9 Trade and the City Economy
This chapter is player-safe. It describes Varenhold’s economy, currency, prices, and trade networks - everything you need to understand what things cost, what’s hard to find, and how commerce works in a city that’s been economically declining for fifty years.
9.1 Currency
Varenhold uses a three-tier currency system that is shared (with minor variations) across most of the Graymere Reaches.
| Coin | Name | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copper | Mark | Base unit | Small, worn thin; many circulate that predate the twilight by decades |
| Silver | Writ | 10 Marks | The everyday currency for significant purchases; the word “writ” comes from its origin as a promissory note in early trade |
| Gold | Amber Script | 100 Writs | Large gold coin; rarely seen in ordinary commerce; used for property, major contracts, and inter-city trade settlements |
The Twilight’s Effect on Currency: Fifty years of economic decline have produced specific currency phenomena unique to Varenhold:
- Mark debasement: The city has been melting and recoining marks at reduced copper content since Year 30 of the twilight. Old pre-twilight marks are visibly thicker and worth slightly more to savvy merchants (about 12 marks per writ rather than 10).
- Credit culture: The Merchants’ Compact extended a formal credit-writ system forty years ago - small paper documents representing credit against account balances, usable like currency for amounts between 1 and 5 writs. Credit-writs require a Compact-registered merchant to issue. Outside Varenhold they are mostly worthless; inside the city they are accepted everywhere.
- Barter persistence: The Lowmark and parts of the Ashfen Gate district run on significant informal barter - preserved food, services, Dawnhall meal credits - alongside coin. Players who lack coin can sometimes negotiate in kind.
Skill Checks: Currency and Economy
History (proficient)
Varenhold uses a three-tier currency system: copper marks, silver writs, and amber script. The Merchants’ Compact extended a credit-writ system forty years ago; small paper documents usable like coin inside the city, accepted everywhere. Outside Varenhold they are mostly worthless. Pre-twilight marks are visibly thicker and worth slightly more to savvy merchants; the city has been recoining at reduced copper content since Year 30.
Investigation +5
The credit-writ system has a structural vulnerability that most Varenholders do not think about: the writs are backed by the Merchants’ Compact’s guarantee, not by the city itself. If the Compact withdraws the guarantee, the credit system collapses. Anyone who understands how the system actually works knows this. Not many people think about it carefully enough to get there.
Investigation (DC 13, at the Compact office or talking with Lowmark traders)
Credit-writ circulation in the Lowmark has been quietly contracting for the past six months. Traders who accepted five-writ writs without question now ask for coin instead, or impose a small discount for writs over two. This is not official Compact policy; it is individual risk assessment spreading through the market. Something about the city’s financial stability has shifted in how the people who actually trade every day feel about it.
9.2 What Things Cost
Prices in silver Writs, current as of campaign start. All prices are Varenhold prices; goods cost differently in other cities. (+) indicates more expensive than pre-twilight; (-) indicates less expensive; (=) indicates unchanged.
