Debt & Credit
Debts
A Debt is a Condition (a temporary Fact) assigned a Value, whether monetary or intangible (i.e. blood debts, “he murdered my relative”). It represents what you owe to a creditor — the person you took from. Both the nature of the Debt & the creditor must be described in the Debt’s text; for example:
Debt to [creditor] - [value of debt]
So, Debt to Baker - gift of dozen loaves $0.3 is a valid Debt meaning a Debt worth $0.3. You might shorten it to Debt to Baker $0.3, but story helps memory.
Or, if you wanted to note the debt on the creditor’s side:
Credit to [debtor] - [value of credit]
Debts can be one-sided & may be emotional, not just financial. If you murder a person’s servant, they may unilaterally mark your action as a Debt you owe to them, even if you are indifferent. (This is in part the source of feuds.)
Debts, like Facts, may be used to sway or influence Saves over which their existence would hold influence. For instance, the existence of Debt may impact your ability to fight off foreign Sabotage efforts, raise Armies, develop new assets, or other things dependent on financial health.
Loans
A loan is an act of giving that creates a Debt. The terms of a loan are subject to negotiation.
A loan is a trust issue. Loans are taken out against your estimated future ability to repay. That may be measured via your Families (if you rule a Faction) or against past records of success in business ventures (if you have any) or against your personal relationship with the financier.
Normal Factions can only “loan” by giving a direct sum in $ to a character & can only maintain 1 cash loan at a time. They also have to manually mark a loan down.
Merchant & Financier Factions can issue substantially larger sums; 10x Followers & unlimited respectively.
Calling a Debt in
When a creditor calls in a Debt, they declare a demand that would satisfy the Debt. In theory, creditors can demand anything. In practice, they are constrained by Negotiation & perceived value. When the demand is issued, the debtor must choose:
- Accept: Fulfill the demand. The Debt is erased (or reduced by the agreed Value, if not fully paid off).
- Negotiate: Attempt to negotiate with the creditor.
- Default: The Debt remains, but its wording is adjusted to indicate it has been violated with a reason as to why. This may Anger the creditor.
Creditors may also forgive a Debt. Beside repayment, forgiveness is the only way to eliminate a Debt. Forgiveness may Anger those who stood to benefit from the repayment.
Violation of Debts
If you violate the terms of a Debt (i.e. by defaulting — canceling the agreed-upon terms), the Debt remains as a Fact on your sheet until every participant who could possibly call upon that Debt is dead — but reword it to reflect your refusal to pay that Debt.
Trading debt
Debts have Value, and therefore you can trade a Debt that a debtor owes you to another person if they think the Debt owed is of value to them.
Debt Bondage
Debtors who cannot pay off their debts may become a slave so that their labor over a period may pay them off. This is the basis of Glass’s system of indentured servitude. Traditionally, one day’s unskilled labor is worth $1, minus cost of living.
Bounty Hunters
The traditional solution to a rogue debtor, particularly one on the run, is to offer a percentage of a debt or an unrelated reward for the debtor’s capture or execution, or for the recovery of assets associated with the debt.
Bounty hunters don’t always employ lethal force to capture targets, especially if the target is a large Faction of some complexity whose assets cannot be easily hidden. Instead, sophisticated bounty hunters hunting wealthy or powerful targets will use organizations (their own or their friends’) to find complex financial, legal, social, or blackmail-based pressure points that can quietly force even kings into compliance under threat of greater harm.