| rdfs:comment
| - Commerce is the lifeblood of an empire. A farmer sells his prize horse to buy seed for next season, and the tax collector takes enough off the top to equip a footman. A noble buys a tapestry imported from across the continent, and the King's campaign can continue for another month. As such, it is not discontent that is the greatest threat to a ruler's ambition. Bread and carnivals can assuage unhappiness, or garrison troops should those measures fail. Rather a people's satisfaction has the potential to deplete the treasury and starve an empire. If the farmer is content with a smaller gain, from where does the soldier's arms come? If the noble is pleased with his bare halls, shall the war end sooner? Indeed, if the soldiers themselves do not yearn for a better life than their fathers, why w
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| abstract
| - Commerce is the lifeblood of an empire. A farmer sells his prize horse to buy seed for next season, and the tax collector takes enough off the top to equip a footman. A noble buys a tapestry imported from across the continent, and the King's campaign can continue for another month. As such, it is not discontent that is the greatest threat to a ruler's ambition. Bread and carnivals can assuage unhappiness, or garrison troops should those measures fail. Rather a people's satisfaction has the potential to deplete the treasury and starve an empire. If the farmer is content with a smaller gain, from where does the soldier's arms come? If the noble is pleased with his bare halls, shall the war end sooner? Indeed, if the soldiers themselves do not yearn for a better life than their fathers, why will they quit the farm for a mercenary life? In light of this, the Stewards of Inequity make an offer which even rulers devout of Junil have a hard time declining. Let the royal market be seeded with a relic of the King of Avarice here, or one of his praying acolytes there. Let his temples be unmolested in your capital. The people's hearts shall take up a little-- just a little--greed. So will their labors be intensified with avarice, and the nation profit. Alas, such hubris has brought down empires. There is no such thing as a little greed, for Mammon is not a master content to share his subjects, and a people enslaved by their own base appetites are rare to rouse to the nobler callings of man.
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