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From a Dead World (Skaven Quest)

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Lore: Skaven 'Economics'
  • Informational
    • I'm gonna let the vote stew for a while because I'm a lazy bitch. In the meantime, I might as well drop my interpretation on how money works here.

    Skaven Economics

    Warpstone currency is nominally the standard currency of the Under-Empire, minted in warptokens. Of course this isn't what actually happens - warpstone itself is too rare and valuable to be used as currency by any other than the obscenely rich, especially since a passing Grey Seer could legally grab a handful of one's hard-stolen cash and eat it, and you couldn't even shank them since they'd blow your head off with the power it gave them.

    Instead, what amounts to a complex system of IOUs is used. All Skaven keep a tally of the currency they currently have in their head, and are surprisingly dedicated to remembering exactly how much they have. They 'earn' money from whatever occupation they have, and either promise to owe warptokens to another Skaven when purchasing something, or just perform a task for them. Of course, being Skaven, cheating is rampant in this system, with ratmen left and right claiming to have much more than they actually have. This system becomes self-regulating when their angry debtors rip said boasters limb from limb and divide their theoretical profits amongst themselves. The risks of this generally ensure most cheating is kept to a predictable extent.

    Keeping a hold on this chaotic mess is the Warpfang Bank, famous for always actually getting what they're owed back. There was consideration of making 'The Warpfang Bank gets its due' an official motto, but it was discontinued after several dwarf banks threatened to sue. Dwarven legal suits being perhaps the most feared weapon on the financial market, even the mightiest bank of the Skaven was unwilling to push the issue.
    Rather than attempting to impose any sort of regulations on the market, the Warpfang Bank controls it by being the biggest rat in the sandbox - almost every Skaven in the under-empire owes the Bank money, some even from birth as their birth breeders were bought with loans from the Bank. With that level of control over the cashflow, and extremely vicious and well-equipped collection officers (often better-armed than most military forces due to the Bank's hefty involvement with the four Great Clans), the Bank indeed always gets its due, even if it can't say it in that exact sequence without a fine.

    The IOUS can also be redeemed in other ways than material possessions or work - sufficiently useful tasks accomplished may be judged to be equal to the debt owed. Of particular note is the first Skaven Civil War, where the then-Council of Thirteen collectively dumped all their debt onto the newly-revealed clan Eshin, who promptly paid it all off by assassinating most of the warlords and clanleaders under Pestilens.

    Of course, with such a fluid system as this it's perfectly possible to cheat it. With enough legalese a Skaven may be convinced that he or she owes the Bank much more than they actually do, and they aren't afraid to utilize this strategic records-editing to apply political pressure on their rivals. And it's generally tolerated, for no matter how exploitative the Warpfang may be, the alternative of a free market composed of Skaven is far worse.
     
  • Informational
    • Also explains why the Bank is the only faction to get a diplomacy boost (other than Thanquol who gets a boost in everything). Handling large amounts of money amongst the Skaven a lot of the times boils down to convincing large amounts of sociopaths that they should give you things and not expect them back, and that sort of thing tends to build one's talking skills.
     
    Candymancer said:
    [X] Mors

    A little like Thanquol, but the entire quest won't end with the death of one skaven.
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    Oh, I should probably correct this before I drift off into troubled slumber.

    If the chosen PC, be it Morskittar or Gnawdell or Vrisk, die somehow, the game won't quite end there. The Skaven are controlled by the Council of Thirteen, after all. The one bloke pushing himself or herself up front is a new development, and while it might happen again (ie you guys would get a chance to try) it'd likely fall back to the traditional system. Which would make running this a tad bit complicated, but we'd be able to handle it, and if you kept it stable enough eventually a leader would emerge.

    I will also note that with different factions the level of disarray resulting from the PC dying will be different. Thanquol, for instance, would bring a truly massive cacophony upon his race if he ever were shanked. Skrisnik, not so much, he has assistants.
     
