The Long Ledger
The Long Ledger. The Long Ledger is the warlord's memory for debts, and the universe's willingness to collect on their behalf. Once the warlord has named a debt owed to them — by a city that withheld tribute, by a lord who broke a treaty, by a guild that funneled gold to an enemy — that debt is collected within a year. The collection is not always direct. Sometimes it comes as a bad harvest, a failed harvest, a fever in the debtor's family. Sometimes it comes as a knife in the dark, wielded by someone the debtor wronged years ago and never paid. Sometimes it comes as the warlord's army at the gate. The ledger does not distinguish. The debt is paid, in full or in blood, and the warlord moves on to the next entry. They have never had to write the same name twice.