[SYSTEMS] Concepts - The Bank & The House

Wages and Wagers.

Continuing our newest feature— in anticipation of our upcoming [SYSTEMS] Graphic Novel Sourcebook, all through June we’ll be highlighting concepts found in the sourcebook here as posts. First is an examination of the dominant currency in our universe, the Khoin.

If you’d like to get the [SYSTEMS] Graphic Novel Sourcebook, we still have just a handful of the Deluxe Hardcover Edition available for Founding Level subscribers. Upgrade today here:

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THE BANK // 

The Bank on Fayrii is a repository of ideas. Cultivated by scientists and experts operating with the planet’s corporations, these are ideas of enormous value to the higher path of The Institute and The Lab. They are cures and innovations, inventions and improvements. And they can be sold, for a price that would be of no interest to HARMONIO.*

Example:

Dex wants an orbiter to expand his shipping business. HARMONIO projects that Dex will frequently allow unsanctioned goods through on his routes and sets the cost of the orbiter at a prohibitive 6 million Khoin. 

So Dex goes to The Bank. He offers twenty five percent of his shipping business, a lucrative one thanks to said willingness to traffic in unsanctioned goods. The Bank issues him a patent worth 4 million Khoin, bridging the difference, so Dex can afford to buy his ship. 

* The Bank’s repository of ideas acts, in effect, as a Khor-offset. It is tolerated by the Therra/Ordo power structure; but naturally this creates a cold war of sorts between The Institute and The Bank, who are in constant competition for ideas, to say nothing of the philosophic divide.

THE HOUSE //

Even as The Bank complicates the affairs of The Institute, The Syndicate in turn wreaks havoc on The Bank from The House on Heir. 

• The House is the betting market of Heir. 

• Through it, exiled royals place wagers on the positions of The Corporations within The Bank.

• In doing so, they seek to forge or strengthen alliances that will help them reclaim their own stakes on Fayrii. 

• Everything is up for a wager in The House, even life itself (see their system of codified duels). 

Success on the betting markets is not only about royal favor or entertainment for exiles (though it can often be exactly that); it is a means of their own survival, due to the code of vetludi.

THE VETLUDI CODE //

• Whatever is held must be wagered. 

Meaning: Exile wealth on Heir can never hold a fixed or stable position. It must always be put in a state of constant and total risk, or it is seized by The House. 

Exiles therefore seek to diversify their holdings by making a wide array of bets, whether in the markets or on the games of chance in their many luddomos. 

If an exile loses all their holdings at any time, their life is forfeit.

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