Loved your ideas. Lawrence Watt Evan's Ethshar books tackle your second road. Magic is commonly available at guild-set prices. Magic is broken down by discplines: "sorry, I'm a Demonologist, fora dream sending you need a Witch, try 2 stores down"). Magicians have specialties because the full gamut takes forever to learn-- one person will just churn out healing potions as their livelihood, for example. Certain magics are forbidden by the gov't. The military has standing orders for types of magical weapons and support devices, given preferably to those of rank or appropriate task-- a Scout will get a needs-no-sustenance stone, officers tend to get the few magic swords, etc. And magicians are forbidden to run for public office because of a separation of powers. Oh, and there's competition and price wars between competitors, though most are in guilds that set fixed rates to avoid prices dropping too low.
And there are powerful unique items, or one-off things, or special spells and curses. Only the more established magic practitioners handle those, and often the results or side effects are unpredictable. Again, just as you foretell.
Anyway, it's a good model of merchantile magic that lends a neat flavor to a high-magic world. I think his most recent book is available free via the web.
Still, it's catching these days: a major bank sent out a letter to a friend of mine recently informing them of their 'new personal PIN number'.
The horror.
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It should be noted by the newer posters that unheilig's post 196, which seems confusing today, in fact is a reference to a very old forum meme that is no longer widespread. The meme posits that octopi cannot locate Germany on a map, and that, if flung at a map and told to find it, they will never hit Germany.
(Teucer, in 'Classic Tangency' thread)
(only one way to get dragon’s blood, and that’s from a dragon)
This sparked an interesting train of thought. Dragons are sentient creatures in D&D and most other fantasy RPGs, and even though some of them are Evil and need to be killed anyway, even Good dragons are likely to take a dim view of selling their blood. Unless, like "legal" ivory (or whatever it's called), it could be harvested without killing the dragon. I know that dragon blood donors sound anachronistic, but doctors used to bleed people all the time, and wouldn't it actually be easier to take blood from a living (and cooperative) dragon than a dead one? And a full-grown dragon could surely spare a few quarts every week or two.
Furthermore, even in a culture that doesn't care about the moral quandary, there are strong incentives on both sides. The dragon could demand a hefty price for its blood (and even Good dragons like to add to their hoards, right?), and as a side benefit, might end up putting a few dragonslayers out of business. For the harvesters, there wouldn't be as much immediate gain (since they'd have to pay for the blood, and couldn't swipe the dragon's hoard while they were at it), but they also wouldn't be risking their lives -- and in the long-term, it would a LOT more sustainable.
Wyvern
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"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"
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