Gear and Quality

I've been glossing over a bit of the starting equipment and I think I will expand the lists by race so that they are separate things. Steel will be fairly new to Human and plate will be fairly rare. Iron will be much more common and more in line with common use. In most cities and towns, mostly nobles and professional mercs would have access to steel to some extent. The vast majority of standing armies would be mishmash of hide wielding barbarians to more professional skirmishers, spearmen and so forth.

Dwarven gear is more exotic and thus, highly sought after. I going to take the slant that their 'steel' is very much like bronze but much stronger. This will be the most advanced metal to be mass produced. It will also be difficult for non-Dwarves to acquire it since they are a possessive race. However a giant bag of gems can go a long way with Dwarves. Dwarven alchemical-sorcery will less useful to PCs since it will require constant repair. I suspect only the Dwarf title class to be able to use it effectively.

Elven goods are nearly all antique and simply not for sale to non-Elves. In I suspect Elves really have no 'markets' and mostly have prearranged deals spanning decades. They have little need for trade, and when they do they often do so with raw materials rather than finished works. Most Elven military equipment is likewise very old and most Elves are weary of non-Elves carrying their ancient swords and bows.

Halflings are prolific traders and often carry goods of other races, fair and foul. Halfings are not particularly moral when it comes to trade and take a pragmatic position towards what they need. It is not uncommonfor a village of halflings to be trading with a race they were at once in mortal combat with a year ago. Halflings are also have notoriously long memories when towards those who cheat them, often waiting for years before murdering a cheats children.

Other races vary widely with goods, availability and general likelyhood of devouring thier trade partners. So it is no surprise that other inter-race trading is minimal.