Whenever a player dies, whether or not they leave bones, one random object should be selected from their inventory and have its object details written into a persistent file. When this file has some minimum amount of entries in it, subsequent games may generate a new shop type named “trading post” or “rag and bone shop”, which pulls its inventory from the objects in this file. The items could be labeled with the name of the player they came from, e.g. “potion of healing named left behind by Bob”.

There should be some “too strong” objects which aren’t eligible for this, including wands of wishing and quest artifacts (or all artifacts).

The items should be sold at a markup, which could be 2-3 times their ordinary cost or more like 10 times. Highly enchanted items (which are unlikely to be found in a regular store) could be sold with an additional markup.

Possibly, in order to minimize the player’s ability to steal the most valuable items, the shop floor should be small (around 3x3) and the shopkeeper should personally hold the highest-priced items, requiring you #chat to them to get the offers. To signal this, when you enter the shop, they say an additional message: “Ask me about special deals!”

It’s also possible to just have the occasional general store use this mechanic, or to use the “itinerant merchant” idea (#1635) as a dealer of the items.