Hospitality and Expenses

We're leaning on the 5e Standard Reference Document for Faerûn's baseline, then throwing adjustments for the Primal areas. The Marquisate and Commonwealth have evolved past that former static equilibrium. From an outsiders' Point of View, it would be prohibitively expensive to jump to the middle of the primally-powered lifestyle the locals maintain.

The staple costs, however, are still largely baseline. Like a data-driven socio-economy of [a certain other world], the Marquisate/Commonwealth is magic-driven. The Stonehearth treasury is a reflection of that, the mint working off of mass alchemy rather than mass extraction for coinage.

The capacity of magic itself, something that manifests in every corner of the Marquisate, multiplies productivity, edging Stonehearth towards a post-scarcity economy. While they're not there yet, it does act as a kind of price control, preventing runaway inflation.

Because of the gulf of capacity between Primal magic (and Stonehearth's near-modern levels of engineering awareness) versus occasional Weave-based touches in low-magic "traditional" areas, there is some turbulence at the edge of Stonehearth's borders and marches. There are expectations, demands, intrigues and ambitions in both directions. Even though the connected regions mostly use commodity currency, the mere stamp of Stonehearth is so valued that trade and exchange rates are skewed.

Outside the Stonehearth-influenced Sword Coast, toward the farther eastern edges of the Western Heartlands and Central Faerûn, the standards for hospitality and living expenses hold fairly consistent. Most of the rates and prices listed below, then, reflect the averages well outside (or deep within) the Marquisate.

## Food, Drink, and Lodging

The Food, Drink, and Lodging table gives prices for some individual food items and a single night's lodging. If calculating total lifestyle expenses for a period of downtime, the food prices are included. If calculating room and board for a night, a modest evening meal is often (but not always) included, while adult beverages are a separate tab.

An individual meal will average 1/3rd the daily cost. A modest breakfast, lunch or dinner, for instance, will average 1 sp, though that can skew high or low depending on the establishment and where it's at. It also assumes clean water to drink with the meal. Alcoholic or specialty drinks (the local fruit juice) will usually be an extra expense.

## Expenses

When not descending into the dark depths, exploring ruins for lost treasures, or waging war against encroaching evil, adventurers face more mundane challenges. Even in a fantastical world, the reality is that people still require shelter, sustenance, and clothing. These basic necessities cost money, and nicer necessities (a.k.a.; "a lifestyle") cost more coin.

### Lifestyle Expenses

Lifestyle expenses provide you with a simple way to account for the cost of living in a fantasy world. They cover your accommodations, food and drink, and all your other necessities. Furthermore, expenses cover the cost of maintaining your equipment so you can be ready when adventure next calls.

At the start of each week or month (your choice), choose a lifestyle from the Expenses table and pay the price to sustain that lifestyle. The prices listed are per day, so if you wish to calculate the cost of your chosen lifestyle over a thirty-day period, multiply the listed price by 30. Your lifestyle might change from one period to the next, based on the funds you have at your disposal, or you might maintain the same lifestyle throughout your character’s career.

Your lifestyle choice can have consequences. Maintaining a wealthy lifestyle might help you make contacts with the rich and powerful, though you run the risk of attracting thieves. Likewise, living frugally might help you avoid criminals, but you are unlikely to make powerful connections (i.e.; *influence local nobles*).

* **NOTE:** the lifestyle expenses chart has been adjusted to bring it in line with the SRD's own table for average rates and wages, the foundation both for NPC hirelings and average PC earning power between adventures.

Lifestyle Expenses
 Aristocratic | 10 gp minimum

##### **Wretched**

* You live in inhumane conditions. With no place to call home, you shelter wherever you can, sneaking into barns, huddling in old crates, and relying on the good graces of people better off than you. A wretched lifestyle presents abundant dangers. Violence, disease, and hunger follow you wherever you go. Other wretched people covet your armor, weapons, and adventuring gear, which represent a fortune by their standards. You are beneath the notice of most people.

