How did those gamblers drop so many freaking coins on the floor anyway? How many even participated in the games? Or did I misunderstand just where Maximilian found all that money?
Yeah like...on one hand, with ~6000 gamblers, betting up to half their shares (sources below), we made out with ~350 full shares worth. So this is, assuming every one of them took out the full half, a little over 10% of the total money in play during the night of gambling, which is fairly reasonable from a realism standpoint. But since i imagine a good number of them took out less (or even far less) than half, its likely more along the lines of 20% of the money in play, which starts to get a bit more ridiculous...
Especially since, as others mentioned, a full blown
dwarf built fortress was only 1000 gold (between 10 and 100 of these shares, from what boney mentioned, source again at the end of post), and a cheaper stone bailey was 400, while a proper 10 room manor was only 300... hell, for bigger numbers, we have the fact that the EIC shares were originally 1000 gold for 24%, and then later 750 for 12% meaning that the entire EIC, which had *enormous* potential and resources even from the start, was originally only considered worth ~4000 gold, and after a few years ~6250...
Honestly
@BoneyM the fact that rolls of a 67, a 44, and a 93 on a(n admittedly well synergized) pair of downtime actions is enough to earn between 3500 and 35000 gold...which i think literally might equal all the other gold mathilde has made in thequest even at the lower end? It seems... unbalanced from a game perspective. From a realism standpoint i suppose i'm not surprised that 10-20% of the gold in use during a truly drunken gambling fest might have ended up lost, but from a game balance perspective getting
this much money for what we put into it is hard to take in.
...Also, i wonder just how closely Mathilde shadowed max while he was collecting a veritable kings ransom, and how much if any of a cut he got (or took), considering that just makes the numbers even more ridiculous
The only problem is that the type of man who uproots everything to travel on an all-or-nothing Expedition like this very typically has no money to gamble with.
-Snip-
...you announce that every man could sign away up to half his pending payment for an amount of coins, and then in the morning they could trade the coins back and the new distribution of payment due would be duly recorded, witnessed by Ulthar, guaranteed by the Grey Order, and may luck desert anyone that tries to bilk their brothers; you hold up a pair of crossed fingers and wink and most understand instantly, and there's a hushed murmur as they explain it to their slower-minded friends.
The coins are the silver currency of the Moot, which you feel reasonably certain there won't be enough of in circulation here to meaningfully harm the system. They are stamped with the Moot's symbol of a... large male chicken, which delights the men and immediately leads to the most predictable set of bawdy jokes as they line up to make their mark and collect their tokens. Dice and cards had been common enough at the start of the Expedition, but after the personal effects of the fallen had been inherited by the survivors there's more than enough to go around, and any shortfall is quickly corrected when the men realize that if they bet a Karak Norn Dwarf a tankard of ale they could carve a set of dice from wood faster than them, they'd very quickly have a very well made set of dice and all you had to do to pay is walk to the nearest barrel. As the sun touches the peak of Karag Yar, the games begin.
The secret isn't a secret at all, it's obvious. Six thousand gamblers, free ale, insufficient lighting. It occurs to some to scour the area the next morning, either remembering dropping a coin or figuring others would have, but hours before dawn your final accomplice had beat them to it, the night's darkness meaningless for one attuned to the Wind of Metal, for whom every silver coin shines like a beacon. A great many coins signed for by the adventurers had returned to you by Maximilian. Gambling, theft, deceit... three out of four, you decide, will do. You can do some protecting tomorrow.
It's only the next morning as your sluggish brain follows through on the plans your ale-fuelled self had made that you realize that tithing this is going to raise quite a few eyebrows at the Bursary.
One share will be enough to catapult a peasant into 'nicest farm in the village' territory. I've yet to sit down and bang my head against the Warhammer economy but as a non-binding ballpark more than 10 but less than 100 sounds right.
