Economy & Politics
How power flows through blood and coin
Money ain't just coin out here—it's trust and leverage and survival all rolled into one. The frontier runs on barter as much as currency, on debt as much as payment, on promises backed by steel rather than signatures. Understanding who owes whom, who controls what, and who has the guns to enforce their claims—that's the real education of the frontier.
The Currency Web
What Buys Survival
Money is more than coin—it's trust and leverage. Different currencies dominate different regions, and knowing which to carry where can mean the difference between commerce and robbery.
Iron Bits
The Common Coin
Crude stamped tokens hammered out of Stormrise ore. Heavy, ugly, but common. Each company stamps their own—Consortium bits have scales, Ironbrand bits have gauntlets, independent miners stamp whatever they want. Theoretically interchangeable. In practice, merchants discount unfamiliar stamps.
Value: ~1 bit = a day's basic food (beans, hardtack, water)
Used For: Day-to-day purchases in settlements
Regional Strength: Dust Belt, mining towns, working-class commerce
Drawback: Heavy to carry in quantity, easily counterfeited
Crowns (Silver)
The Standard
Silver Orvain-mint coinage. Smooth, standardized, universally accepted. Each crown shows the Consortium scales on one side, Orvain's towers on reverse. Caravans demand them for bulk trade. Banks accept them without question. Carrying crowns means you're wealthy—or asking to be robbed.
Value: ~1 crown = 50 iron bits = week's wages for common laborer
Used For: Large purchases, professional services, bribes
Regional Strength: Everywhere, but especially Orvain and Consortium territories
Status Symbol: Paying in crowns marks you as serious player
Consortium Marks (Scrip)
Company Currency
Paper currency backed by Consortium gold reserves. More convenient than carrying silver, but requires faith in Consortium stability. Each note is numbered, tracked, and theoretically redeemable at Consortium offices. In practice, remote settlements discount scrip heavily—paper promises don't buy trust.
Value: Face value in Consortium territories, 70-80% elsewhere
Used For: Consortium transactions, rail tickets, official business
Danger: Tying settlements to Consortium coffers through dependency
Counterfeiting: Sophisticated operations exist; Consortium hunts them ruthlessly
Debt Tokens
Promise Notes
Scraps of parchment signed with names or marks. Less formal than banknotes but binding in smaller settlements. "Good for one horse," "Payment for services rendered," "IOU twenty crowns." In tight-knit communities, these work because everyone knows everyone. In larger towns, they're recipes for violence.
Enforcement: Social pressure, threats, violence—in that order
Defaulting: Branded "coin-shadows"—untrustworthy, untouchable
Common Use: Extending credit until harvest, payday, or next robbery
Trade Goods as Currency
The Real Money
Sometimes goods matter more than coins. These serve as shadow-currency across the frontier:
- Salt: Preservative, spiritual protection, trade staple. Good salt worth its weight in iron bits. Consortium controls major sources.
- Bullets: Always valuable, never depreciates. A box of ammunition buys week's food. Custom rounds worth more.
- Lamp Oil: Light means safety. A full can buys loyalty. Running dry means dying in dark.
- Horses: Transportation, status, survival. Good horse worth 500 crowns. Bad horse worth more than no horse.
- Psionic Charms: Protective talismans, ritual components, supernatural tools. Value varies wildly based on buyer's desperation.
- Whiskey: Medicine, painkiller, courage. Fenfire Whiskey especially prized (and dangerous).
The Black Market
Illegal trade dwarfs legitimate commerce in some regions:
- Stolen Goods: Dust Vultures move plunder through Seline Varro's networks
- Contraband Psionics: Illegal charms, banned artifacts, Hollowborn "weapons"
- Forged Papers: Identity documents, travel permits, Consortium scrip
- Information: Secrets, blackmail material, faction intelligence
- Human Trafficking: Slave trade officially banned, unofficially profitable
How the Frontier Makes Money
Mining & Extraction
The Backbone Industry
Iron, coal, and silver pour from Stormrise and Iron Mesa. Dangerous work fueling both industry and war. Miners breathe black dust, die young, but wages keep them coming. Consortium owns most operations. Independent claims exist but face constant pressure to sell.
