Step 1 - Choosing a Location:

The first thing you need to do is scout out a good location. You'll be looking for a high traffic area or an area where you can fulfil a specific need (for example, the "extortion" vendors on the Isle of Fire do a brisk trade in recall runes, recall scrolls and recall reagents for the recently deceased and resurrected). Once you have established yourself in the community, location becomes less important. One of the most important items to sell is a recall rune to your vendor. I've sold over 1500 to mine, and more sell every day. I now have customers that recall in just to do a little shopping, and then they're on their way again.

Your location has to be capable of supporting a structure of some kind. Vendors can only be placed inside or on the steps of public player owned buildings. You don't have to actually own the structure - if you find a nice spot with a building already present, see if you can track down the owner and buy the right to place a vendor there (for more info about placing vendors, see Step 3).

You can purchase a contract of employment for approximately 1500 gp. These contracts can be purchased from most innkeepers around the land. The money that you spend here actually goes toward Marlene's daily upkeep, so consider it to be a down payment on your future.

Here are the current rules for vendor placement:

• Vendors may only be placed inside or on the steps of player owned buildings.
• Before you can place a vendor, the building has to be "public" (as opposed to "private"). The front door of a public building can not be locked.
• If a public buildings has more than one room (i.e. most larger structures), the interior doors of the building can still be locked.
• To place a vendor you need either to be the owner or co-owner of the building or a "friend" to the building.
• The limit of vendors per structure is 100 (in other words, as many as you care to jam in).
• The ownership of vendors is non-transferable (in other words, only the person who places Marlene can give her orders and maintain her). Regarding re-deeded vendors, only the original owner of the vendor will be able to reactivate her.
• OSI has kept us on the hook about the declaring public buildings to be guard zones, at the option of the owner of each building, for a long time. There's still no definite word on if and when theses porta-guards will be implemented.
• As long as there is a vendor inside (or on the steps of) a house, the owner of the house cannot change it from public to private.

Note: One side effect of the vendor rules, which is good for homeowners and merchants alike, is that it is easy to rent out space to vendors. While there is still no mechanism inside the game for rent collection (that will still have to be on a player-player basis, with some trust involved), a homeowner doesn't have to give up her key to allow another to place a vendor inside the house. Merchants will have to trust their landlords enough, however, not to worry that the building will be demolished while the unsuspecting vendor is still hard at work.

To place Marlene you have to be friended to (or an owner of) the building inside which you wish to place her. You'll want to remember to regularly refresh the building - if the building goes *poof*, then so does Marlene, with all of her goods. To place Marlene, stand in the spot in which you wish her to appear and double click on the contract of employment. She will appear right on top of you and be ready for immediate action. The vendor will be given a random name and random clothing (though all have thigh boots, a sash, etc., the colours vary), neither of which you can change at this time. The vendor starts empty - but some of the money paid for her contract goes toward her upkeep and is enough for about three days. (If Marlene is facing the wrong direction, simply stand where you wish her to face and say "Marlene status" - she'll turn to greet you.)

Your vendor is limited by several program rules. Firstly, she cannot hold more than 400 stone of weight, just like other non-secure containers.

Secondly, the combined count of individual items and stacks on your vendor cannot exceed 125. A stack of anything counts as one item for this rule.

Thirdly, not just anything on a vendor can be left 'not for sale'. For an item to remain 'not for sale', it must fall into one of four categories:

1. books
2. unlocked containers containing only "for sale" or exempted items
3. items inside a container that is marked "for sale"
4. key rings

Anything else left 'not for sale' on a vendor will be priced at its NPC shop price as soon as you take an action other than setting the price. Keep in mind that NPC shops set very little value. You could drop a full suit of fortification plate armour off on your vendor while you ran to town and come back to find it gone with only a pittance of gold in its place.

Many vendor owners use gems or gold coins to make icons or words in their vendor's packs indicating such things as the circle of spells in a pouch or surrounding an important book for emphasis. Unfortunately, even though gold only weighs 1/50th of a stone each, a single gold coin not only weighs 1 stone (ouch), it also takes away from your item limit (125 total). Furthermore, unless you assign a price to these gold pieces and gems, you risk having the game assign a price to them (although for gold this is a non-issue).

I recommend two different methods of labelling your wares. Firstly, you should label all interior containers, just like you'd give any item on your vendor a description (for more details, see below in the section on Stocking Your Vendor). Secondly, you can place a 'not for sale' book adjacent to the container with a description of what's to be found within. This will enable players to click on the book to see what's in each container.