Coin & Commerce
What you can afford, what you can reach, and what it costs to keep going
Two hundred marks, plus expenses. That’s what the handler said when your Society took its first job. Split four ways, that’s fifty marks each — rent for a week, ammunition for the next job, and a few drinks if you’re careful. Not enough to live on. Enough to keep going. That’s the economy of the post-Tear world: nobody’s getting rich, but the people who keep working don’t starve.
My first Society, we ate rice and sardines for three weeks straight between jobs. Handler kept saying “next week, next week.” When the next job finally came, it was sewer clearance in the Ashwick tunnels. We took it without asking what it paid. You would have too.
Marks
The mark is the standard unit of currency across post-Tear society. NPCs talk in marks. Contracts are written in marks. A drink costs a few marks. A revolver costs a couple hundred. When someone quotes you a price, the number is real in the fiction — it makes the world feel grounded, gives conversations texture, and lets you feel the weight of what things cost.
But you never track a mark balance. Not on your character sheet, not in a notebook, not anywhere. Your economic position is handled by a single number called Station, which we’ll get to next. Marks exist in dialogue and world-building. They make the fiction feel lived-in without asking anyone to do subtraction.
What Marks Buy
These are reference points — narrative anchors for conversations, contracts, and colour. They are not prices to track.
| Amount | What It Represents |
|---|---|
| 1–5 marks | A drink, a street meal, a tram fare, a newspaper |
| 10–25 marks | A night at a flophouse, basic supplies, a day’s unskilled labor |
| 50–100 marks | A week’s rent in a modest district, a decent meal for a group, a conventional weapon |
| 200–500 marks | A month’s rent, a quality firearm, a full set of working gear, a doctor’s visit |
| 1,000–3,000 marks | A Galvanic device, a season’s comfortable living, a vehicle |
| 5,000–15,000 marks | An enchanted weapon, a small property, a personal airship passage |
| 50,000+ marks | An estate, a rare artifact, a faction-level asset |
When an NPC quotes a price, the GM translates it to a Cost Tier for mechanical purposes. “Five thousand marks” means “that’s well beyond what a working adventurer can swing without help.” The fiction carries the number. The system carries the access.
Station
Forget bank accounts. Forget ledgers full of numbers. In this world, what matters is not how many marks are in your pocket — it’s the life you lead. The doors that are open to you. The places where people know your name and the places where the doorman won’t let you through.
Station is your character’s economic position in the world — a single number from 0 to 5. It represents your material comfort, your social access, and your purchasing power. It is not a bank balance. It is the answer to a simple question: what kind of life does this person lead?
The Station Table
| Station | Name | What Life Looks Like |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Destitute | No fixed address. Eats at soup kitchens or not at all. Owns the clothes on their back — barely. Owes people. Invisible to anyone with power. |
| 1 | Scraping | Rents a room — maybe shared. Eats daily, nothing fancy. Owns their tools and one set of decent clothes. Known at the corner shop. Can afford a tram ticket but thinks about it. |
| 2 | Getting By | Modest flat in a working district. Reliable meals. Can replace worn gear without agonizing. Has a coat for winter and boots that don’t leak. The grocer extends credit. |
| 3 | Comfortable | Good flat or small house in a decent neighbourhood. Eats well. Can afford small luxuries — a night at a restaurant, a bottle of something worth drinking, a new coat when the old one is fine. Known by name at a few establishments. |
| 4 | Prosperous | Fine home. Possibly staff — a housekeeper, maybe a driver. Travels comfortably. Known by name at good establishments. Can make things happen with a word and a handshake. Dresses well without thinking about it. |
| 5 | Affluent | Property. Influence. Multiple residences or a significant estate. Moves in circles where marks are vulgar to discuss. Opens doors that most people don’t know exist. |
Starting Station
Your starting Station is set during character creation. The patron’s Backing rating determines your default — the Station Floor from the Backing table. With the standard Backing of 3, most characters start at Station 2 (Getting By). The patron covers a roof, steady meals, and standard equipment — better than most people manage in a fractured city, but nobody’s getting rich.
But not everyone starts at the default. During character creation, you may trade Station for skill levels:
| Choice | Station | Skill Effect | The Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trade down | Floor − 1 | Gain 3 bonus skill levels to one group pool | The scrapper — came from nothing, learned everything the hard way |
| Default | Floor | No change | The professional — patron’s support, standard competence |
| Trade up | Floor + 1 | Spend 3 skill levels from one group pool | The comfortable one — better connected, less battle-tested |
Trading up removes 3 points from one skill group pool of your choice before you allocate skills. Trading down adds 3 points to one pool. The trade is ±1 Station only — you cannot trade multiple levels. Station 3 is the maximum at character creation. Nobody starts as a wealthy industrialist. Station 4–5 is earned through play.
