In the 41st millennium, your average labourer makes about 25-30 Thrones a month (it says on p124 of the Core Rule Book and also somewhere in the Edge of Darkness scenario).

Now look at the prices of common items. Your average labourer could afford:
- just six cups of recaf a month (cost 5 each)
- 3 packs of lho sticks (10 each)
- 6 midgrade meals (5 each)

And that leaves no money for rent, clothes, basic food and drink, and the occasional penthrift sensation novel.

It seems these items are a bit overpriced, or the wages too low to be realistic.

It becomes even more apparent when PCs are given these wages. A psyker earns just 70 Thrones a month, which makes a cup of recaf a major investment for him too

While it doesn't say so explicitly, I would suggest that the income on that table is what someone earns over and above their basic living expenses. So, you're common laborer can afford six cups of recaff a month, in addition to his rent and daily rations of nutriloaf and re-purified water.

Hmm.....re-purified water.....

I would also agree with the idea that the Income is the savings each month after basic living expenses are taken care of.

I would even add a multiplier based on the job or position that is held along the lines of the Item quality chart.

Poor = Unskilled worker/child labor

Common = Average worker

Good = Shift leader or specialist

Best = Manager or specialist

Well, as far as I understand it (and how it works for me), most 'average' labourers in the Imperium of Men are in fact indentured labourers. These indentured labourers more or less belong to the company or branch of the adeptus terra they work for and this respective organiszation is also more or less responsible for the workers 'well'-being (similar to a liege lord in feudalism (which the IoM actually is) and has to take care of its upkeep. So, the liege lord (ie. the respective organization the worker is indentured to) has to feed its workers between the work shifts. The 25-30 Thrones is what a worker gets beyond the normal food rations, meal vouchers and working clothes. With this money he can buy whatever he/ she wants. Be it a wedding ring made of tin for his fiance or six cups of recaf or a prostitute or 3 packs of lho sticks or whatever...

Minor Spoiler for Edge of Darkness --------------------------- If I remember correctly the Alms House also only gave those people food that were indentured workers of the (forgot the name) company.

Keep in mind that psyker is in many respects a slave, but a valuble one. Certainly his food, housing, and medical needs are taken care of. Also an easy trick for a psyker is to take a trade skill which puts him in a very different income bracket.

PS- Personally as GM I give the PC's whatever thir boss thinks they need. They work for a guy who can command armies, ships the size of cities, and order a world to burn... He is going to provide for equipment. It might not be what they want, but it's what h thinks they need. This is doubly true it they are going under cover as ganger or mercs.

<rant> Why should money really matter. As far as what to spend money on? Why do you really care? This isn't D&D money doesn't matter. A GM should keep the insanely rare stuff like lathe blades, force weapons, and the like simply unavailable. (Unless the do something to impress the =][=, or the tech priests.) Blessed gear isn't headed out to the non pious so a task to prov their worth might be in order. You want power armor sure. You can't wear it on investigations, you can't easily lug it around, and who has time to stop run go get it out of storage and put it on. Heavy weapons are the same. Lug around a man portable lascannon?
http://kofler.dot.at/40k/guard_units.html
Can you lug that around? Every cop you pass is going to call for the PDF. Missed rounds are going to go through a building or 3. Everyone for 2 blocks will be running the other direction.

There are very few items that are game changers. Most are simply helpful. Like weapon upgrades, best quality melee weapons, ammo upgrades.... Bolt weapons with the errata are impressive, but carrying around a bolt weapon is basically screaming we are really really rich, and connected!!! People will be trying to either steal it or run the other way. Sure you could conceal a bolt pistol, but ammo runs out quick on the pistols. A boltgun is a massive rifle which you can't hide. On the other hand there are some great buys in the IH. The camo armored body glove, some of the battle drugs, a few tech items and a couple of weapons. I let PC buy what ever they want within reason. It doesn't matter that much. Besides sooner or later they will get shot down and have to abandon their gear any way right?

</rant_nver_goes_off>

I think this point has been raised before, and while some may sympathise with the "inquisitor provides" rule my players are all uni grads. A believable monetary system helps them suspend their disbelief and get into character.

The first point I want to make is that it is a feudal society. People are property! Not even the most valuable kind of property! I'm sure a noble would rather see a hundred serfs they have never even seen immolated than give up their beloved wraithbone chess set. Sure they have rights, some may even be able to progress to having more rights as they get older, but in a feudal society you are entitled to nothing unless someone above you gives you it. This works all the way up the chain to sector governors and so on, so its not just the peasants. The whole society acts as a giant pyramid scheme, with wealth from the worlds been siphoned off to the imperium on every level. I've given a rough example below of what an industialized feudal society might work like, but its only a suggestion so feel free to ignore it.