##### **Squalid**

* You live in a leaky stable, a mud-floored hut just outside town, or a vermin-infested boarding house in the worst part of town. You have shelter from the elements, but you live in a desperate and often violent environment, in places rife with disease, hunger, and misfortune. You are beneath the notice of most people, and you have few legal protections. Most people at this lifestyle level have suffered some terrible setback. They might be disturbed, marked as exiles, or suffer from disease.

##### **Poor**

* A poor lifestyle means going without the comforts available in a stable community. Simple food and lodgings, threadbare clothing, and unpredictable conditions result in a sufficient, though probably unpleasant, experience. Your accommodations might be a room in a flophouse or in the common room above a tavern. You benefit from some legal protections, but you still have to contend with violence, crime, and disease. People at this lifestyle level tend to be unskilled laborers, costermongers, peddlers, thieves, mercenaries, and other disreputable types.

##### **Modest**

* A modest lifestyle keeps you out of the slums and ensures that you can maintain your equipment. You live in an older part of town, renting a room in a boarding house, inn, or temple. You don't go hungry or thirsty, and your living conditions are clean, if simple. Ordinary people living modest lifestyles include soldiers with families, laborers, students, priests, hedge wizards, and the like.

##### **Comfortable**

* Choosing a comfortable lifestyle means that you can afford nicer clothing and can easily maintain your equipment. You live in a small cottage in a middle-class neighborhood or in a private room at a fine inn. You associate with merchants, skilled tradespeople, and military officers.

##### **Wealthy**

* Choosing a wealthy lifestyle means living a life of luxury, though you might not have achieved the social status associated with the old money of nobility or royalty. You live a lifestyle comparable to that of a highly successful merchant, a favored servant of the royalty, or the owner of a few small businesses. You have respectable lodgings, usually a spacious home in a good part of town or a comfortable suite at a fine inn. You likely have a small staff of servants.

##### **Aristocratic**

* You live a life of plenty and comfort. You move in circles populated by the most powerful people in the community. You have excellent lodgings, perhaps a townhouse in the nicest part of town or rooms in the finest inn. You dine at the best restaurants, retain the most skilled and fashionable tailor, and have servants attending to your every need. You receive invitations to the social gatherings of the rich and powerful, and spend evenings in the company of politicians, guild leaders, high priests, and nobility. You must also contend with the highest levels of deceit and treachery. The wealthier you are, the greater the chance you will be drawn into political intrigue as a pawn or participant.

### Self-Sufficiency

The expenses and lifestyles described here assume that you are spending your time between adventures in town, availing yourself of whatever services you can afford–paying for food and shelter, paying townspeople to sharpen your sword and repair your armor, and so on (*see:* "Downtime Activities," *below*).

Some characters, though, might prefer to spend their time away from civilization, sustaining themselves in the wild by hunting, foraging, and repairing their own gear.

Maintaining this kind of lifestyle doesn't require you to spend any coin, but it is time-consuming. If you spend your time between adventures practicing a profession, you can eke out the equivalent of a poor lifestyle. Proficiency in the Survival skill lets you live at the equivalent of a comfortable lifestyle.

## Downtime Activities

Between adventures, the GM might ask you what your character is doing during his or her downtime. Periods of downtime can vary in duration, but each downtime activity requires a certain number of days to complete before you gain any benefit, and at least 8 hours of each day must be spent on the downtime activity for the day to count. The days do not need to be consecutive. If you have more than the minimum amount of days to spend, you can keep doing the same thing for a longer period of time, or switch to a new downtime activity.

Downtime activities other than the ones presented below are possible. If you want your character to spend his or her downtime performing an activity not covered here, discuss it with your GM.

### Crafting

You can craft nonmagical objects, including adventuring equipment and works of art. You must be proficient with tools related to the object you are trying to create (typically artisan's tools). You might also need access to special materials or locations necessary to create it. For example, someone proficient with smith's tools needs a forge in order to craft a sword or suit of armor.

For every day of downtime you spend crafting, you can craft one or more items with a total market value not exceeding 5 gp, and you must expend raw materials worth half the total market value. If something you want to craft has a market value greater than 5 gp, you make progress every day in 5-gp increments until you reach the market value of the item. For example, a suit of plate armor (market value 1,500 gp) takes 300 days to craft by yourself.