Station 0 (Destitute) is available, but if your patron provides a floor above that, something is eating your resources — debts, a vice, a dependent, an obligation. That’s a character hook, not just a number.
Starting equipment: Pick gear that fits within your Station. Items at or below your Cost Tier are yours.
Sera is building her character with a Backing 3 patron (Station Floor 2). She wants to play someone from a rough background, so she trades down to Station 1. She gains 3 bonus skill levels to her Mental pool — she puts those into Occult Lore and Observation. She’s sharper than her peers, but she can’t afford a private room and her gear is patched together.
Aldric keeps the default Station 2. No trade, no cost. Solid footing.
Mira trades up to Station 3. She loses 3 levels from her Physical pool — she’s less athletic, worse with a blade. But she has a nice flat, good clothes, and can walk into establishments that won’t let Sera through the front door.
The 3-level trade is roughly 15% of a typical character’s starting skill investment. It’s the equivalent of one level-3 primary skill — meaningful enough to create a real choice, not so much that it cripples a build. If every player at your table picks the same option, the cost may need tuning — the goal is organic diversity, not a dominant strategy.
How Station Changes
Station does not advance through experience points or level-ups. It changes through the fiction — through events in the story that genuinely alter your character’s place in the world. The GM adjusts Station when the narrative warrants it, not on a schedule or through a formula.
Station rises when the Society completes a major score, when a character receives a personal windfall, when the patron increases support, or when a campaign milestone reflects real economic advancement.
Station falls when the Society’s finances hit rock bottom, when a character suffers a personal disaster, when the patron pulls back support, or when a character makes a deliberate sacrifice to fund something that matters more than comfort.
Station almost never changes mid-session. It is a slow-moving indicator — the kind of thing that shifts between adventures, not between scenes.
You want to know the difference between Fenwick Row and the Gaslight Quarter? On Fenwick, Mrs. Chen at the noodle shop will feed you if you’re short and pay her back next week. In the Gaslight, the doorman checks your coat before he checks your name. Same city, same marks in your pocket. Doesn’t matter. They can smell where you’re from.
I interviewed a bank manager in the Greycoat district — a man who used to oversee loans for half the merchant class. He’s a landlord now, renting rooms in a building he used to finance. “The money didn’t disappear,” he told me. “It just stopped meaning what it used to.” I think about that more than I’d like.
Cost Tiers
Everything in the world has an implied Cost Tier from 0 to 5 — a rough measure of how exclusive it is. A street meal is Tier 0. A revolver is Tier 2. A Galvanic weapon is Tier 4. An enchanted artifact is Tier 5. The GM assigns tiers on the fly by comparing what you want to the descriptions below. There is no exhaustive price list. The table gives the shape; the GM fills in the specifics.
| Tier | Name | What It Covers |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Scrap | Discarded items, street food, charity, public knowledge, improvised tools |
| 1 | Common | Basic tools, simple meals, shared lodging, ammunition, a tram ticket, a drink at a tavern, a used knife |
| 2 | Standard | A conventional firearm, working clothes, a week’s rent, passage on a cargo vessel, a doctor’s visit, standard adventuring gear |
| 3 | Quality | A fine meal, custom-tailored clothes, a reliable vehicle, a warded charm, a specialist’s time, passenger airship passage |
| 4 | Premium | A Galvanic device, enchanted equipment, membership at a private club, a surgeon with a reputation, a favour from a faction official |
| 5 | Exclusive | An enchanted artifact, a personal airship, a seat at a faction council table, an estate, Pre-Tear technology |
The Access Rule
This is the heart of the economy. Compare the Cost Tier of what you want to your Station. That comparison tells you everything you need to know.
At or below your Station: You can afford it. No roll, no tracking, no discussion. It is within your means. Buy the ammunition, rent the room, take the cab. The GM narrates it and the game moves on.
One tier above your Station: You can reach for it, but it costs you. The GM calls for a Station Check — a skill roll with a −15% modifier. Success means you get it, though the strain shows. Failure means you need another approach.