9.2.1 Food and Drink
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bowl of Lowmark Stew | 2 marks | Dawnhall kitchens provide it free; taverns charge 2-5 marks |
| Lumenbread (loaf) | 4 marks | Dense, sweet, keeps a week; produced in amber-warmth ovens (+) |
| Fresh vegetables (bunch) | 8 marks | Expensive; most come from controlled indoor gardens (+++) |
| Smoked river fish | 3 marks | The most affordable protein in the city (=) |
| Greywheel cheese (wedge) | 1 writ | Export quality; Varenhold’s most successful food product (+) |
| Ale (tankard) | 5 marks | Locally produced; reliable quality (=) |
| Wine (cup) | 1 writ | Imported; expensive because trade routes are disrupted (+++) |
| Ashfen marsh oil (small vial) | 3 writs | Essential for Lowmark Stew; imported from the Clans; increasingly expensive (+++) |
| Preserved meal ration (one day) | 8 marks | Trail food; the standard Explorer’s Diet in the Reaches (=) |
9.2.2 Lodging and Services
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Common room bed (per night) | 3 marks | Shared, basic; every district has options |
| Private room (per night) | 1 writ | Clean, single occupant |
| Good inn room with meals (per night) | 3 writs | Outer Ring quality; includes two meals |
| Healer’s consultation | 5 marks - 2 writs | Sliding scale at Healing House; fixed rate at private healers |
| Grey sickness treatment (monthly supply) | 3 writs | Lira’s standard compound; demand always exceeds supply (+++) |
| Guide hire (per day) | 1 writ | City guide; 3 writs for Ashfen marsh travel |
| Lantern rental (per day) | 2 marks | Standard amber lantern; deposit required |
| Stable (horse, per night) | 5 marks | Feed included (=) |
9.2.3 Equipment and Goods
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Amber lantern (standard) | 15 writs | Varenhold’s main export; quality guaranteed (+) |
| Amber lantern (workshop grade) | 40 writs | Calibrated for specific uses; artisan quality |
| Lamp oil (flask, 8 hours) | 3 marks | Locally produced from rendered fat; beeswax variety costs 3x |
| Cold-weather wool cloak | 8 writs | Varenhold specialty; layered construction (+) |
| Dim-tolerant crop seed (sack) | 5 writs | Developed by Spire agricultural researchers; 40% better yield in twilight (+) |
| Standard rope (50 ft.) | 1 writ | No change from pre-twilight (=) |
| Paper (10 sheets) | 3 marks | Slightly cheaper than pre-twilight; Spire produces it (-) |
| Writing kit (ink, quill, case) | 2 writs | (=) |
| Common tool set | 5-15 writs | Depends on trade; blacksmith tools cost more (+) |
9.2.4 Information and Access
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Archive research access (one day) | 1 writ | Public floors only; restricted floors require authorization |
| Merchants’ Compact trade registry (single query) | 3 marks | Who is trading what and where |
| Spire Scholar consultation (one hour) | 5 writs | Junior scholar; Senior Scholar (like Isolde) doesn’t charge, but doesn’t grant access easily |
| Letter of introduction to outside city | 10 writs | Merchants’ Compact can provide; Council endorsement may cost more |
| Map (regional, current) | 5 writs | Orya Doss makes the best ones; Compact sells older versions cheaper |
9.3 The Amber Workshop Economy
The amber workshops are Varenhold’s most successful surviving industry and its defining export. Understanding how they work explains a great deal about the city’s economic structure.
9.3.1 How the Workshops Operate
The amber workshops are a guild-organized industry concentrated in the Dawnhalls district and parts of the Spire Quarter. The Guild Master (currently a woman named Helv Onn, no relation to Saret Onn of the Merchants’ Compact) oversees quality standards, pricing agreements, and the allocation of the amber supply - the semi-precious stone that gives the lanterns their distinctive warm glow.
The basic amber lantern takes approximately eight hours to produce: hand-blown glass housing, amber infusion (a delicate process involving precise heat calibration), and the resonance-setting that determines how the lantern ages. Workshop masters train apprentices for three years. There are currently about 140 active craftspeople in the guild, down from 400 before the twilight.
The paradox: The workshops produce more units than before the twilight but earn less per unit. Demand increased as the twilight made ambient lanterns a necessity across the Reaches. Competition from imitators in Arveth cities has compressed margins. The workshops survive and modestly profit, but the craftspeople earn roughly two-thirds of what they did before the twilight.
9.3.2 What Gets Traded
The amber workshops produce several product tiers:
| Product | Price Range | Primary Market |
|---|---|---|
| Standard amber lantern | 12-18 writs | All Reaches; domestic and export |
| Calibrated concert lanterns | 80-200 writs | Varenhold’s cultural market; limited export |
| Medical amber lamps | 30-50 writs | Healing houses; Solenne medical orders |
| Outdoor rated work lanterns | 20-28 writs | Dusk Parishes farm market; Compact cities |
| Decorative amber panels | 40-300 writs | Luxury export; Compact wealthy class |
| Amber infusion kits (raw materials) | 15 writs | Secondary market for imitators; ironic that Varenhold supplies its own competitors |
9.4 The Black Market
Sensitive information. Available to players who make appropriate contacts.
