Kingdom of sartar economics?

[Ironwall]

How does the prince of sartar make an income I take it they tax merchants on the roads but do the tribes of sartar also have to provide taxes and or labour? I mean all that gift giving a good king does has to be expensive

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, Ironwall said:

How does the prince of sartar make an income I take it they tax merchants on the roads but do the tribes of sartar also have to provide taxes and or labour? I mean all that gift giving a good king does has to be expensive

The Prince receives revenues from such sources as tolls on roads; tariffs; excise duties; contributions from the tribes, temples, and cities; minting coins; royal herds; as well as plunder and tribute through war. Such revenues made the Prince richer than most Lunar satraps.  

[Darius West]

Remember too, that excess wealth the Prince possesses will be invested into lands and businesses where possible.  As the yearly wealth production of the Prince's investments begins to grow, the burden of taxation can be reduced on the economy, leading to a more popular rule.

[Jeff]

I don't think there is much investment going on beyond facilitating trade. The wealth from taxing trade caravans between Peloria and the Holy Country dwarfs whatever you might get out of the local tribes.

[Darius West]

You can buy up pasture and cropland, or have land cleared.  You can invest in roads and bridges that you can then tax.  You can invest in merchant trains to expand them in return for a portion of the ongoing profit, or start your own.  A ruler may well want to invest in a winery so that you won't be at the mercy of the local market.  It makes sense to invest in quarries as few people besides kings can afford major capital works.  If you can obtain title to a mine, that is an excellent money maker, assuming it isn't tapped out.  As guilds exist by and under the authority of a royal charter, the ruler has the ability to make a demand for X number of goods they make, by a certain date, and at the market price, and may then dispose of those goods as they see fit provided they don't abuse the terms of the guild charter.  As all authority for the minting of coins is ultimately sovereign authority, a ruler has the right to own, build, and expand their own mint.  There are lots of other examples. 

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

You can buy up pasture and cropland,

Provided anyone is selling...

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

or have land cleared. 

that is worth clearing and has not already been cleared.

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

You can invest in roads and bridges that you can then tax. 

The princes have invested heavily in infrastructure - Tarkalor built the harbor in Karse, Terasarin built an entire city, a royal road, etc., and only Salinarg's reign was cut short. Temertain never really took the reigns, and Kallyr built a planet's path in the sky.

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

You can invest in merchant trains to expand them in return for a portion of the ongoing profit, or start your own. 

Argrath has seen most of the markets in the south, and brought back sample goods and artifacts. Without a sea port, there is nothing he can do about that, yet. (Corflu doesn't really count.)

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

A ruler may well want to invest in a winery so that you won't be at the mercy of the local market. 

It looks like Argrath is into beef futures. White Bull, bringing back an aurochs, or so...

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

It makes sense to invest in quarries as few people besides kings can afford major capital works.  If you can obtain title to a mine, that is an excellent money maker, assuming it isn't tapped out.  As guilds exist by and under the authority of a royal charter, the ruler has the ability to make a demand for X number of goods they make, by a certain date, and at the market price, and may then dispose of those goods as they see fit provided they don't abuse the terms of the guild charter.  As all authority for the minting of coins is ultimately sovereign authority, a ruler has the right to own, build, and expand their own mint.  There are lots of other examples. 

A war leader may invest in an industry providing his troops and mercenaries with equipment and food, and possibly mounts. And infrastructure.

But hey, that's how Sartar started, at Wilmskirk.

It also may be Fazzur's business model - it looks like he sits where the Tarshites breed the horses for their cavalry, and to sell to the Lunar forces stationed there or supplied through there.

Unless Sartar gains access to unminted precious metal, all the mints can do is use existing coinage and re-mint those.

Selling monopolies and offices is how the Red Emperor creates wealth for himself and his orgies. And he pays his debts by granting land that he has at best tenuous authority to give away.

As to infrastructure, Pelorians invest in and maintain waterways and waterworks. And temples. Roads are built by and for Orlanthi. Including the Daughter's Road.

The house of Sartar has been building temples, too. E.g. to Uleria.

