The Ledger

An adventurers' guild, from behind the desk.

You are the guild master. You will not see a monster, a mountain pass, or the inside of a barrow. You will see a desk, a board, a ledger, and a room full of people with opinions about all three.

They choose their own work. You choose what goes on the board, what it pays, and how much you have paid to find out what is really out there. Everything after that happens somewhere you are not, and comes back as a report written by whoever lived to write it.

The day runs in five phases and you press Continue between them.

Dawn. The morning post: weather, new requests, warnings about what lapses soon, word about what is breeding in the ground you have been ignoring. Then the runner. One errand a morning, free, gone if you do not use it.

The Board. Requests arrive on their own and expire whether or not you answer them. Listing one costs coin and holds a slot. You never assign anyone. You read the interest list, which tells you who is considering the work and, if they are not, exactly why. Usually the answer is the money.

The Yard. A listing that fills musters here for three days. This is the one place you touch the people directly: stand somebody down, order somebody in, buy provisions, study the quarry. Below that, standing orders for everyone idle, because they draw a wage whether you use them or not.

The House. One matter for the desk every day. A recruiter at the door. A member asking for an advance. A dead company's kit at auction. The magistrate wanting to see your books. Plus applicants, standing engagements, the buildings, and the whole ledger.

Dusk. Parties come back. Listings expire. Retainers fall due. Everything the day cost you arrives on one page with the thing that caused it attached to it.

Length and shape

A run is three to five in-game years, roughly ninety minutes to two hours. Three ways to lose: bankruptcy, being overrun, or dissolving the charter yourself. One way to win, and it requires a company you have spent the whole run building.

The run saves at the end of every day and can be picked up later.