    Xantalos said:
    Keeping a hold on this chaotic mess is the Warpfang Bank, famous for always actually getting what they're owed back. There was consideration of making 'The Warpfang Bank gets its due' an official motto, but it was discontinued after several dwarf banks threatened to sue. Dwarven legal suits being perhaps the most feared weapon on the financial market, even the mightiest bank of the Skaven was unwilling to push the issue.
    Rather than attempting to impose any sort of regulations on the market, the Warpfang Bank controls it by being the biggest rat in the sandbox - almost every Skaven in the under-empire owes the Bank money, some even from birth as their birth breeders were bought with loans from the Bank. With that level of control over the cashflow, and extremely vicious and well-equipped collection officers (often better-armed than most military forces due to the Bank's hefty involvement with the four Great Clans), the Bank indeed always gets its due, even if it can't say it in that exact sequence without a fine.

    The IOUS can also be redeemed in other ways than material possessions or work - sufficiently useful tasks accomplished may be judged to be equal to the debt owed. Of particular note is the first Skaven Civil War, where the then-Council of Thirteen collectively dumped all their debt onto the newly-revealed clan Eshin, who promptly paid it all off by assassinating most of the warlords and clanleaders under Pestilens.

    Of course, with such a fluid system as this it's perfectly possible to cheat it. With enough legalese a Skaven may be convinced that he or she owes the Bank much more than they actually do, and they aren't afraid to utilize this strategic records-editing to apply political pressure on their rivals. And it's generally tolerated, for no matter how exploitative the Warpfang may be, the alternative of a free market composed of Skaven is far worse.
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    Now you're making me want to go with the Bank.
     
    Huh, maybe I should stop being unfair and spill some info from all aspects of Skaven society so that interest in all is relatively uninfluenced by me :p
    'Course I'd have to think up some trivia for each one, but eh
     
    M'kay, this seems to have been a reasonable enough voting period. I'll leave it open for say ... another three hours from now, just in case anyone else wants to hop on the train.
     
    And I've been distracted. Calling it here - I'm fairly sure of the result, but could someone tally it for me please?
     
    Vote tally:
    ##### 3.21
    [] The Navy
    No. of votes: 11
    Dark Ness, The LD Man, Nervos Belli, BurnNote, Heretek, Mask, Cjdavis103, Dream Logic, NSMS, massdefect76, ziizo

    [] Moulder
    No. of votes: 2
    frostgiant, prince84

    [] The Unified Skaven Army
    No. of votes: 2
    Chimeraguard, EVA-Saiyajin

    [] Thanquol
    No. of votes: 18
    sleepyforest, ganonso, MHLord, chriswriter90, GhostKing 666, The Laurent, Gamerlord, skaro, Sirrocco, Flamester, Faux, mc2rpg, Derek58, banelord, Nianque, veekie, LordOfMurder, BCK233

    [] Skyre
    No. of votes: 2
    Necron_Lord, shenron

    []Clan Skyre
    No. of votes: 1
    BoSPaladin

    [] Mors
    No. of votes: 1
    Candymancer

    [] Grey Seers
    No. of votes: 1
    Vaalintine

    Thanquol wins by a good margin.
     
    Excellent.
    Ehehe. This is gonna be a fun one.
    So Thanquol wins it! Good. I have to attend to a long-running RP/God game over on another forum I've been neglecting for several months (yes this is a pattern with me) but once I'm done that I can get the next post out fairly quickly - I spent that excessively long time thinking up a lot of the mechanics I'm gonna use for this stuff, since I hadn't really anticipated the Skaven winning the vote. I know sorta what I'm doing now though, so it should only be a few weeks to a month at absolute worst. Very likely less.
    I'm not abandoning this, I'm just a lazy fucker.
    ...
    I'll get to writings
     
    Xantalos said:
    Oh right, I'll put some headcanon down here.

    Skaven women are generally in two different categories: normal women Iike Paskrit and Gnawdell, who are basically regular Skaven, and the breeders, who are the gigantic mountains of flesh that constantly spew out underlings. The breeders are created via a special ritual that's time and energy intensive, and they need a lot of food, limiting their numbers in a clan.
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    ?
    or
    ?
    or
    ?
     
    Last edited:
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