Economic Impact
- Employment: Largest employer on frontier—thousands work the mines
- Production: Iron for rails, tools, weapons; coal for trains, forges
- Wages: 10-15 crowns monthly for miners, more for specialists
- Life Expectancy: Average miner dies by forty—lung disease, accidents, exhaustion
- Labor Tensions: Strikes crushed by Ironbrands, but organizing continues
Agriculture
Survival Economy
Dust-resistant grains, hardy cattle, cactus fruit in Brimstead. Subsistence first, export second. Most farms produce barely enough to survive. Good years mean surplus to trade. Bad years mean starvation. Durrant area is cattle country—ranching more profitable than farming but requires more land.
Challenges
- Water Scarcity: Irrigation rights cause blood feuds
- Bandits: Raids strip harvests, steal livestock
- Supernatural: Ley-line disturbances, walking dead cattle, cursed crops
- Consortium Debt: Many farmers owe everything to company stores
- Weather: Droughts, dust storms, floods—nature actively hostile
Trade & Transportation
Lifeblood of the Frontier
Caravans carry news, luxuries, survival supplies. Without trade, settlements die. Merchants risk everything moving goods across hostile terrain. Successful traders become wealthy. Unsuccessful ones become corpses. The Consortium controls most major trade through rail monopoly, but independent caravans persist.
Trade Routes & Profits
- High-Value Goods: Coffee, spices, fine weapons, silk—huge markups
- Bulk Commodities: Grain, salt, lumber—lower margins, higher volume
- Supernatural Trade: Charms, artifacts, ritual components—niche but profitable
- Protection Costs: 20-30% of cargo value goes to guards and bribes
- Insurance: Informal—lose cargo, you're bankrupt
Crafts & Services
Essential Specialists
Blacksmiths, tanners, wagon-makers, doctors. Every settlement needs these trades. Good craftsmen command high prices—their skills keep communities alive. Taverns serve double duty: commerce and information exchange. A good barkeep knows more secrets than most sheriffs.
Key Professions
- Smiths: Weapons, tools, horseshoes—always in demand
- Doctors: Scarce, expensive, often self-taught
- Undertakers: Steady work—frontier provides constant customers
- Lawyers: Rare but powerful—navigate debt, property, contracts
- Psionic Healers: Illegal in many places, but desperate people seek them
Violence as Industry
The Growth Sector
More men make living through violence than agriculture. The frontier doesn't just tolerate professional killers—it requires them. Sheriffs, soldiers, bounty hunters, gunslingers, executioners. Violence is service industry, and business is booming.
Rates for Killing
- Bounty Hunting: 50-5,000 crowns depending on target
- Ironbrand Service: 8-12 crowns monthly for soldiers
- Mercenary Work: 20+ crowns per job for specialists
- Assassination: 100-1,000 crowns (most won't take contracts)
- Psi-Slinger Services: Duncan charges 30-50 crowns per job minimum
Illegal Economies
Dust Vulture Operations: Stolen goods fenced through complex networks. Seline Varro moves merchandise through five territories using smugglers who don't know they work for her. Profit margins huge because acquisition cost is zero (theft).
Contraband Trade: Fenfire Whiskey, banned psionic fetishes, Hollow Men "weapons," forged documents. Outlaw trade networks rival Consortium supply lines in sophistication. Some say Consortium secretly benefits—competition keeps them honest.
Protection Rackets: "Pay us or bad things happen." Sometimes it's Dust Vultures. Sometimes it's Ironbrands calling it "security contracts." The line blurs.
Who Rules and How
Orvain Crown & Parliament
Urban Power Structure
Official government based in Orvain. Constitutional monarchy with parliamentary system. In theory, they govern the frontier. In practice, their authority reaches only as far as the Consortium's rails. Send laws, collect taxes (sometimes), appoint territorial governors (who get ignored). Frontier settlers view them as distant, irrelevant, and occasionally dangerous.