Multiple characters can combine their efforts toward the crafting of a single item, provided that the characters all have proficiency with the requisite tools and are working together in the same place. Each character contributes 5 gp worth of effort for every day spent helping to craft the item. For example, three characters with the requisite tool proficiency and the proper facilities can craft a suit of plate armor in 100 days, at a total cost of 750 gp.

While crafting, you can maintain a modest lifestyle without having to pay 1 gp per day, or a comfortable lifestyle at half the normal cost.

### Practicing a Profession

You can work between adventures, allowing you to maintain a modest lifestyle without having to pay 1 gp per day. This benefit lasts as long you continue to practice your profession.

If you are a member of an organization that can provide gainful employment, such as a temple or a thieves' guild, you earn enough to support a comfortable lifestyle instead.

If you have proficiency in the Performance skill and put your performance skill to use during your downtime, you earn enough to support a wealthy lifestyle instead.

### Recuperating

You can use downtime between adventures to recover from a debilitating injury, disease, or poison.

After three days of downtime spent recuperating, you can make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a successful save, you can choose one of the following results:

* End one effect on you that prevents you from regaining hit points.
* For the next 24 hours, gain advantage on saving throws against one disease or poison currently affecting you.

### Researching

The time between adventures is a great chance to perform research, gaining insight into mysteries that have unfurled over the course of the campaign. Research can include poring over dusty tomes and crumbling scrolls in a library or buying drinks for the locals to pry rumors and gossip from their lips.

When you begin your research, the GM determines whether the information is available, how many days of downtime it will take to find it, and whether there are any restrictions on your research (such as needing to seek out a specific individual, tome, or location). The GM might also require you to make one or more ability checks, such as an Intelligence (Investigation) check to find clues pointing toward the information you seek, or a Charisma (Persuasion) check to secure someone's aid. Once those conditions are met, you learn the information if it is available.

For each day of research, you must spend 1 gp to cover your expenses. This cost is in addition to your normal lifestyle expenses.

### Training

You can spend time between adventures learning a new language or training with a set of tools. Your GM might allow additional training options.

First, you must find an instructor willing to teach you. The DM/GM determines how long it takes, and whether one or more ability checks are required.

The SRD-default training lasts for 240 days (call it 8 months) and costs 1 gp per day. After you spend the requisite amount of time and money, you learn the new language or gain proficiency with the new tool.

## Services

Adventurers can pay nonplayer characters to assist them or act on their behalf in a variety of circumstances. Most such hirelings have fairly ordinary skills, while others are masters of a craft or art, and a few are experts with specialized adventuring skills.

Some of the most basic types of hirelings appear on the Services table. Other common hirelings include any of the wide variety of people who inhabit a typical town or city, when the adventurers pay them to perform a specific task. For example, a Wizard might pay a carpenter to construct an elaborate chest (and its miniature replica) for use in the Secret Chest spell. A Fighter might commission a blacksmith to forge a special sword. A bard might pay a tailor to make exquisite clothing for an upcoming performance in front of the duke.

Other hirelings provide more expert or dangerous services. Mercenary soldiers paid to help the adventurers take on a hobgoblin army are hirelings, as are sages hired to research ancient or esoteric lore. If a high-level adventurer establishes a stronghold of some kind, he or she might hire a whole staff of servants and agents to run the place, from a castellan or steward to menial laborers to keep the stables clean. These hirelings often enjoy a long-term contract that includes a place to live within the stronghold as part of the offered compensation.

Services
 Ship’s passage | 1 sp per mile

Skilled hirelings include anyone hired to perform a service that involves a proficiency (including weapon, tool, or skill): a mercenary, artisan, scribe, and so on. The pay shown is a minimum; some expert hirelings require more pay. Untrained hirelings are hired for menial work that requires no particular skill and can include laborers, porters, maids, and similar workers.

### Spellcasting Services

People who are able to cast spells don't fall into the category of ordinary hirelings. It might be possible to find someone willing to cast a spell in exchange for coin or favors, but it is rarely easy and no established pay rates exist. As a rule, the higher the level of the desired spell, the harder it is to find someone who can cast it and the more it costs.