[Squaredeal Sten]

It would be very Bronze Age for great kings to invest in very-long-distance trade as financiers, whether as lenders or as shareholders or as principals for whom the merchants work.  Also to support trade by suppressing banditry in his own territory, and by suppressing neighbors if they rob his merchants too much.  I am not claiming those are canon for Glorantha.  

But they might provide someone with a starting hook for a campaign.  Has anyone fleshed out Pamaltela?  If not trade to Pamaltela then to the West.

It would also be very Bronze Age for great kings to make a profit out of enslaving folks they conquer.  This would seem to be canon for the Lunars, at least.  Not for the prince of Sartar?  Well the princes of Sartar seem to have occasionally granted that privilege to others in return for service, even if they didn't exercise it directly: See King Tarkalor Trollkiller.

 

 

 

[Joerg]

The Ergeshi - enslaved Kitori - in Sun Dome County / Vanntar from Wyrm's Footnotes 15 have been retconned, it seems.

[Bren]

On 12/2/2021 at 12:16 AM, Joerg said:

The Ergeshi - enslaved Kitori - in Sun Dome County / Vanntar from Wyrm's Footnotes 15 have been retconned, it seems.

It has? When/where did that happen?

I just read about the Ergeshi. Now I may need to consider a different explanation for the Sun Dome PC who got the following result on the Random Boons table:

Quote

 You gain a follower. Perhaps it is a free person who carries your shield and other weapons into battle. Perhaps it is a servant or slave who carries your stuff, makes your meals, or performs other manual labor.

And I liked the helot-like nature of the Ergeshi. A subject people seems to fit well with the militaristic Sun Domers.

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, Bren said:

It has? When/where did that happen?

Word of Jeff, in a recent thread:

6 hours ago, Bren said:

I just read about the Ergeshi. Now I may need to consider a different explanation for the Sun Dome PC who got the following result on the Random Boons table:

And I need to reconsider a plot hook for a scenario I already published in German. Their presence was helping explain a maguffin for the final encounter.

6 hours ago, Bren said:

And I liked the helot-like nature of the Ergeshi. A subject people seems to fit well with the militaristic Sun Domers.

YGWV. There doesn't have to be an Ergeshi population all over Sun Dome County, you could have one variant village.

[Ali the Helering]

One certainly wouldn't want Yelmalions to have any attitudes that might encourage people to join other cults, of course.  After all, Elmali don't enslave entire populations...

[Jeff]

On 12/1/2021 at 10:16 PM, Joerg said:

The Ergeshi - enslaved Kitori - in Sun Dome County / Vanntar from Wyrm's Footnotes 15 have been retconned, it seems.

I find that comment very counterproductive Joerg. Basically there is a balance between do we only publish finalised material or do we publish material that might change as we look more carefully at it? If you say the first, then maybe we shouldn't have published anything at all between 1993 and 2015.

[Jeff]

On 11/30/2021 at 6:36 AM, Darius West said:

You can buy up pasture and cropland, or have land cleared.  You can invest in roads and bridges that you can then tax.  You can invest in merchant trains to expand them in return for a portion of the ongoing profit, or start your own.  A ruler may well want to invest in a winery so that you won't be at the mercy of the local market.  It makes sense to invest in quarries as few people besides kings can afford major capital works.  If you can obtain title to a mine, that is an excellent money maker, assuming it isn't tapped out.  As guilds exist by and under the authority of a royal charter, the ruler has the ability to make a demand for X number of goods they make, by a certain date, and at the market price, and may then dispose of those goods as they see fit provided they don't abuse the terms of the guild charter.  As all authority for the minting of coins is ultimately sovereign authority, a ruler has the right to own, build, and expand their own mint.  There are lots of other examples. 

My comment is that I do not think the Princes made "investments" in anything. Sartar built things that helped him build a kingdom. He built roads, cities, inns, and libraries because those things helped him transform the independent petty tribes of eastern Dragon Pass into a mighty nation. Encouraging trade means the Prince has access to the wealth of trade - but it also means that the tribes have a stake in peaceful resolution of disputes, as they too gain wealth from trade.

