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BY IAN ELLER, MALCOLM SHEPPARD,JOHN SNEAD AND ANDREW WATT

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© 2003 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Repro-duction without the written permission of the publisher is expresslyforbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank charactersheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf,Vampire, Vampire the Masquerade, Mage the Ascension, World ofDarkness, Aberrant and Exalted are registered trademarks of WhiteWolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Werewolf the Apocalypse,Dark Ages Vampire, Wraith the Oblivion, Changeling the Dream-ing, Hunter the Reckoning, Werewolf the Wild West, Mage the

Sorcerers Crusade, Wraith the Great War, Trinity, the Age of Sorrows, the Second Age of Man, Exalted theDragon-Blooded, Exalted the Lunars, Exalted the Abyssals, Games of Divinity, Creatures of the Wyld, ExaltedStoryteller’s Companion, the Book of Three Circles, Scavenger Sons, Time of Tumult, Ruins of Rathess andManacle and Coin are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters, names, placesand text herein are copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.

The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark orcopyright concerned.

This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elementsare fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretionis advised.

For a free White Wolf catalog call 1-800-454-WOLF.Check out White Wolf online athttp://www.white-wolf.com; alt.games.whitewolf and rec.games.frp.storyteller

PRINTED IN CANADA

SPECIAL THANKSI’d like to start this book by thanking Ken Cliffe and

the other folks in management at White Wolf for allowingso many of you to read it. As originally planned, Manacleand Coin was to be a Black Dog book, a part of our adults-only line, because of its unpleasant subject material. Whenit was decided to keep the book in the main line, I wasconcerned over the issue of content. I wrote to Ken askingif he felt that any of the material would need to change, andhe said I should “keep it up to the high standards of theline.” So that’s what I’ve done; I did exactly the book Iintended to do in the first place. Let’s hear it for managerswith brass nuts.

I’d also like to thank the writers. They did a bang-upjob on a very hard assignment that happened to fall withinthe developer’s own sphere of personal interest. AndrewWatt, in particular, worked tirelessly to capture the fullByzantine sweep of imperial finance.

Finally, thanks to Ken Hite and Mark Cenczyk forlistening to my plans for the imperial economy at SimCon2002 and for providing their comments.

CREDITSAuthors: Ian Eller, Malcolm Sheppard, John Snead,Andrew WattStoryteller Game System Design: Mark Rein•HagenDeveloper: Geoffrey C. GrabowskiEditor: John ChambersArt Direction: Brian GlassArtists: Ross Campbell, Shane Coppage, Pop Mhan, YosiNosaka, Chris Stevens, Andie Tong, and Melissa UranCover Art: Ross CampbellCover Design: Brian GlassLayout and Typesetting: Brian Glass

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4CHAPTER ONE: GUILD HISTORY AND STRUCTURE 8CHAPTER TWO: DRUGS — THE SOFT TRADE 38CHAPTER THREE: SLAVES — THE HARD TRADE 68APPENDIX: MONEY AND FINANCE IN CREATION 100

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it issometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, andthat his death should be the coin of what we call civilization.

—Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder”

I don’t normally speak directly to the readers, but justthis once, I’d like to talk directly to the people reading thisbook. Manacle and Coin is a special book for me, one thatI’ve intended to do since I was first developing the mainExalted rulebook.

The goals for this book are threefold. First and foremost,I wanted to explain the business practice, macroeconomicsand international vice trade of the Age of Sorrows. Whilenone of these matters directly affect a game of kung-fu asskicking,Exalted achieves much of its heroic effect from the extremecontrast of the game’s over-the-top action with the grimrealism of the Second Age. This book, then, is a key toestablishing that grim realism. Like Savage Seas, there aredoubtless some fans who will find the material in this book notto their tastes. It is a serious treatment of business, particularlydirty and unpleasant business, as transacted in the Second Ageof Man. There is precious little graphic sex and even lessgraphic violence in it, and neither is especially glorified whenit does appear. However, the book covers material that, untilnow, was only available to the developer and a few core writers.I think it is fascinating and fun, and my primary goal for thisbook is that much of the material find its way into your game.

Second, it was always my intention that this book illus-trate the depths to which the human individual can sink. Mostof the practices illustrated in this book are modeled on real-

world material: the Arabic and transatlantic slave trade, thepartition of China and the subjection of its people to opium,the perversion of entire nations to serve the ends of the singleindividual who rules and effectively owns them. I hope thatwhen a reader finishes Manacle and Coin, he will thoroughlyunderstand that there is nothing that some person will not doto another in the quest for wealth and power. Let this bookstand as a lesson to those who would say that “nobody” would“ever” do something. There is always someone willing toperform any particular wicked deed if it profits him or allowshim to gain a position where others are in his power.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, this book existsto remind the inhabitants of our own age that the denizensof the Age of Sorrows are wrong. Most of the evils this booktalks about are largely, blessedly extinct in our own world, somuch so that I needed to publish a book specifically aboutthem so that players and Storytellers could learn enough ofthese historical terrors to include them in their games.

These practices are not extinct because they are ineffi-cient or unprofitable. Most such inhuman endeavors nettedquite tidy sums. If they hadn’t been profitable, their evilwould not have been such a pestilence upon mankind. Now,they are extinct, not because of any natural or historicalprocess, but because people of all nations and all creedstogether turned their faces against these forms of wickedness

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