Varenhold’s black market is not dramatic. It is a survival economy operating in the gap between what the law permits and what people need. The key figures are well known to the Merchants’ Compact and the City Guard, who maintain an informal tolerance - cracking down would remove a pressure valve the city needs.
9.4.1 What’s Traded
| Category | Common Items | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-ritual documents | Copies of ritual fragments; Corven-era correspondence; anything related to the twilight mechanism | Restricted by Council order; high demand from Restorers and Spire scholars; Archivist Theron knows who has copies |
| Grey sickness compounds | Black-market versions of Lira’s treatment compounds; varying quality; some dangerous | Lowmark market; controlled by a distributor named Mave who insists on quality standards |
| Restricted arcane components | Specific reagents the Spire has monopolized; needed for independent ritual research | Spire Quarter; passed through a junior scholar network that Keseph doesn’t know about |
| Outside food | Fresh produce smuggled before customs assessment; avoids the premium tax | Ashfen Gate area; Restorer-adjacent networks sometimes run this as fundraising |
| False papers | Work permits, residence papers, origin documentation | Helka at the Wanderer’s Rest knows who makes them; she does not personally sell them |
9.4.2 Access
The black market in Varenhold is not hidden - it is available to anyone who asks the right people the right way. A DC 12 Charisma (Persuasion) or Intelligence (Investigation) check, plus spending an hour in the Lowmark or the Ashfen Gate district, locates a contact. Asking directly about specific restricted items adds DC 3.
Skill Checks: The Black Market
Insight (proficient)
Anyone who has spent time in the Lowmark or the Ashfen Gate district knows the black market is not hidden. The gap between what the city permits and what people need is wide enough to sustain a substantial informal economy. The key figures are known to both the Compact and the City Guard, who maintain informal tolerance because the alternative is worse. This is not corruption; it is triage.
Investigation +5
The most interesting items in Varenhold’s black market are not food or false papers. They are information: copies of ritual documents the Council has classified, pre-twilight correspondence connected to the Archmagister’s original notes, and Spire research that Warden Keseph’s office has suppressed from official publication. All three categories have active buyers. None of them are publicly asking.
Insight (DC 13, spending time in the Lowmark market)
One section of the black market is run with unusual professionalism: the grey sickness compound distribution. The distributor, known as Mave, insists on quality standards and has refused to carry compounds she considers dangerous, even at significant personal cost. She knows who Lira Anwick is and refuses to sell anything that undercuts the Guild’s legitimate distribution. This is not charity; she has concluded that patient deaths are bad for business long-term.
9.5 What the Twilight Made Scarce
Things that were common in Varenhold before the twilight and are now expensive, rare, or completely absent.
Fresh produce: Anything that requires direct sunlight to grow is either imported at significant cost or available only from the city’s controlled indoor gardens. Tomatoes, certain grains, most fruit. The Dawnhalls’ rooftop gardens help, but not enough.
Dye goods: Many textile dyes require plant materials that won’t grow in the twilight. Varenhold fashion has shifted to undyed wools and linens, or goods dyed with the mineral and mushroom-based alternatives developed over fifty years. Vivid colors are a status marker because they require imported dye.
Glass quality: The specific sand deposits that produced Varenhold’s pre-twilight high-quality glass require processing in direct sunlight. The glassmakers have adapted to amber-light processing, which produces a slightly different (warmer, slightly amber-tinted) glass. Pre-twilight clear glass is an antique.
Optimistic art: This is not a joke. Pre-twilight paintings with bright, warm, day-lit compositions now command significant premiums. They are a reminder of what “normal” looked like. The Outer Ring’s wealthier households often have one.
Spice imports: Three of the Reaches’ main spice trade routes passed through Varenhold. As those routes have redirected, specific spice varieties have become difficult to source locally. The Lowmark spice market (which was famous before the twilight) now sells primarily salt, dried herbs, and Ashfen marsh oil.
9.6 What the Twilight Made Valuable
Things that are worth more in Varenhold now than before the twilight, and why.
Amber lanterns: The obvious one. Demand increased across the Reaches; Varenhold’s workshops have more than paid for themselves even as margins compressed.
