None at all...
What increases abilities is spending Hero Points (HPs) on them. Buying abilities with HPs is cheaper when they are 'related' to the last gaming session. If the last gaming session was a successful cattle raid, any Narrator worth his salt will consider increasing wealth to be 'related'.
Cattle are too valuable to keep :-) You can give them to important people for political influence or the expectation of future help. You can repay your debts. You can sacrifice them to gods. You can help your no-good cousins pay the wergild awarded against them. These activities happen ALL the time. If the players don't 'cement' the benefit of the extra cows by sepnding HPs, the extra cows are 'lost' in such ways.
> Also one of the characters has some of his cows raided of him, how
> does this affect his wealth.
This has been discussed before. Perhaps you will find some food for thought in the archives. However, bear in mind that the 'Wealth' ability is more like a credit rating than a bank balance. The character could call in cattle loans and ask favours from close relatives to make good the shortfall, so the loss of cows need not have an *immediate* or proportional effect on 'Wealth'. Even someone with all their cows taken does not have their wealth reduced to zero.
Did the raiders succeed because the character was defeated in a contest or scenario, or because of Narator fiat?
If the loss was due to Narrator fiat, I suggest making the penalty depend on what happens *subsequently*, and ensure their is a contest of some sort. Its an excuse for a short scenario (at least), and it would be fair to warn the character that the outcome could affect their wealth rating. Does the character stage a counter raid to regain cattle? Engage in some clever trading to make good the loss? Call on Uralda to make his existing cattle more fertile? Kill a cottar of the raiding clan in retaliation (and thus demonstrating that cows are 'safe in his hands')?
I suggest you make the magnitude of loss depend on the level of defeat suffered. I'd choose a loss of 1--3 in Wealth ability.
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