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Resource

A resource is a material that is hard to find and can't be obtained normally - some roleplaying is required.

Captain Near, Magister Naeko, this is what we have compiled as a way to keep track of things. With everything happening so suddenly after being left in peace for a month, we should make sure we track our finances!

For Magister Naeko's convenience, we have added a few notes concerning our climate and culture.

Economics

Despite what foreigners say, Ethengar is not altogether uncivilzed and while the soil is not fertile the underground is generous. Iron, steel, cloth, rope and so on can be generally bought at market prices by ordinary means.

Wood can be a problem: trees tend to be somewhat sparse and never very tall. The Floral Brigade generally needs light wood like balsa or bamboo, and that can be rare enough, especially if it has to be reasonably free of knots and other imperfections. Unless there's a shortage, we'll only keep track of stocks of light strong wood.

Rope is easy to find; good rope isn't -- we have to check for kinks, make sure it handles being yanked and so on. Ethengar is not a seafaring country, so these things have never been an issue and we're learning as we go. Some string must be made of silk to be used by us, but little enough that we can usually buy it when we buy silk. Rope that doesn't make the cut can be used in wells, hammocks, unstranded to make string and so on. Unless there's a shortage, we'll only keep track of stocks of airworthy rope.

Silk is hard to find in quantity: while it makes the best readily available material for balloon envelopes and glider wings, it must be imported and tends to be expensive. On top of that, not all silk will do -- it needs to be undyed and dipped in cooking oil. Fortunately used cooking oil does the job, so that's not an extra expense. Scraps of silk can be used for patching up.

Coal is fortunately easy to buy -- there are coal mines in the mountains, although nobody dares touch the World Mountain anymore after the fall of Boatmurdered -- but any coal we use for running airshp burners must be crushed and packed a certain way to get the most heat for the weight. Due to Ethengar's climate, nitre (saltpeter) is very easy to find, so if we're trying to make rockets or flares, good quality crushed coal is actually the limiting factor. A good thing is that this is only a problem for flying ships: unrefined coal or charcoal is fine for forging metal parts or weapons. The airship burner is designed to run on peat, but it's too dry for peat here. The good news is that if we have any extra workers we can buy coal like usual and refine it -- it's grueling work though, might want to buy some slaves or dole the job out as punishment. Unless there's a shortage, we'll only keep track of stocks of refined coal.

Xeclo is what we're going to call that weird grey cloth that came in ribbons with the flying rocks. The good news is that we can work it -- it takes steel shears and steel needles, but we can work it. The bad news is that we can't make any, and we can't really mend it properly.

Pin money is what in the south they call "a small allowance given to a woman in order to purchase clothes etc. for herself", they must have really weak women over there. The phrase fits though since we go through pins, needles, small pieces of metal wire and so on like you wouldn't believe! Cost for something is LESS the cost of the silk, coal and so on: we can hire out skilled carpenters and seamstresses and smiths in Izwald if we need to, or we can do the work ourselves bt it will take at least three times as long.

Thanks to Lord and Lady Dios, we have first pick of silk and rope within the city of Izwald. However even that connection was not enough to get us a discount! With the units we're using, these are the prices we're able to get in Izwald.

We currently have no deals with any other settlements as far as protection money goes -- as for the city, Remia said now is a bad time to bring it up to Melcher and Brand, at least until we've proven our usefulness.

Silk 10gp (Includes oil for treatment, paid as much as brown dye) Rope 2gp (Pre checked) Wood 5gp (Includes glue, nails and so on) Coal 1gp (Pre treated)