*PASTE*
On a related note, Eloc is working on a plan with Griff on how to turn the main floor of our new base into a strip mall of sorts. The idea being that we get a few merchants to move in under our protection and the funds that are generated should be enough to pay for the maintenance of the place (taxes, servants, upkeep, etc). Eloc also plans to divide the large room upstairs into a couple more bedrooms and a common area. The basement he plans to convert to a training area, library, and alchemy lab. We should also keep the prisons in tact for now.

What I meant by this is there might be times that we incure expenses that no one individual should have to pay for. For example, paying back the baker should have come from company funds. Another alternative would be to have "everyone pitch in", but there are some who have already spent there money before they have :P

Ok, I'm all for having a company expenses pool but what I meant by "I'm not certain what that actually means" is how are we going to do it? 5%? 10%? An equal share or flat fee from each of our adventures? The everyone pitch in approach (I'm actually somewhat partial to this one since it wouldn't require the players to manage another set of finances, although it has some serious drawbacks, as well). More importantly, who's going to manage the use of it? I, as a player, sure don't want to.

I like the idea of having merchants move in and of hiring guards (could provide some good connections and even plot hooks), but I don't like the idea of managing that side of things outside of play. That said, do we have anyone that's willing to tackle that task as a player?

Also, if we do end up going the route of relocating merchants and hiring guards, we need to be really careful not to open ourselves up to a flood of problems. The guards and/or merchants could end up being thieves or even spies for someone (like a villain) that wants to keep tabs on us. It's especially a concern with magic. Opening this door puts a lot of people in our home with an excuse for being there. Still, Kor is definitely not opposed to the idea and would support moving Skie to the base if we're going to allow merchants to take shop there. Oh, Kor would also suggest setting up traps (mundane and magical) to add a higher level of protection to our personal areas.

I do *not* want renting out the downstairs to be a big deal and detract from the ability to adventure, etc. unless you guys all of a sudden want to play a mercantile campaign - in which case I need to start doing a lot of studying and prep in order to make that work.

As far as I'm concerned, if you guys "open up space", I want to know how much and where you want to open it up, and what kinds of businesses you're willing to let move in (and NOT move in).  You guys can hire a majordomo or something like that and let him manage it - he'll take a percentage off the top, and if I determine you've had a particularly successful month (due to popularity of the group, something you do in roleplay, etc.) you might get some kind of income off it.

Other than that, I was going to let it balance itself out, take care of the upkeep costs and taxes, etc.

Some of the benefits are obvious - you'll be able to outfit without leaving your house, pick up a pastry at a stand just outside your gate, dump off excess goods with the merchants who might sell them for you on consignment (maybe getting you more for them than just selling them outright).