Eukara Vox
Legendary AdventureGuide!
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Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Before you all begin to worry, this is not going to be a lecture on the works of Scottish economist Adam Smith. First of all, I highly doubt many of you are familiar with Mr. Smith and his work, nor would you particularly care. You're probably far too busy slaughtering my innocent undead minions to be concerned with cracking a book and expanding your minds. Secondly, although I am a skilled communicator, I'm not sure I could translate Smith's work into enough mono-syllabic words that your inferior brains could comprehend it.
But since the subject of money has been broached, I thought it was high time to discuss the economy of the world of Lore. Specifically, I would like to explore the fact that, while none of you have jobs or steady sources of income, currency flows through the stores of Lore as if King Midas himself had set up shop outside of Battleon and was turning everything he touched into gold. In this period of economic uncertainty, how is it that the land of Lore (which, as of the most recent census, is at roughly a 98% unemployment rate) seems to be immune to inflation and economic collapse? The answer can be summed up in one simpe word: CONSPIRACY!
I can hear your objections already... "But Zorbak!" you're thinking. "We get all of our money from fighting monsters! How is that a conspiracy?" Well, take a seat and I'll explain.
First of all, ask yourself where the monsters you fight get their money. Half of the creatures you're all so fond of slaying are my own Undead minions, and I can guarantee you I'm not giving them that kind of cash (unlike all of you, I WORK for a living... Necromantic tomes and Ebil Hideouts aren't free, you know). The other half are composed of dragons, forest creatures, orcs, and other random beasts... many of whom have no visible source of income (or even pockets... where exactly do they keep all that gold, anyway?). The commonly accepted theory is that Robina Hood provides them with gold out of some misguided sense of charity. This is only half correct. Robina DOES provide the monsters with money... but it is in reality YOUR money. You see, my friends, you are all the victims of a fiscal conspiracy bold enough to make even Bernie Madoff blush. That's right: the entire economy of Lore is merely one gigantic Ponzi scheme!
Here's how it works:
1) Robina's initial seed money came from the treasury of King Alteon. Which, incidentally, is full of YOUR taxes. But hey, what's a little embezzlement and misappropriation if it's *cough*helping*cough* the poor monsters, right?
2) Robina plants this ill-gotten cash on monsters, many of whom are merely innocent pawns in her evil scheme. She and her fellow conspirators (most notably Twilly, Warlic, Yulgar, and Aria) cook up some bogus excuse to trick you naive adventurers into battling said monsters.
3) You all mindlessly head off in whatever direction Robina and her gang send you, supposedly to protect the town from some unseen and poorly defined evil (in reality, you're just removing those who refuse to play ball with Robina's gang and thinning out her competition for her). As a reward, you get gold... which was actually already your gold in the first place, as it was looted from the treasury.
4) Since Lore conveniently lacks banks, credit unions, or any other such financial institutions, you invest your gold in new equipment from Yulgar, spells from Warlic, or pets from Aria. These three *respectable* pillars of the community secretly funnel your hard-earned money back to Robina, who uses her underground network to re-distribute it back to the monsters.
5) The cycle continues.
So you see, thanks to the Conspiracy, you're not finding new money. You're merely constantly re-earning your existing money, while also fueling a military-industrial complex that will ultimately lead to financial collapse and an over-dependance on the existing power structure. Before you know it, you'll live in a world where Robina and her band own everything, and you are forced to slave away for 14 hours a day just to feed your starving families. You'll be relegated to eating scraps and living in poorly-constructed government housing, while the Conspiracy looks down at you from their Guardian Tower and laughs.
And to think, they call ME the bad guy!
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