the castle," or "the wall." (No this isn't some IRL political reference, keep real life politics out, I beg you)

My character has been saving money for months to try and buy himself a carriage, or wagon, and try to start his own travel/trade company. Meeting your character, perhaps due to their charms, perhaps because he'll be just drunk enough to trust a strange new face, he confides in you his plan. He's close to having the starting money to purchase his first carriage, but he wants a partner. Someone who can keep on the reigns in shifts, and someone who can keep a lookout for any potential dangers.

It could've been anyone, but he chose you. Will you join him, and help build an empire together? Will you fight shoulder to shoulder to protect a future worth building? Will you, perhaps, find a lover in your new partner?

Only you, and time, can answer these questions. In the meantime...

Minor details to add:

Throughout the story, my character will perform songs in each new town we come across. If you would like this expressed in the form of poetry, I would be happy to oblige. This will be another way to earn income so that food and traveling expenses would be less likely to cripple our wallet.

The currency system I have is a modified version of the one in D&D. 100 copper pieces make a silver piece. 100 silver pieces make a gold piece. And 100 gold pieces make up a platinum piece.

Some world building:

The city we begin in, "The Castle," or "The Wall," is as the name suggests, a massive fortress city. The tavern itself is in the outermost ring of the city, and the city itself is it's own severeign entity. You may ask how, or why that works. For one, they have their own standing military, though they behave as the city guards when not under threat. Secondly, the city was built with sieges in mind, hence the multiple layered system.

It used to be the capital city of the nation of dwarves, but they're race has long since gone missing. Not extinct, but missing. Some believe they fled into the earth beneath the city, as the last they were ever seen was during a siege of the fortress. As the walls were climbed, no defenders stood to face them. And when they reached the peak of the center spire, a message freshly carved into the stone read in Dwarvish: "War is a game made by fools. The only way to win... Is not to play."

With the "fall" of the city, pandemonium broke out. The placement of the city was prime real estate to any one of the nations it bordered, and war quickly became the normal state for the city. Only after a century of fighting did a noble with dwarvish blood stake his claim for the city, by right of blood. Tired of fighting over it themselves, and treatise stacked over treatise... The surrounding nations were compelled to accept, under one rule: Trade and travel were to remain as functional as possible at all times. That is why, each country only has one gate to enter and exit through. If one decides to siege them, they close that gate, and request aid from the neighboring nations to stomp down the problem.

Ahem- I got a bit carried away there, I apologize.

The final note to mention is: We can start our journey venturing off into any of the five nations. My goal of course is to build a world, so as we journey forth, rumors, lore, and mysteries will present themselves. And take heed: Not every road is safe. Bandits, monsters, and sometimes rival traders may try to end our journey.