His successors did the same because that is what a Prince is supposed to do. 

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

I find that comment very counterproductive Joerg.

 

 

You are right. I should have taken this departure from a previously established Gloranthan fact as yet another creative challenge to preserve my playable ideas in the region while adapting to the new circumstances.

So, in one of the stations of my quasi-pilgrimage to Nochet with the corpse of the ancient Astrelia priestess I had an encounter where a group of Ergeshi serfs identifies one of the grave goods carried along - a Kimantoring lead mask unearthed in the Pavis Rubble - and become unruly as their Darkness inheritance is abruptly awakened. That mask is part of a set of maguffins for the scenario, and this was an opportunity to make the player characters aware of some of its potential.

Without Ergeshi helots, I need something to replace that.

Now I probably need to use the spirits or shades of Kitori ancestors left orphaned in the land when the Sun Domers took over to react to the mask, in a non-threatening way. Which is kind of hard if you have shadows forming from the ground and approaching the party...

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Basically there is a balance between do we only publish finalised material or do we publish material that might change as we look more carefully at it? If you say the first, then maybe we shouldn't have published anything at all between 1993 and 2015.

If something has been marked as "work in progress", people adapt it to their Glorantha knowing it might not survive a later editorial or creative process. We had no such warning for that article authored by the two sources for the definitive version of Glorantha.

 

 

 

[Darius West]

On 12/7/2021 at 11:46 AM, Jeff said:

My comment is that I do not think the Princes made "investments" in anything. Sartar built things that helped him build a kingdom. He built roads, cities, inns, and libraries because those things helped him transform the independent petty tribes of eastern Dragon Pass into a mighty nation. Encouraging trade means the Prince has access to the wealth of trade - but it also means that the tribes have a stake in peaceful resolution of disputes, as they too gain wealth from trade.

His successors did the same because that is what a Prince is supposed to do. 

The term investments is a modern one, but essentially it means spending money to acquire assets that will generate wealth, and it has been going on since before humans invented agriculture in one form or another.  Educating your young?  That's a retirement investment to a tribal person. In terms of Sartar, roads, cities, inns and libraries are all investments, like it or not, and if they can be invested in, why not industries too?  If the Prince owns his own herd of horses, or his own estates, that is an investment as well, and frankly for any crown authority not to control some sort of industrial monopoly on something would be just odd, historically speaking.  The classic bronze age example of such a monopoly is that monarchs owned tin or copper mines and/or smithies, and the smiths were often slaves, better treated than most, but crippled deliberately to stop them fleeing with their metallurgical secrets (hence the crippled smith archetype best personified by Hephaestus), the research for which had likely been funded by the monarch, and they didn't want that information being spread.

[Ian_W]

Sartar was essentially a King who unified his kingdom with roads and trade, rather than with blood and fire.

 

Therefore, this is what I'd expect of his successors.

 

Being a partner in trade. The Commenda contract was a medieval staple - two partners, one of whom sits at home and provides the capital, and one of whom goes on the road and takes the risks. Profits are split 50/50. Note the Prince could do this directly, or via middlemen. Note banditry is traditionally utterly endemic in Orlanthi societies ('They were on Blue Fox land. That makes them Blue Fox merchants ! So we raided them !'), and if you as Prince are providing more security than Orlanthi trade oaths traditionally expect then it'll be more profitable than usual.

 

Investing in Inns and so on. I would be amazed if the Prince of Sartar isn't a silent partner in Geo's, for example. Note if you buy the land (or rights to build on the land) before you build the road, then suddenly it's so much more valuable.

 

Cattle loans on extortionate terms have been a staple of Orlanthi cheiftans since Heort was a boy. It's a short step from lending a cow and getting back the first and third calf every season to lending a loom and getting back three baskets of wool and cloth every season.

 

I don't think enforcing monopolies on Orlanthi is going to go very well, what with their history of rebelling against bad, oppressive kings. Do that at the other end ie negotiate with Belintar that only Royal Caravans can buy silk. Then it's that bastard The Pharoah, not the Prince of Sartar 😉