Two or more tiers above your Station: You cannot simply buy your way in. This requires a narrative solution — a patron request, a debt, a heist, a favour, a sacrifice. The economy says not like this, and the story has to find another way.
Station Checks
When you reach for something one tier above your Station, the skill you roll depends on how you’re trying to get it.
| Context | Skill | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Formal venue, official channels | Etiquette | Getting a table at an exclusive restaurant, attending a faction event |
| Black market, underworld goods | Streetwise | Finding a Galvanic weapon through back channels, hiring muscle |
| Negotiating a price, extending credit | Persuasion | Talking a merchant down, convincing a landlord to waive a deposit |
| Faking wealth you don’t have | Deception | Bluffing into a premium hotel, posing as someone with deeper pockets |
The base modifier is −15%. The GM adjusts from there — a relevant contact or a recent favour might add +10%, while trying to access something at a hostile faction’s establishment could impose an additional −10% to −20%.
On success: you get what you’re after, but the GM notes the stretch. The Ledger might tick one step toward Lean. A narrative consequence might surface later — the merchant remembers you owe them, the landlord expects a favour, you skipped rent this month.
On failure: this approach didn’t work. Try a different skill, a different source, a patron request, or accept that it’s out of reach for now.
Sera needs formal attire for the Ashworth gala — that’s Tier 3 (Quality), one above her Station 2. She visits a tailor on Gaslight Row and tries to negotiate a loaner arrangement.
GM: “He looks you over. You’re clearly not his usual clientele. Give me a Persuasion check, minus fifteen.”
Sera’s Persuasion is 55%. With the −15% modifier, her target is 40%. She rolls a 32 — success.
GM: “He agrees, but he wants the dress back by morning and your name on a tab. You owe him a favour now — he’ll collect.”
Not every purchase needs a Station Check. If a player asks “can I buy a drink?” and they’re Station 1, just say yes. The Access Rule exists to create interesting moments when characters reach beyond their means — not to slow down routine shopping. Reserve Station Checks for situations where the stretch creates tension or story.
Reaching Beyond Your Means
When something is two or more tiers above your Station — or when a Station Check fails — the normal path closes. But the economy never says no. It says not like this. What opens instead are the four narrative paths, and every one of them is an adventure hook.
The Patron Request
Ask the patron for it. Restoration patrons can requisition Galvanic equipment. Awakening patrons can commission enchanted items. Arrangement patrons can pull strings. The cost is never marks — it’s obligation. A mission completed, a favour owed, intelligence delivered, silence kept. The bigger the ask, the deeper the debt.
The Debt
Borrow from someone outside the patron structure. The Lamplighter Syndicate lends. Rival factions extend credit with strings attached. Local merchants carry tabs for good customers. Debts are tracked as narrative obligations, not numbers. The GM notes who is owed and what was promised, and brings it back when it creates the most interesting story.
The Score
Steal it, win it, find it, earn it through a specific action. “We need a Galvanic resonance damper and we can’t afford one” is not a dead end — it’s the next adventure.
The Sacrifice
Give up something you have to get something you need. Sell the enchanted blade to buy passage on the airship. Burn a contact’s goodwill to get through the door. Accept a lower Station to fund the expedition. Sacrifice is always visible in the fiction — something real leaves your hands.
The Society Ledger
Station tracks where you stand. The Ledger tracks where your Society stands — the collective financial health of the whole group. It is one state, visible to everyone at the table, and it shapes what jobs you take, what resources you can access, and how much pressure you’re under.
The Ledger has four states. The GM moves it based on mission outcomes, the passage of time, and events in the fiction.
| State | What It Means | Effect on the Society |
|---|---|---|
| Flush | Jobs are going well. Patron is pleased. Cash reserves exist. | Society can take time between missions. Can make modest group purchases without justification. Patron offers choice of assignments. |
| Level | Normal operations. Bills are paid. Nothing to spare. | Society takes jobs as they come. Standard access to patron resources. No breathing room for extras. |
| Lean | Behind. Debts accumulating. Patron is impatient. | Society must take the next available job — even an unpleasant one. Patron assigns rather than offers. Equipment requests are questioned or denied. |
| Dire | Underwater. Patron support on probation. Charter at risk. | Complete this job or lose the charter. Patron may demand concessions. Every member’s Station drops by 1 until the crisis is resolved. |
How the Ledger Moves
The Ledger moves toward Flush after successful missions with good payouts, patron windfalls, or significant favours repaid to the Society. It moves toward Lean after failed missions, time between paying jobs, unexpected expenses, or when the patron falls on hard times.