Real vs. Theoretical Power
- Laws Passed: Many, detailed, mostly ignored past rail terminals
- Tax Collection: Spotty at best—Consortium collects and keeps most
- Military Force: Minimal—relies on Ironbrands they don't control
- Enforcement: Stops at Orvain city limits, basically
Local Town Councils
Practical Governance
Elected or self-proclaimed leaders in settlements like Brimstead and Bellhaven. Power rests on militia muscle more than legal authority. Council meets weekly (or when crisis demands), makes decisions affecting daily life—water rights, trade agreements, hiring protection. Democracy mixed with desperation.
Typical Council Composition
- Mayor/Head Councilor: Usually wealthiest or toughest resident
- Sheriff: Law enforcement, military commander
- Merchant Representatives: 2-3 traders with economic stake
- Religious Leader: Priest, preacher, or shaman
- Landowners: Ranchers, farmers with property
Rail Baronies
Feudal Lords in All But Name
Wealthy men who own specific lines of rail. They control everything along their routes— fares, schedules, security, even justice. Their enforcers are judge, jury, and often executioner. Miss a payment? Evicted. Cause trouble? Disappeared. The Consortium officially disavows them. Unofficially profits from their efficiency.
Notorious Rail Barons
- Lord Marshal Vorren Haldane: Chief magnate, controls Silver Line
- Baroness Kirelle Dorn: Spymaster, buys secrets like cattle
- Baron Marcus Trell: Runs Fen Spur, notorious for brutality
Outlaw Confederacies
Governance Through Violence
Dust Vultures aren't anarchists—they're organized. Maeve's confederacy has structure: flight-leaders negotiate truces, divide spoils, coordinate raids. Not formal government but functional alternative. They provide justice (rough), protection (expensive), and freedom (if you don't mind theft being policy).
Religious Orders
Governance of Conscience
The Crossing-Faith (pilgrims, moderate believers) moves quietly but steadily, holding sway over hearts. They don't govern land but govern souls. Redeemers take this further— establish "Redeemed" enclaves where scripture is law. Stroud's word becomes judicial ruling, execution, and salvation all at once.
Political Tensions
Consortium vs. Outlaws
Silver rails versus stolen goods. One claims law, the other claims freedom. But the lines blur—Consortium secretly deals with outlaws when convenient. Some rail barons pay Dust Vultures to raid competitors. Everyone's corrupt; question is how openly.
Orvain vs. Local Towns
Orvain demands taxes. Brimstead sends back letters and bullets. Distant government versus immediate survival. No one on the frontier believes Orvain understands their lives. Orvain thinks frontier settlers are ungrateful criminals. Both have points.
Faith vs. Wardens
Pilgrims preach healing. Wardens enforce fear. Silent war for souls defines the Fen. Both claim to protect people. Both extract prices. Pilgrims want tithes and faith. Wardens want payment and obedience. Citizens choose based on immediate threat.
Rail Barons vs. Miners
Strikes. Riots. Bloodshed. Rails squeeze profits from workers' lives. Miners break under pressure. Occasionally they organize—union meetings in secret, coordinated work stoppages. Ironbrands crush these movements brutally. But organizing continues because dying slowly in mines is dying either way.
Moving People, Goods, and Information
Rail Transportation
The Consortium's Control
Rails are the frontier's circulatory system. Control the rails, control the economy. The Consortium knows this. Every line they build extends their power. Every town that depends on rail shipments becomes Consortium territory whether they want it or not.
Rail Network
- The Silver Line: Orvain → Kessick → Rustwater Basin → Iron Mesa (spine)
- The Fen Spur: Connects Bellhaven to network (sabotaged often)
- Branch Lines: Small spurs to major settlements (Durrant, others)
- Avoided Areas: Lathrop, deep Fen, unstable ley-line zones
Cost & Speed
- Passenger Ticket: 2-5 crowns depending on distance and class
- Freight Rates: 1 crown per ton per 100 miles
- Speed: 12-15 mph average, cuts travel time in half vs. horse
- Risks: Derailment, sabotage, supernatural storms, raids
Horse & Wagon Travel
Traditional Transportation
Most frontier travel still happens on horseback or by wagon. Horses are freedom—you choose your route, your pace, your risks. But horses require food, water, and care. They break legs, throw shoes, die of thirst. A man without a horse is a man waiting to die.
