[Aryn Ravenlocke]

THe priceof CNR items like eggs is all about supply and demand. Yes, eggs are relatively risk free to procure. They just take a VERY long time to procure in large numbers. Learning to scribe will run a crafter through an entire box of eggs on only a few minutes, even without batch crafting. Depending on rates of success and other factors, a dedicated scribe might go through as many as 20 or 30 boxes of eggs just to get themselves to a point where they might start making useful scrolls. So many other steps go into making any attempts at scribing, that collecting eggs just becomes burdensome. As a result, characters with loads of coin are willing to part with the easily made coin in order to save themselves a LOT of work. As it is the will still have a bunh of other hoops to jump through before the can make even one attempt at scribing something.

It used to be that only one or two characters in all of Layo would be truly dedicated to scribing at a time. Then, once they had reached a 'useful' scribing level, they would move on and only scribe as necessary. Now however, many more people are attempting to scribe. This results in eggs being even harder to come by in massive quantity now than they were before. Is 5000 gp per box of eggs a bit excessive? Sure it is. But on the other hand, some characters can afford it, so they might as well. It's a nice way for lower level charaters to raise some money and even learn a bit about cooking. If they are willing to spend the time at low levels gathering the grain and finally the eggs, they will be set for cash once they achieve a slightly higher level and are suddenly able to make use of some of the nicer items available.

YT