Under normal circumstances, the Ledger moves one step at a time. A catastrophic event — the patron abandons the Society, the safehouse is destroyed in a zone shift — might push from Level straight to Dire. A legendary score might jump from Lean to Flush. But these are the exceptions.
How the Ledger Affects Station
When the Ledger is Flush, the Society can temporarily boost a member’s effective Station for a specific purpose. “The Society is paying for Kael to dress up for the gala — that’s a Station 4 appearance, even though he’s Station 2.” This is a group decision, not individual.
When the Ledger hits Dire, every member’s actual Station drops by 1 until the crisis is resolved. This is the only case where the Ledger mechanically changes Station, and it reverses the moment Dire is cleared.
I’ve run lean before. You start rationing ammunition. The safehouse gets cold because nobody can cover the coal. Your handler stops buying rounds at the pub and starts talking about “priorities.” Then a job comes in — something nobody else wants, in a district nobody else will go to. And you take it. Because that’s what lean means. You don’t get to be choosy.
When old Thessaly lost her workshop in the zone shift, she didn’t have a single mark saved. But she had thirty years of mending wards for every family on Ember Street. She slept in a different house every night for two months. Nobody asked her to leave. Nobody asked her to pay. That’s worth more than any bank account, and no calamity can take it from you.
Patron Backing
Your Society’s patron is not just a source of jobs — they are your primary economic engine. Backing is a rating from 1 to 5 that describes how generously the patron supports your Society. It determines your baseline: how well-equipped you are, how comfortable your members live, and what resources are within reach before you spend a single mark of your own.
Starting Backing
The table chooses starting Backing during Session Zero. The default is Backing 3 (Full Package) — a well-supported Society with good equipment, a reliable handler, and a decent safehouse. This is the recommended starting point, the same way the default attribute net bonus is +1.
The GM adjusts Backing to set the campaign’s economic tone:
| Backing | Tone | Why Choose This |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Gritty | Under-resourced, desperate, every job matters. The patron is broke, disinterested, or testing you. |
| 3 | Standard | Solid footing. The patron invests in your success. You have what you need but nothing to waste. |
| 4–5 | Elite | Well-equipped, high-profile, high-stakes. The patron has deep pockets — and proportional expectations. |
Starting Backing is a table-level decision, not a per-player choice. Everyone in the Society has the same patron, so everyone operates under the same Backing. Think of it like the attribute net bonus — a dial you set once during Session Zero to shape the campaign’s feel.
Backing Rating
| Backing | Name | What the Patron Provides | Station Floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bare Charter | A charter document and a name. Maybe a contact or two. No equipment beyond what members bring themselves. A meeting place — borrowed, cramped, or improvised. | 1 |
| 2 | Field Support | Basic equipment and standard ammunition restocked between missions. A handler who checks in periodically. A safehouse that is functional but not comfortable. | 1 |
| 3 | Full Package | Good equipment, including one signature faction-specific item per member. Reliable handler. Decent safehouse. Access to faction training. | 2 |
| 4 | Favoured | Excellent equipment, including prototype or rare faction-specific items. Priority handler. Well-appointed safehouse. Access to faction specialists on request. | 2 |
| 5 | Inner Circle | The best the faction has to offer. Unique equipment. Direct access to faction leadership. Resources that other Societies don’t know exist. | 3 |
The Station Floor is the minimum Station guaranteed to Society members by the patron’s support. A Backing 3 patron ensures members live at least at Station 2 — the patron covers rent, meals, and basic needs as part of the arrangement. You can be higher than this floor through personal means, but you cannot fall below it while the patron relationship holds.
Faction-Specific Gear by Backing
Different patrons supply different types of equipment based on their factional philosophy. What the Restoration provides looks nothing like what the Awakening offers — and the Arrangement has its own way of doing things.
| Backing | Restoration (Galvanic) | Awakening (Aetheric) | Arrangement (Pragmatic) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Conventional firearms only | Mundane gear, maybe a charm | Whatever you brought with you |
| 2 | Conventional loadout, one Galvanic oddity (shared) | Mundane gear, 1–2 minor charms, basic alchemical supplies | Reliable conventional loadout, one specialty item |
| 3 | Full loadout plus one Exotic weapon per member or one significant Galvanic device (shared) | One enchanted weapon per member or several warded items, regular potion supply | Mixed loadout with 1–2 faction contacts for specialty procurement |
| 4 | Multiple Exotics, a significant Galvanic device, access to prototype equipment | Multiple enchanted items per member, a significant ward, healer on retainer | Best conventional gear plus one “acquired” exotic or enchanted piece per member |
| 5 | Cutting-edge prototypes, fully personal Galvanic loadouts, faction R&D access | Personally commissioned artifacts, access to senior casters, ward networks | “Whatever you need. Don’t ask where it came from.” |
Owned vs. Issued Gear
There is a meaningful difference between owned gear — things you acquired through your own Station — and issued gear — equipment provided through patron Backing.
