Here is a new upgrade for enchanters who can access Rumbleseed clan secrets.

SUSTAINER RUNES [ENCHANTERS]

These runes are only available to the law enforcement enchanters of Clan Rumbleseed. Criminals do not serve prison sentences. They are banished, executed, and/or punished with sustainer runes. The runes come with a price in Vitality or Resolve that may be extracted, usually a month at a time for Vitality or a year at a time for permanent Resolve, and during that time the criminal must stay near the runes they fuel.

Criminals can gain no Ledger until their sustainer debts are paid.

A Resolve costs can be used to power a penal exchange, often an anvil, hammer, or bellows. One Resolve powers the exchange for about a decade and allows it to hold up to 10 Vitality (more can increase capacity or duration). The exchange can have Vitality costs linked to it. All enchanted objects created with sustainer rune power belong to the clan, to be assigned to temporary bearers by the archon.

So, a settlement might have the Punishing Table, a big anvil, and once a decade a Resolve cost bolsters its connection to the sustainer runes. For that decade, all the Vitality costs meted out can feed into that Punishing Table to be spent on crafting other runes, using those costs instead of the Enchanter’s personal Vitality.

• Vitality Tribute. The bearer of this rune is assigned 2-10 permanent Vitality cost, and ordered to remain within 1 mile of the exchange until the cost is paid at the rate of 1 Vitality per month. Leaving before the cost is paid causes a destructive energy cascade that burns out 2 permanent Vitality per 1 left unpaid.
• Resolve Tribute. The bearer of this rune is assigned 1-3 permanent Resolve cost, and ordered to remain within 1 mile of the exchange until the cost is paid at the rate of 1 Resolve per year. Leaving before the cost is paid causes a destructive energy cascade that burns out 2 permanent Resolve per 1 left unpaid.
• Absolution. Effectively a pardon, this rune restores up to 10 permanent Vitality or 3 permanent Resolve to the bearer of a tribute rune. This energy can come from a linked exchange, or if used to right a wrong, can come from a tribute rune put on another dwarf (who is often assigned service to the one wronged until the debt is paid.) In that case the bearer of the absolution rune must remain near the source of the incoming energy for a week per Vitality or a month per Resolve (though longer time frames can be built in.) Absolution runes cannot restore more Vitality or Resolve than tribute runes cost.

Here are some tributes demanded for crimes, for scale. Each one is 1 heavier per prestige upgrade of the victim.

• Murdering a clanmate. 4 Vitality.
• Murdering a Master. 6 Vitality.
• Conspiring against the archon. 4 Vitality.
• Assaulting the archon. 6 Vitality then banishment.
• Killing the archon. 8 Vitality then banishment.
• Conspiring to sabotage an exchange. 4 Vitality.
• Destroying an exchange. 1 Resolve.
• Sharing clan secrets. 1 Resolve.