April 17, 2005
Game IRE #19: I'm the Taxman
After the difficulty of last week's IRE involving the passing of the pope, I felt it was only fair to go for a theme that is relatively simple and direct.
April 15th, in America, is "Tax Day", the last day once can file their income taxes for last year.
The Taxman cometh...and what are your characters going to do?
While it would be child's play to do a scenario where a character party is hit up for tax contributions to the local or kingdom's government, I'd like to look at this from a slightly different point of view.
Across the kingdom, public buildings are being outfitted with gold-leaf roofs. From temples of the state religion to slim towers on top of coliseums, it becomes clear that the taxes of the kingdom are going toward an enormous amount of ostentation of buildings. Those foolhardy enough to try and take some of this gold are met with increased patrols of the constabulary. Visibly, too, the taxes are not being spent on the things that the characters would expect...roads, general works projects and so forth.
Why? Why has the lord/lady of the land turned the taxes and revenues toward this seemingly non-sensical goal? Has the Queen simply gone mad? Is she under some sort of influence, mundane, magical or other? Is there some unfathomable logic to this that the characters will regret uncovering?
Posted by Jvstin at April 17, 2005 10:54 AM