Re: Virtue and Wealth

From: ian_hammond_cooper_at_...
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 13:41:17 -0000


Tadaaki Kakegawa wrote:
> (2) Wealth. Wergild is detailed in TR, but how can I treat it ?
> HW:RiG says "a cow = wealth rating 15", but how much is wealth
> rating of carl wergild (25 cows) ? I have no idea to calculate
> it ...

These are my thoughts on this at the moment, this is just a wild stab in the dark for us to

explore the issues, I guess I could create some house rules for it when I'm happy with it:

Jeff, are you happy with this here or would you prefer hw-rules.

  1. Heortling society is kin, not individual, based. You don't pay the weregild, your kin do,

and your clan.

2: IMO the wealth rating of a Heortling character represents not just your personal wealth

(how many cows you own, do you have a plough), but also your credit worthiness for loans,

your importance to the clan and ablility to draw upon you clan and kin's resources to obtain

things you need.

3: Unless you kill somebody really important the clan should be able to pay. However the loss

of those cows will reduce the clans wealth. The clan generator gives a clan a wealth rating, used to avoid triggered crises, continual

loss of cattle would affect this rating.

4: I don't think that gaining wergild for somebody who dies increases the clans wealth.

Instead I think it stops it dropping from loosing an economic member of the clan. If you

don't accept wergild, but keeping seeking revenge, I suspect yur clan may also grow poorer.

5: However your & your kin might have to part with personal cattle and wealth, and you'll suffer most direclty from the loss of a member of your family so I suspect

a similar rule applies: test your wealth if you fail the test your wealth drops. I guess if

you loose enough wealth, so does your social status.

6:I posted a stab at 6 a while back and suggested that the resistance was the wealth rating

of the person you killed. The comment was - that is too low - it gives you a 50-50 chance of

no impact on your personal wealth. On reflection I agree, the wergild is worth 10 * your

annual productivity, so it should go harder on an individual if they have to pay or forfeit

payment for a kinsman. I'm now thinking more along the lines of:

Pay or refuse wergild(Wergild of victim): Wealth; Complete Victory +1 to wealth (everyone wants to help you out)

Major Victory 			no change to wealth
Marginal or Minor Victory 	-1/2 * penalty to wealth
Marginal  or Minor Defeat 	-penalty to wealth
Major Defeat			-1 1/2 * penalty to personal wealth; 
Complete Defeat			-2 * penalty to personal wealth;  

Resistances (basically just use the opposition wealth but increased by a mastery), also the

modifier to clan wealth on a complete defeat:

Resistance			Penalty
Cottar: 5W			  -1
Carl: 15W			  -2	
Thane: 5W2			  -4	
Noble: 15W2			  -8
Tribal King: 15W3		  -16		  	

7:I'm still not sure how to quantify the changes to clan wealth, it is less a ourchasing

number than a test for economic crisis number...

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