The whole system of monetary payment is badly skewed. I multipled all wages by ten. A lot of prices went up as well, but in the main the system seems to work pretty well. (as a rough rule, if its rare i multiplied the price by the following amounts: scarce*1.5, rare *5, very rare*10+ depending on the world.). A serf, who has their paypacket reduced for food and lodging (105 thrones for lodging, 126 for basic food and water) has a little bit of money to tithe to the church, spend on the occasional Joygirl and round of Liqour, often on the same day. so they can survive. not wonderfully (more silt ale and CS anyone?), but not starving either. However, if for some reason they become unemployed, they get nothing. better hope you don't get ill!! oh, and have lots of kids, so when you're in your old age and unfit for work, you won't starve. It also helps the imperium maintain order, as people with a little money are far less likely to riot then those with none. Soldiers (on a palatial 500 thrones) can afford mid grade food, making service much more attractive.

As a good case in point, a player asked me how much it would cost to buy a serf to act as porter and general henchmen. i did a bit of math and came up with about 50,000 thrones. Although the figure seems large, please read on before exploding in outrage. The costs of buying a serf don't just represent the profits the owners stand to lose for not having his labour, but also the considerable investment the've already made.

A serf eats from a young age. Every mouthful is logged in some adminastratium datfile. but who pays for it? The parents even though the emporer showers them in 300 thrones a month are barely scraping by. The answer is the ever-benign corporation that proably owns mommy and daddy as well. after all, accidents do happen and new workers can look foward to long hours of toil and an early grave. Over 12 years or so, until the child is fit to work, the costs mount, as does the interest accrued on the debt. The young serf will have to pay it all back by working hard, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for 52 weeks a year. Of course the serf gets some wages, as well as subsidised food and lodging but these are just added to the debt as well. after many years the serf is worn out and the new generation are ready, already indebted to the generous gombine and eager to work in the chemical factories. Thus is the social order of imperium maintained! Long hours for the glourious tithe etc.

sorry for the long post, but this point has been raised and discussed by my group at length. Hope it's some help. Any queries?

I have one. Just how rich is the average inquisitor really? Is he above the law, able to request anything he demands as long as it doesn't interfere with another inquisitor or does he have to build up his resources privately? How much of an investment is a Inquisitor putting into an acolyte when he accepts him?

I tend to view those prices as "enough for a month" so if your acolyte is on a 20 a day habit of lho-sticks then he/she is happily spending 10 Thrones a month on servicing their habit (or 5 Thrones a month if they're only smoking poor quality sticks).

This is pretty much within the rules, the armoury section states that the price is for a pack or bottle of lho-sticks/rations/alcohol without properly determining the size of this pack or bottle. I choose to interpret this as a fairly big case. As the quality of the consumables they're asking for goes up the sizeof the pack or bottle goes down.

The problem with picking prices for consumables is that the laws of supply and demand will always mean there are affordable recreational consumables available for a reasonable price so long as humans want some, the quality of these consuambles and availability of them will vary from world to world and while some slightly better guidelines than those in the DH Core would have been useful the exact nature of what is available and for how much is very much down to the the GM.

Two quick thoughts.
One: Following laws of demand supply, in the long run, someone will start supplying any good on which they can turn a profit. So most feudal worlds don't have any Iho sticks, because shiny baubles are worth little. However, they might have some Obscura supplied to them by offworlders in exchange for slaves. If there is a market opening, you can be sure the cold guilds will move in. Therefore, prices tend to be pretty similar, as anyone able to undercut them will move in, offer a better price and seek to win over the locals with firewater and badly made firearms. Overall, I can't imagine prices vary much lower than 70% which is about the cost to produce the good in question. The upper end is lot less pretty. If, for some reason, something is suddenly exceptionally difficult to get hold of, the prices can go up to double or even three times the price it normally sells for. Because the production costs stay the same, this represents a massive increase in profit for the seller.

Two: Inquisitors are above the law. With inquisitorial backed accounts for expenses there is probably no meaningful limit to the amount of money or mundane resources they can get hold of. However, money and basic lasguns can't get you very far in the shadow war the inquisition is fighting. The accounts that move massive amounts of money around are probably watched very closely by smart enemies. If not, than they may not be interested in money at all or temporal power at all. So sure, an inquisitor could destabilize a whole sector by buying up everything in sight, but to what end? They would have no more power at the end of it and a lot more responsibilities to all their billions of serfs. In a feudal system the best kind of power is the power to influence. Suspect House V'Neef of harbouring a slaneeshi cult? get them to throw a party so you can snoop around.
The amount of investment an acolyte represents depends on the inquisitor and acolyte. In my campaign, two different inquisitors show very different methods. One Is Vaarak, taken from the core rulebook, the other is homemade, Lord Soldarius VanHagen. VanHagen has four groups of Acolytes. just four. Vaarak has well over three hundred. For VanHagen each Acolyte is carefully chosen to suit his radical agenda. Vaarak sees a group as a tool and prefers being able to respond with speed in the first instance. VanHagen's Acolytes sport power weapons and hellguns. Vaaraks, autoguns and best wishes. The style of the inquisitor is more important than the amount of money they have. Some acolytes are probably recruited just so the Inquisitor can build up a decent front for others groups to pretend to work for.