Owned gear is yours. It survives patron changes, Society dissolution, and career transitions. A revolver you bought at Station 2 stays in your holster no matter what happens to the charter.
Issued gear is contingent on the relationship. It comes with the charter and leaves with it. Losing Backing or breaking with the patron means Exotic weapons lose access to charging and specialized ammunition, enchanted items may be recalled, and replacement parts disappear. This makes patron loyalty an economic choice, not just a political one. “We could break with the Collective, but then we lose the Exotics” is a real cost.
Backing changes at campaign-level inflection points — not session by session. It rises through consistent mission success or a major win for the patron. It falls through repeated failures, defiance of patron orders, or when the patron’s faction loses power. When Backing drops, the Station Floor drops with it. Members who were living at the floor suddenly feel their lifestyle degrading. That squeeze is where the best patron-politics stories come from.
The Drift
Life costs money. Rent, food, equipment maintenance, the handler’s cut, safehouse upkeep, ammunition — none of these are tracked individually, but they are always there. Between adventures, the Ledger drifts toward Lean. This is the quiet pressure that keeps the story moving: even when nothing dramatic happens, the clock is ticking.
Guideline: After every 2–3 sessions of game time without a paying job, the Ledger moves one step toward Lean. The GM accelerates the Drift when expenses spike — unexpected repairs, patron support wavering, equipment failure — and slows it when a favour is cashed in or the patron provides a one-time grant.
The answer to the Drift is work. There are no downtime mini-games to slow it down. If the Society isn’t taking jobs, the Ledger slides. That’s the point — the economy creates pressure to stay active, take risks, and engage with the world. If a character spends their downtime doing guard work or odd jobs, that’s colour for the fiction, not a mechanic. The Ledger moves when the Society completes a paying mission, and it drifts when they don’t.
The Drift is a pacing tool, not a punishment. Use it to create the feeling that jobs matter — that the Society can’t sit idle forever. But don’t rush it. If the group is deep in a personal storyline or investigating something interesting between missions, slow the Drift down. When you want urgency — when the table needs a reason to take the next job — let it catch up.
Special Items
Artifacts
Enchanted artifacts are handmade, rare, and individually significant. They do not have Cost Tiers because they are not commodities — you do not walk into a shop and browse the artifact aisle. When an artifact needs to be valued for fiction purposes — trade, negotiation, theft — the GM uses narrative anchors rather than mark amounts.
| Enchantment Tier | Narrative Value |
|---|---|
| Weak | Several months of comfortable living. A meaningful windfall for a person. |
| Standard | A year of comfortable living. Enough to change someone’s Station. |
| Strong | A small property or a vehicle. Enough to fund a Society for months. |
| Spectacular | A building or a ship. A faction-level asset. Recovery could define a campaign arc. |
| Pre-Tear | Priceless. Nations would compete for it. Wars have started over less. |
A colleague once traded a warding charm for passage across three zone boundaries and a month’s lodging. No marks changed hands. The ferryman didn’t want money — he wanted his daughter to sleep through the night without the dreams. The charm was worth whatever that was worth to him.
Potions
Potions occupy a middle ground between commodities and artifacts. They are traded, commissioned, and occasionally found — but not mass-produced. There are no potion shops. There are healers who sell remedies, brewers who take commissions, and abandoned laboratories that sometimes yield surviving bottles.
| Potion Potency | Cost Tier | Access Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Weak | 2 (Standard) | Available from Aetheric Quarter healers and some faction suppliers. Accessible to working adventurers. |
| Standard | 3 (Quality) | Commissioned from skilled brewers or provided by an Awakening-backed patron at Backing 3+. Not casual purchases. |
| Strong | 4 (Premium) | Rare. Requires a specific brewer, a patron request, or a lucky find. |
| Spectacular | 5 (Exclusive) | Exceedingly rare. Created by master brewers under specific conditions. Faction-level assets when found. |