Costs & Maintenance
- Good Horse: 50-100 crowns (working horse), 200-500 (warhorse)
- Daily Needs: Feed, water, grooming—about 1-2 crowns per week
- Replacement: Horses die regularly—always have backup plan
- Wagon: 30-50 crowns, requires draft animals (expensive)
Caravan Operations
- Minimum Size: Never travel alone—six wagons minimum for safety
- Guards: Hire protection—20-30% of cargo value typical
- Routes: Follow established trails marked by stone cairns
- Speed: 15-20 miles per day good weather, less in storms
Waterways
River Commerce
Current's Bend is navigable. Flatboats and rafts move goods but risk Stormcallers and Fen-wraiths. Water travel has advantages—harder for bandits to ambush, can carry heavier loads. Disadvantages: supernatural threats drawn to flowing water, limited routes, weather dependent.
River Trade
- Fen Channels: Treacherous but vital—only Fenwatch Wardens guide safely
- Guide Fees: 10-20 crowns per boat (extortionate but you live)
- Cargo Capacity: Much higher than wagons—profitable if you survive
- Seasonal: Spring floods best time, summer drought worst
Communication Networks
How Information Moves
Methods
- Couriers: Fast riders, psionically shielded against mind-readers, prone to ambush. Charge 5-10 crowns per urgent message.
- Rail Telegraphs: Limited but growing. Messages from Orvain reach Brimstead in days—if wires aren't cut. Consortium controls all lines.
- Word of Mouth: Caravans carry stories faster than coin. Rumors travel fastest method. Also least reliable.
- Seer-Dreams: Rare psions project visions across distances. Used sparingly—burns them out quickly. Circle of Ash monopoly on technique.
Travel Dangers
Natural Hazards
- Dust Storms: Appear without warning, bury wagons, strip flesh
- Flash Floods: Dry creek beds become torrents in minutes
- Lightning: Stormrise Bluffs particularly deadly
- Heat/Cold: Desert days scorch, nights freeze
Human Threats
- Bandits: Dust Vultures and independent raiders
- Crooked Militia: Some "guards" worse than bandits
- Desperate Settlers: Starving people will kill for food
- Redeemers: Stop travelers, check for psionics, execute suspects
Supernatural Hazards
- Ashborn: Dust-storm phantoms in the Belt
- Lantern Man: Lonely roads at night
- Veil Bleed Pockets: Reality distortion zones
- Walking Dead: When river reverses, drowned folk walk
Cultural Practices
Hospitality & Tradition
- Traveler's Right: Tradition demands shelter to strangers—but with caution
- Never Whistle at Night: It "calls someone"
- Trust Your Horse: If mount balks, listen—they sense supernatural
- Throw Salt After Crossing Water: "Seals the path" behind you
- Camp with Fire Always: Supernatural won't approach flames
- Guides Are Sacred: Breaking guide-client trust means death sentence
The Real Power Structure
Forget official titles and legal documents. Real power on the frontier comes from three sources: control of resources, command of violence, and manipulation of dependency. The Consortium has all three. Everyone else fights for scraps.
The Consortium's Economic Stranglehold
- Rails: Control transportation, control everything that moves
- Currency: Issue the money, control its value
- Credit: Extend loans settlements can't repay, foreclose when convenient
- Monopolies: Own sources of essential goods—salt, tools, weapons
- Information: Telegraph lines mean they know everything first
- Violence: Hire Ironbrands to enforce economic decisions
Result: Settlements become dependent. Miss one payment and lose everything. Resist and face eviction backed by professional soldiers. The Consortium doesn't conquer through war—they conquer through debt.
Economic Survival Strategies
For Settlements
- Diversify Income: Never depend on single industry or buyer
- Maintain Independence: Avoid Consortium credit if possible
- Barter Networks: Trade goods directly, bypass currency
- Stockpile Essentials: Salt, ammunition, medicine for hard times
- Factional Balance: Play factions against each other for better terms
For Individuals
- Multiple Skills: One profession isn't enough—diversify
- Cash Reserve: Keep emergency funds in crowns, not scrip
- Portable Wealth: Horses, tools, weapons—things you can carry if fleeing
- Information Value: Secrets and knowledge worth more than money
- No Permanent Loyalty: Today's employer is tomorrow's enemy