Wealth

Your wealth is quantified through a scale facet, detailing your financial capacity, ability to acquire goods, investment opportunities, and societal perception. Additionally, pouches represent the coins you carry, while assets signify investments like property or valuable items.

Wealth State

Your wealth is represented by a state that reflects your current financial standing, ranging from immense to none. This state influences how easily you can access resources, acquire goods, or bribe individuals, and is often used to compare against something’s cost, or another persons wealth state.

// Graphic //

Wealth Track

// Graphic //

• Immense – An immense wealth is almost immeasurable and beyond counting, enabling the funding of armies, the building of cities, and the altering of history’s course. Pouches are always filled with gold, jewellery, and gems.
  • Requirement – Certain assets needs to be upheld to maintain this state; a large piece of land to collect taxes from, a great vault for coins, gold, luxury goods, and jewellery, a treasury and tax institution, and a company of guards.
• Vast – A vast wealth signals power of rulers, encompasses extensive properties, lucrative businesses, and treasures beyond most peoples imagination. Pouches are only filled with gold.
  • Requirement – Certain assets needs to be upheld to maintain this state; a small piece of land to collect taxes from, a vault for coins, gold, luxury goods, and jewellery, a host of treasury and tax collection staff, and guards.
• Opulent – An opulent wealth affords a life of luxury, high social standing, and considerable influence. The opulent have access to the finest goods and services, hire servants at a whim, and can make impactful investments. Pouches are mostly filled with gold and silver coins.
  • Requirement – Certain assets needs to be upheld to maintain this state; a fortified manse or tower in either a town or fiefdom, with a handful of household retainers.
• Comfortable – A comfortable wealth signifies financial security, having basic needs comfortably met, with room for occasional indulgences. Pouches are mostly filled with silver and copper coins.
  • Requirement – Certain assets needs to be upheld to maintain this state; a farmhouse, store, or boat. 
• Insignificant – An insignificant wealth, meagre by most standards, and barely a step above having nothing, this status entails minimal possessions and fleeting currency. Pouches are seldom filled with anything but a silver coin or two, but mostly copper coins.
• None – The absolute absence of wealth, where survival hinges on wit, skill, and the occasional generosity of others. In this state, the basics of existence are a constant struggle, with every day a battle to secure the most rudimentary of necessities. If pouches are are filled with anything, its mostly copper coins.

Pouches  

Your wealth is further detailed by pouches. Pouches is an abstraction of the coins you carry around and consists of between three to six slots, depending on the playbook you start with. Whenever you trade or try to acquire something with your wealth, you may risk losing a pouch. 

Careful management of pouches, either by saving up existing ones, finding, or earning new ones, can grow your wealth state over time. If you fill all your pouch slots during play, you may during the next downtime phase (between adventures) use one downtime action to increase your state. Doing so, while fulfilling any wealth state requirements, makes you face a challenge, while investing all pouches in the new state. If you succeed, your state has increased one step until the next adventure. Costly successes means a problem occur you need to deal with, while failures means you loose al pouches without increasing your wealth state. A triumph means you succeed and at the same time create an asset, while catastrophe means you lose all pouches, and instead decrease your wealth one step. 

Assets

Assets represent significant investments that not only enhance your wealth but can also serve as a buffer during financial downturns, described as a facet. Assets works in two ways. First it is a very valuable facet for your specific wealth state, and you can use it in many types of challenges, like a barge, a stable, a blacksmith forge, or a hidden hideout. Second, assets also works as a cushion when experiencing financial loss. Instead of reducing the wealth state one step, the asset can be sold instead to take the blow. 

To invest in a new asset, you need to locate it during play, it needs to be below your wealth state (see examples below), declare it for the GM. The work to invest in it, if possible, is represented by an acquisition project with at least three slots (the GM determine how many). Each progress slot costs one pouch and takes a week to negotiate and accomplish, using charm and trade when facing each challenge.  If the project is completed successfully, the asset is acquired. Costly success means it either costs an extra pouch or that the step takes double the time to accomplish. Failures means you loose the pouch and make no progress. A catastrophe means you loose everything you try to invest (all pouches), and the investment fails.

Wealth State	Object	Vessel	Business
Immense	Artifact	Armada	Mine, Land tax collection
Vast	Treasure vault	Caravan, Ship	Mercenary company, Merchant house
Opulent	Treasure chest	Carriage, cog	Lumbermill, Trading post
Comfortable	Gold jewellry	Cart, barge	Tavern, Craftsman’s store
Insignificant	Silver jewellry	Small cart, canoe	Sheep Herd, Farmstead
None	–	–	–

Treasures

Sometimes, riches and loot are claimed by PCs that are way above their wealth state, such as treasures from dungeoneering, acquired belongings of gifts from nobles, or discovered artifacts. Unless these treasures are somehow transformed into means of trade (such as pouches of coins) or barter, they won’t affect the player’s wealth state.

Using Your Wealth

When using your wealth to buy something or services, invest in something, or in another way use your money, clearly state your goal and how the wealth is utilized. If your wealth state is greater than the cost of the object in question, you simply get it, without any transactions or challenges. As a player, you narrate how you buy it, and note any new items down in the playbook. 

However, if you want to buy something with a cost equal to your wealth state, you must pay a pouch and face a challenge to try to acquire it. A failure or worse means it costs a second pouch. If you don’t have a second pouch, this instead reduces your wealth state by one step. Whatever the consequence, you must find a rationale in the narrative to explain how the trade and change of wealth happens.

You can never acquire something with a cost higher than your wealth state. 

Outcomes of Trading

Here’s how trading outcomes affect gameplay:

• Triumph – Your trading efforts exceed expectations spectacularly, not only securing the desired goods or services but also establishing a new favorable trade relationship or significant discounts for future transactions (note it down in your playbook). This outcome could result from exceptional bargaining skills, leveraging invaluable information, or offering something of immense value to the other party.
• Success – The trade concludes satisfactorily for both parties involved. You acquire what you were after at a fair price, and the seller gains a profit or valuable trade in return. This outcome is typical of straightforward transactions where both parties’ expectations are met without complications. 
• Costly Success – While you manage to secure the trade, it comes at a higher cost than anticipated. This could be due to the seller’s shrewd negotiation tactics, unexpected tariffs, or the urgent need for the goods making you willing to pay a premium. If so, you acquire it to the price of an additional pouch.
• Failure – Your attempt to negotiate or trade falls flat, resulting in either overpayment without securing the item or leaving the negotiation table empty-handed. This outcome might stem from poor negotiation tactics, insufficient funds, or the seller’s firm stance on the value of their goods or services.
• Catastrophe – Not only does the trade not go your way, but it also ends disastrously, perhaps leading to a loss of goods, resources, or reputation. This could be due to a severe miscalculation, deceit (such as receiving counterfeit goods), thievery, or even robbery. The ramifications of this outcome can have a long-lasting impact on your financial situation and trading relationships.

Impressing People

Sometimes, a PC can utilize its wealth to impress and through that influence others (on the same wealth state or lower) in a scene. This needs preparations beforehand in some way, either by prepping the scene with luxury goods or gifts, or by adding wealth attributes to signal the wealth state, or by flashing assets or expensive belongings. When doing so, pay one pouch, and substitute the relationship state with the wealth state to the upcoming challenge. For an extra pounch spent the PC gets a lavish advantage.