Cold-tolerant crop strains: Developed by Spire agricultural researchers and Dusk Parish farmers through fifty years of necessity. The dim-tolerant wheat varieties now grown in the Parishes are worth 40% more than standard wheat in normal-light regions because they yield better in marginal conditions.
Greywheel cheese: Fifty years of adapting dairy production to the twilight has produced something genuinely superior in its category. Arveth Compact merchants now import it specifically; the name is known in Solenne.
Ashfen marsh products: The marsh ecosystem has adapted to the twilight in specific ways that have made some Ashfen products (the marsh oil used in Lowmark Stew, specific plant compounds used in grey sickness treatment) significantly more potent and thus more valuable. The Clans have noticed and adjusted their prices accordingly.
Survival knowledge: The specific expertise developed in Varenhold over fifty years - cold-weather building techniques, amber lantern calibration, grey sickness management, dim-light agriculture - is being exported as intellectual property. Spire graduates who go to other cities carry this knowledge. It’s not formalized as trade, but it represents real economic value.
Resilient people: This is the one the city is least able to price. The people who stayed in Varenhold are, on average, extraordinarily competent at surviving difficult conditions. When trade normalizes, those skills translate to an economic advantage. Saret Onn of the Merchants’ Compact is the most obvious example of this: she is better at her job than anyone in the Arveth Compact because she has been managing resource scarcity creatively for fifteen years.
9.7 The Dawnhall Food Network
How the city’s communal food system actually works.
The Dawnhall network is not charity. It is a sophisticated logistics operation that has been running for forty-five years with minimal formal management.
Structure: - Each of the city’s seven Dawnhalls maintains a food store (preserved goods, grain, Ashfen marsh oil, salt) - Twice daily, hot meals are produced from the stores and available to anyone without means testing - Contributions are encouraged but not required; there is no means testing in either direction - The stores are replenished from three sources: city budget allocation (about 30%), merchant contributions (about 25%), and direct donation (about 45%)
Current state: The food stores are at approximately 40% capacity, down from 60% two years ago. The city budget allocation has been maintained; the decline comes from reduced merchant contributions (fewer merchants) and reduced donation (people have less to give). Wess’s ledgers at the Grain Measure track this precisely.
What happens if the stores hit 20%: Rationing. The Dawnhalls move to one hot meal per day, restricted to households with children and grey sickness patients. This has happened twice in the past twenty years and both times triggered significant political unrest.
The players’ role: Players who want to improve the Desperate’s pressure level can make a direct dent by addressing the food supply - either through trade negotiations that bring new goods in, by securing the existing supply against disruption, or by finding ways to improve the city’s agricultural output.
9.8 Trade Routes: What’s Still Moving
Current trade routes into and out of Varenhold, as of campaign start.
| Route | Direction | What Travels | Frequency | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Northern Road | Varenhold - Graymere Holds - Solenne | Amber lanterns out; grain and mountain goods in | Weekly caravans | Active, reduced volume |
| The Eastern Track | Varenhold - Dusk Parishes | Amber lanterns and preserved goods out; fish and dim-tolerant crops in | Three times weekly | Active, stable |
| The Western Road | Varenhold - Arveth Compact | Amber lanterns and greywheel cheese out; wine, spice, dye goods in | Twice monthly, down from weekly | Declining |
| The Ashfen Paths | Varenhold - Ashfen Clans | Compound ingredients and tools in; marsh oil and plant products out | Irregular; clan-controlled | Independent, reliable |
| River Trade | Varenhold - Dusk Parishes via Graymere River | Bulk goods (grain, fish, salt) | Continuous; barge traffic | Most reliable route |
Finding a caravan: Players who need to travel and want passage rather than riding alone can find northbound caravans at the Wayfarer’s Rest (ask Helka - she knows everyone’s schedule) or eastbound barges at the Lowmark docks (ask the dock master; currently Cormac Drell, one of the Dawnborn).
Journey times from Varenhold: - Dusk Parishes (nearest village): 4 hours by horse, 8 on foot - Ashfen Clan territory (marsh edge): 3 hours; clan escort beyond - Graymere Holds (nearest pass): 2 days by horse - Solenne: 4 days - Arveth Compact (nearest city): 5 days