The saloon economy

Waterfront saloons and inland way stations become fixtures of the island’s economy.

Prospectors, teamsters, dockworkers and construction crews spend their earnings around faro banks, dice games and poker tables. Later stories remember poker above everything else, although faro is often the more dependable business.

The Anchor House near the landing rents an upstairs room for private games. Mercy’s Rest, farther along the freight road, draws workers between contracts.

Some games are affordable entertainment. Others are designed to turn a short evening into months of debt.

The houses pay musicians, cooks, porters and stable hands. Their profits also finance new rooms, freight animals and, occasionally, the wages of the people building the next establishment.

Changelings find ambition, performance and rivalry around the tables. They also encounter people whose ability to dream is being worn down by desperate repetition. A game played for delight and a game used to ruin someone are not treated as the same thing.

Vampire patrons cultivate access to customers and creditors. Sorcerers sell protection against bad luck. Ghosts remain attached to places where they expected to win enough money to go home.