Hiring someone to cast a relatively common spell of 1st or 2nd level, such as Cure Wounds or Identify, is easy enough in a city or town, and might cost 10 to 50 gold pieces (plus the cost of any expensive material components). Finding someone able and willing to cast a higher-level spell might involve traveling to a large city, perhaps one with a university or prominent temple. Once found, the spellcaster might ask for a service instead of payment—the kind of service that only adventurers can provide, such as retrieving a rare item from a dangerous locale or traversing a monster-infested wilderness to deliver something important to a distant settlement.

## Currency and Commodities

### To Term a Coin

Common coins come in several different denominations based on the relative worth of the metal from which they are made. The three most common coins are the gold piece (gp), the silver piece (sp), and the copper piece (cp).

With one gold piece, a character can buy a bedroll, 50 feet of good rope, or a goat. A skilled (but not exceptional) artisan can earn one gold piece a day. The gold piece is the standard unit of measure for wealth, even if the coin itself is not commonly used. When merchants discuss deals that involve goods or services worth hundreds or thousands of gold pieces, the transactions don’t usually involve the exchange of individual coins. Rather, the gold piece is a standard measure of value, and the actual exchange is in gold bars, letters of credit, or valuable goods.

One gold piece is worth ten silver pieces, the most prevalent coin among commoners. A silver piece buys a laborer’s work for half a day, a flask of lamp oil, or a night’s rest in a poor inn.

One silver piece is worth ten copper pieces, which are common among laborers and beggars. A single copper piece buys a candle, a torch, or a piece of chalk.

In addition, unusual coins made of other precious metals sometimes appear in treasure hoards. The electrum piece (ep) and the platinum piece (pp) originate from fallen empires and lost kingdoms, and they sometimes arouse suspicion and skepticism when used in transactions. Electrum is an alloy of gold and silver, often with other trace metals present. *As noted below:*

* An electrum piece averages a worth of five silver pieces.
* A platinum piece is worth ten gold pieces.

A standard coin weighs about a third of an ounce (so fifty coins weigh a pound). Most polities mint their own coinage and some may have particulars or peculiarities to their imprint beyond simply the shape, from the name of the coinage to special shapes or weights.

### Selling Treasure

Opportunities abound to find treasure, equipment, weapons, armor, and more in the dungeons you explore. Normally, you can sell your treasures and trinkets when you return to a town or other settlement, provided that you can find buyers and merchants interested in your loot.

##### **Arms, Armor, and Other Equipment.**

* As a general rule, undamaged weapons, armor, and other equipment fetch half their cost when sold in a market. Weapons and armor used by monsters are rarely in good enough condition to sell.

##### **Magic Items.**

* Selling magic items is problematic. Finding someone to buy a potion or a scroll isn’t too hard, but other items are out of the realm of most but the wealthiest nobles. Likewise, aside from a few common magic items, you won’t normally come across magic items or spells to purchase. The value of magic is far beyond simple gold and should always be treated as such.

##### **Gems, Jewelry, and Art Objects.**

* These items retain their full value in the marketplace, and you can either trade them in for coin or use them as currency for other transactions. For exceptionally valuable treasures, the GM might require you to find a buyer in a large town or larger community first.

##### **Trade Goods.**

* Most wealth is not in coins. It is measured in commodities such as livestock, grain, bags of salt, or bars of iron. It is in land, rights to collect taxes, or rights to resources (such as a mine or a forest).

* Guilds, nobles, and royalty regulate trade. Chartered companies are granted rights to conduct trade along certain routes, to send merchant ships to various ports, or to buy or sell specific goods. Guilds set prices for the goods or services that they control, and determine who may or may not offer those goods and services.
* Merchants commonly exchange trade goods without using currency. On some borderlands, as well as less developed areas, many people conduct transactions through barter. Like gems and art objects, trade goods retain their full value in the market and can be used as currency.
* Bars of iron are common for artisan trade, and bars of precious metals are common when mass amounts of small coinage would be unwieldy. These are commonly known as "trade bars."
* The Trade Goods table below shows the value of some commonly exchanged goods.