Chevel Economy

The Tribal Economy

Before the formation of the Chevellauni, each tribe on Chevel produced a multitude of goods and services suitable to sustain themselves, with a little left over for sporadic trading with neighbouring tribes. However, each tribe lacked certain goods and services that others had, and the constant warring often restricted trading. Since the Feast of Samain Meeting though, each tribe has been encouraged to specialise in manufacturing certain goods or providing certain services. Whatever each tribe produces, the law of the land states that a specified amount (approximately 75% of the expected total output) is to be given over to the Chevellauni, who retain a share of all goods and services before redistributing the remainder equally amongst the other tribes. The specialised products include minerals/metals, timber, and distilled water. Farm foods (e.g. meat and cereals as opposed to seafood), specially trained thoroughbred horses, and ships and shipping services (these are handed over and redistributed in the form of contracts). There is no ban on tribes producing all of the above for themselves, however to do so would deprive their own specialised production of valuable time and resources. Although the amount demanded by the Chevellauni is originally calculated on a percentage of the expected output, that amount is then a fixed one. Thus, if a tribe normally trained twenty horses per month it would be expected to provide fifteen horses for redistribution every month, regardless of how many it had actually trained in any given month. If that tribe decided to begin building its own ships from its own felled timbers, the lack of time and resources reserved for training horses might result in only fifteen horses being trained, all of which would have to be handed over for redistribution, leaving them with no new horses for themselves. Any tribe failing to meet the production target set by the Chevellauni, without good reason (such as famine, horse disease, Dutch elm disease, etc.), will be punished accordingly, usually by having a reduced share of all other products. That tribe will be expected to make up any shortfall with the next provision or face further penalties. The Chevellauni do not contribute any product to this economy, but provide all the services necessary to make such a system work (i.e. calculating totals, collecting provisions or providing armed escorts for deliveries from each tribe, quality control, storing and redistributing goods, etc.). The additional produce retained by King Cassichevelus is regarded as a tax