That turned into a mini rant. Still, Any questions?

I'd have to guess, if an Inquisitor is "above the law", then wages and expense accounts probably don't even enter into it. I'm sure it exsists at that level, but remember, the Imperium is a vast, unbelievably slow bueracracy. It could take years/decades to get an expense approved.

Once you're "above the law", what's to prevent you from "acquisitioning" what you need from the resources around you? What are the population going to do, complain? Need a fleet? Walk into the Imperial Navy and look an admiral in the eye and tell him where he and his fleet are going. He may balk or drag his feet, but he can't directly refuse you. Resistance is akin to heresy, since it is refusing the will of the Emperor. Need a lasgun? The Imperial Guard, local planetary defense, etc etc probably has an armory, an Inquisitor could walk in, demand access, and walk out wearing enough guns to start a small war. Again, who is anyone going to complain to? Even if there were an avenue to complain to, it might take decades to make it through the bueracracy and end up as a reprimand on the Inquisitor's record. By then he'll probably be dead. Need food? Walk into a store or dispensory and take what you need. You're more heavily armed than pretty much anyone else and if you don't need to be subtle, you can throw your weight around.

That being said, a wise Inquisitor is not going to make enemies needlessly, and only when pressed I imagine would the Inquisitor simply take what was needed and step on the toes of the extremely powerful. Zealous cooperation is infinately preferrable to forced acquiesence.

Acolytes don't have the same aura of divine might to them, and thus *have* to concern themselves with money, wages, and availability. In fact, a cunning inquisitor might purposly under-equip/fund his acolytes, to see who is the most resourceful, who is the most capable of seizing victory, or at least a course of action, from paralysis of being totally unequipped for the job. After all, it's not like there isn't a trillion or two other humans in the imperium to draw new recruits from.

There's historical precident for this. In WW2, the OSS would, as part of their training, drop their agents off in a city like New York, without any identification, and with 20 dollars. They had either one day or one week (my memory is foggy) to come up with as much classified information as they possibly could.

I can easily see a campaign where the worst hinderance of the PCs is not their adversaries, but their patron Inquisitor.

I've always thought an inquisitor got money, and equipment in several way. 1st by seizing the property of heretics. 2nd by simply requisitioning what he/she needs from various Imperial groups. 3rd by deals/favor with powerful groups like say a tech priest sect, or space marine chapter. My PCs often make use of their writ to requisition gear from the arbites, and guard armories. Generally they prefer the arbites as they can raid the impounded gear. (In the 2nd PtU adventure they raided the naval armory.) Of course on under cover mission they often are just handed cash, or gear. In some cases they are forced to lie, cheat, and steal to get the gear they need.

Well, having flipped through the book again, it appears that the money is "in addition to" anything the inquisitor might give them. It's either a stipend or money made on the side (GM/Player's discretion).

Still, the language in the setting intonates that the Inquisitor proper has *hundreds* of acolytes underneath him. Even if this is exaggerated, and he has say 3 or 4 teams of 4 or 5, that's still a sizeable number of people to mother hen, on top of his duties (which he has too many of to begin with, but such is the fate of defenders of the Emperor).

I guess in my game I want my players to look at their patron sort of like how a private in the military would look at a general. After slogging through muck and mud and god only knows what hell to get where they were going, they turn, and see the general/inquisitor drive up in a car, looking calm and relaxed. I want my players to remark "what an a$$hole..." towards their patron. It *looks* like a cakewalk to the acolytes, and the Inquisitor is really someone who's full attention you don't want to begin with. Then you can get them to look at Chaos, at the heretics they're putting to the flame, and feel some kind of temptation.

It's just a matter of style. I come from games like Paranoia, where if you take out the comedy, Alpha Complex runs a *lot* like the Imperium of Warhammer 40k. It *shouldn't* run, but it does because A) The inertia of the system can steamroll over any issues that might normally bring such a system to it's knees, and B) people realize the system *shouldn't* work, and cut corners or make the best out of what they have. Players need to be inventive and ruthless to achieve their goal, which will ultimately make them better Inquisitors. In fact, Paranoia's Alpha Complex and how to run it probably has some interesting commentary for a game like Dark Heresy. Alpha Complex is not so much a setting as a frame of mind. Oppressive, bureaucratic, brutal, and insane, yet barely functional. In fact, a hive world *is* like Alpha Complex. Hmmmm... Now there is an interesting idea. A hive world with a tech-priest, immeasurably old, hardwired into the hive as it's central logic point. This tech-priest is senile, insane, and paranoid. Security is rampant and corruption is even more rampant. Mutants and heretics that can avoid meeting the (shifting) definition of the hive's idea of a heretic live largely under the radar, even potentially in the relative open. Would the tech-priest himself be a heretic? Would the priests who attend to him and keep him functional? Would purging the hive-mind (ungh... bad pun) destroy the infrastructure of the hive? It'd be an interesting diversion for acolytes.