Right my 2 cents worth:

If Rowena just takes gold, I see the following benefits.

1) She is charging higher than average alchemists, true.

2) There will be less number of people seeking herbs, such as galingale. Which will open the market focused on the Alchemists - giving the Alchemists the opportunity to sell more of their wares, not to mention cheaper.

3) Herbalists will be as they were before the coming of Rowena, so losing slightly a bit of profit. But since they're not selling that many galingale, it seems irrelevant.

Why would alchemists want to sell any cheaper than we do? Would 1 gold profit per refill be fair, you think?

I think he means at lower cost. But no, Aebrin, how will it open the market for the alchemists? It will TAKE AWAY the market from the alchemists.

Narsrim will agree with me on this, if you wish to place the supreme ownership of alchemy in Serenwilde, kill Rowena.. she isn't hard.

Who said Serenwilde wanted ownership? I'd trade the unintended monopoly to end the bitching.

For me, Rowena is cake. For 90% of Serenwilde, she'd be too hard to kill solo.

Ooh, I have an idea. How about herbalists can sell herbs to Rowena for really cheap prices, like 2 or 3 gold per, except knowing she will buy them, unlike some herbalists who sell barely any of their immense stock of herbs because everyone already has a provider and even when someone doesn't there are so many blasted herbalists out there that it's impossible to be the first to answer a market call, and even if you are first someone else will sell it for cheaper. IF I were an herbalist, I would definetely sell quite a few of my herbs to Rowena in this situation.

Rowena seems to me more like the type to kill you and loot your corpse rather than buy herbs from you... and then when you gather a party of angry herbalists to get her back, she summons Mother Night and just vanishes into the shadows. She's tricky and devious like that.