Shardcast: White Sand Vol 3

I didn't understand the debt explanation either, but your talking about it made me think of a possible explanation that makes sense to me.

They call it a "debt", but if you think about it more like a savings account (because it does earn interest) then the in book explanation makes sense. So the merchants are keeping an account for the Sand Masters, which the Sand Masters can call upon whenever. However the merchants don't actually have that much money (or it's a sizable amount of their wealth). So when Vey is giving his personal money to the Sand Masters, they're turning around and depositing it the account, which raises how much interest needs to be paid (thus making the "debt" ever increasing).

Definitely some logical jumps, but at least it makes sense to me now.

31 minutes ago, Govir said:

I didn't understand the debt explanation either, but your talking about it made me think of a possible explanation that makes sense to me.

They call it a "debt", but if you think about it more like a savings account (because it does earn interest) then the in book explanation makes sense. So the merchants are keeping an account for the Sand Masters, which the Sand Masters can call upon whenever. However the merchants don't actually have that much money (or it's a sizable amount of their wealth). So when Vey is giving his personal money to the Sand Masters, they're turning around and depositing it the account, which raises how much interest needs to be paid (thus making the "debt" ever increasing).

Definitely some logical jumps, but at least it makes sense to me now.

Yeah, I agree. They are acting like a bank and it's like a long term savings account that they were to maintain, but they blew the money. If the account holder wanted to withdraw it all at once they'd be screwed. 

3 hours ago, Govir said:

I didn't understand the debt explanation either, but your talking about it made me think of a possible explanation that makes sense to me.

They call it a "debt", but if you think about it more like a savings account (because it does earn interest) then the in book explanation makes sense. So the merchants are keeping an account for the Sand Masters, which the Sand Masters can call upon whenever. However the merchants don't actually have that much money (or it's a sizable amount of their wealth). So when Vey is giving his personal money to the Sand Masters, they're turning around and depositing it the account, which raises how much interest needs to be paid (thus making the "debt" ever increasing).

Vey at the start of his tenure as Lord Merchant found out about a private account the Lord Mastrel keeps with his office.  Should this ever become public Vey would have to pay the debt in full.  The debt is too large for Vey to ever pay it.  Given the way the Lord Merchant is chosen this would also mean that he looses his position.  However their is a solution.  If he pays 2000 lark to the Sand Masters every month they keep the account private.  Because they are depositing the money in the account Vey is not loosing any money.  However lets look at things from Vey's perspective.  Each month he is "willingly" loosing 2000 as a "gift."  He is simultaneously regaining that money in the account but it is no longer his money he just has custody of it.  So in practice his debt to the Deim is increasing by 2000 each month. 

I kept wondering why you were talking about the DM

"Yes, please" for the Autonomy Shardcast!

A character named in a church auction and David disputes the hell out of something in the conversation about them. I love it