For this section, I’d like questions. Lots of questions. The more you ask, the more details I can add, the better idea I have of how ven economy (and much of its culture) really works.
Let’s talk about money.
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Ven economy is, for lack of a better term, bazaar. I mean, it’s bizarre. Okay, it’s actually both. The ven never hit mercantilism the way Europe did.
(Mercantilism, by the way, is the economic philosophy based on scarcity of resources. It teaches us that there’s a limited amount of worth, therefore, you must gather as much wealth as possible. That’s why the monarchy and other nobility hoarded gold: there’s only so much of it, and if you have the most, you have the power. It also teaches that the global volume of trade is unchangeable. In other words, value does not adjust based on supply or demand. Now, this is a very simplistic definition of mercantilism, but it illustrates the point well enough.)
The ven have plenty of gold, silver and other precious metals. The sorcerer-kings set up mining operations making it easy for the ven to acquire all the gold, silver and stone they need. Likewise, the jungles provide food, lumber, and other resources. The ven lack for nothing. Everything is there for them. All they have to do is go out into the hungry world and get it.
In other words, in ven economic philosophy, value does not derive from materials, but from pruvst: labor.
Now this provides a bit of a problem for the nobility. After all, if all value is derived from labor, that implies the working class is the source of all value. Of course, you can see where this is headed.
And those of you who don’t know, yeah, that’s exactly where it went. But that’s for another day.
The ven do not have any form of currency. No cash, no coin. Instead, what the ven have are contracts. Agreements to perform. “I make you a sword, you feed me for a year.” Remember: the ven understanding of value comes entirely from labor, so to the ven, “currency” is the agreement to exchange labor. This is how they see the feudal contract. Nobles agree to protect the peasants (“protect” being their labor) and the peasants agree to serve.
This is one of the keystones of ven culture. The only thing in the world that has any true value or worth is labor. Not gold, not water, not iron. Because without the hand to lift, without the mind to work the machine, without the body doing the work, nothing else in the world has any value.
Let’s take a look at the ven economy from three points of view. We’ll start with a typical noble, then look at a merchant, and finally, we’ll talk about how money affects a peasant’s life.
NOBLE
Shara Yvarai never pays for anything. After all, to their peasants, she provides a valuable labor. She can go to a blacksmith and demand a new sword, go to a farmstead and demand food, go to a leatherworker and demand new boots. She provides a valuable service: she protects them from orks and neighboring nobles looking to take over the land. Because of her generosity, because of her kindness, because of her compassion, Shara’s people love her and gladly exchange their labor for hers.
The only thing that matters to Shara—from an economic point of view—is her harvest. Because of the feudal contract between herself and her subjects, she retains a majority of their labor. They pay her in spices, wines, food, lumber and stone: the fruits of their labors. She uses those to make contracts with neighboring nobles, hire personal guards, sheriffs and other officials to protect her roads and villages. She also uses it to expand her domain. A stronger domain leads to more security for her subjects. More security leads to happier subjects.
When outside her domain, Shara’s in a bit more trouble. As a noble, she’s expected to protect the peasants of other domains, but up to a point. The law is specific: a noble is obliged to protect the serving class as long as it does not bring danger to himself. Of course, this specific law is pretty vague on what “danger to himself” means.
Also, she may be in a bit of a pickle if she tries demanding service from peasants and merchants not under the labor of her protection. The unblooded are under obligation to provide for the needs of foreign nobility “so long as it does not put an unreasonable burden upon the peasant.” Again, the term “unreasonable burden” is left up to interpretation.
If a foreign noble goes to a merchant, tradesman, craftsman or peasant and demands service, the peasant may answer, “I am already under the shadow of my lord.” This indicates he cannot cease his current service and the noble has to find peasant to bully around. Of course, the noble can answer such insolence with violence… at a risk. More on that in a bit.
But let’s go back to Shara’s own domain for a moment. A noble has the authority to “protect” his subjects any way he sees fit. If that means fire and pain, he’s within his rights to do so, but there’s a downside to mistreating peasants. Unhappy peasants lead to subtle revolts. Resource shortages. Spies for foreign enemies. Missing sheriffs. The liege who only uses the stick and never offers a carrot learns this lesson. Sooner than he expects.
Now, for the noble caste, the concept of possession is a difficult one. For the blooded, the law states that you only own what you can keep. Actually, that’s almost verbatim from the legal code. If something is stolen from you, obviously, you weren’t clever enough to keep it. And no ven noble would ever admit to being less clever. An insult to yourself. Admitting you had been taken, fooled, tricked. Never. No, nay never. And so, when items are stolen, the subject almost never comes up. The shame of admitting you’ve been put on the wrong end of a trick, that someone got the better of you, is just too great. Just admit to yourself you were beaten and move on.
As for inheritance, that’s a subject of great debate, even among the ven of this era. What does a ven deserve? A noble cannot simply inherit his land from another. He must fight for his lands!
Blood makes the soil rich!
Blood makes the soil rich!
Blood makes the soil rich!
Blood makes the soil rich!
(Remember: the more you say it, the more you must believe it.)
(But don’t overdo it. Style.)
Therefore, when a noble dies, his lands become disputed. Any noble with the strength to take them is fully within his rights to do so. This means the nobles who have an heir in mind put actions in motion ensuring their heir’s success. Of course, just because you have a plan doesn’t mean it will succeed.
And, as Lessons teaches us, you don’t have to be smart to have a plan.
PEASANT
We’ve already spent a little time on peasants, but its worth looking at life in Shanri from their point-of-view.
First off, the peasant class is mostly illiterate. Mostly. There are peasants who can read, but not many, and the nobility doesn’t go out of its way to change that fact. This makes the ven economy difficult—because almost every economic interaction involves a contract. Almost.
Most peasant communities have developed a “share and share alike” economy. The blacksmith repairs everyone’s tools. The farmer shares all his food. The cobbler repairs everyone’s shoes. Hand-me-downs don’t just go from sibling to sibling, but family to family. This is what the ven call tuthallen. I’ve translated this word as “generosity.” The literal meaning is something along the lines of, “What is mine is ours.”
Personal possession is still present in peasant culture, but you have to understand the mindset. For the unblooded, an object can only be claimed if someone else acknowledges it is yours. Your mother passes away, for example, and your father—who inherits all her belongings—gives you her favorite shawl. The community recognizes that shawl as yours.
This brings up the entire notion of inheritance.
But for the moment, understand that among the unblooded, nothing belongs to you unless it has been given to you by someone else. Of course, the sincerity of the gift may go questioned by another, and in that case, the community decides who owns the item.
And by “item,” I mean houses, cows, land, forks. Everything. Possessions belong to the community.
Peasants also spend most of their time toiling away, proving their worth with labor. When harvest arrives, they surrender nearly everything they produce to the liege while he leaves them enough to survive until the next harvest. To be fair, not all lords and ladies are tyrants. A few—a precious few—treat their peasants well. Enough to be exceptions.
But the peasant caste does have enough time to go to town. Each season provides a new opportunity to head to the local village, town or city and trade with distant cousins. Or perfect strangers. Trade is the commerce there. A farmer brings his carrots, peas and ham. A blacksmith has new tools. A carpenter puts up a sign for repairs. Everyone has something to trade. The trick is finding someone with what you want willing to trade for what you’ve got.
The peasant caste trades for tools and repairs. Better tools for the farm, repairs for old tools not ready for abandonment. Most of these deals are made on the spot. Once the trade is made, it’s done. No quibbling, no arguing. Done, done, done.
(That’s the tradition among traders. One says, “Done.” The second echoes his remark. The first says it again. “Done.” “Done.” “Done.” That seals the deal.)
Once a deal is sealed, there is no going back. And because verbal deals are quick, nobody needs to argue over it. If you got shafted, you know to deal with a different trader next time. That’s ven law. Live and learn. And leave me alone.
Long-term deals are also available, but only by contract. Most peasants cannot read, so signing long-term contracts is out of the question. A few bring along a literate relative to look over contracts. Few and far between.
So a peasant’s life is spent in toil and trade. Toil for his labor, trade for his labor. It isn’t a pretty life, no matter how the poets and playwrights try to make it so.
MERCHANT
For merchants in Shanri, the economic situation becomes… a bit murky. Peasants work for their labor. The nobility bleed for their labor. A merchant… he sells the labor of others. Murky.
Ven law has not caught up with the quick rise of the merchant class. Ven who have made a living from the loopholes in the ven economic system. Contracts. It has everything to do with contracts.
The merchant class (not caste) arose twenty years ago when a small group of craftsmen realized their goods were worth more than food. “An apple in the stomach is gone tomorrow, yet my knife cuts more apples,” wrote the merchant Tulthande Shen. He made the connection that his craft remained.
His idea spread quickly, but quietly. Being a ven of half a mind, he knew such an idea was dangerous, so he kept it to himself and a few others. Twenty years later, his circle of friends has grown, but not by much. He remains one of the most powerful and richest ven in Shanri. But his secret, like most secrets, did not stay in its box for long.
The only box that can hold a secret is a coffin.
In the ven era depicted in this game, the merchant class moves closer to eclipsing the nobility. Recognizing goods and services as the prime commodity, they trade for real estate and recognition with the blooded, earning themselves titles, but not the full status of nobility. The “merchant barons” hold lands bartered from nobles in exchange for goods and services, but no noble has traded away any title higher than baron. Not yet, at least. That moment is yet to come.
And no merchant baron has yet to be called “blooded.” For that, a murder must take place.
And so, for the merchant barons, they must be content with their borrowed titles. They own land but cannot pass it down to an inheritor. They have title, but not access to the sorcery of the nobility. They have what might be called wealth, but in fact, they are little more than the peasants they look down upon.
Shluah veth. “Proud dirt.”