On the order of a monarch to stimulate their nation’s economy.
2
By a prospector who chanced upon a huge silver deposit.
3
By a criminal syndicate to help launder their funds.
4
By a retired adventurer with their amassed wealth.
5
By a merchant who swore off travelling the trade routes themself after a disastrous expedition.
6
Under mysterious circumstances. It seemed to simply appear one day.
7
By an infamous mercenary after they collected several nobles’ ransoms at once.
8
By a cult dedicated to a god of greed.
9
By some ditch-diggers who discovered an ancient accounting machine.
10
By a prelate who pilfered the donations of the pious.
11
By a dragon to effortlessly multiply their hoard.
12
By an inveterate, unnaturally lucky gambler.
13
By the anti-echo of a god of finance to bring itself into existence.
14
By a jaded lich who sought amusement in banality.
15
By an entrepreneurial dryad entranced by the idea of millennia of compounding returns.
16
By triplet-sisters who murdered each other for the controlling share.
17
By a crashed alien AI as the first step of its rigourously computed plan to return to the stars.
18
In secret, at first lending only to conspiracies.
19
By a thieves’ guild going legit.
20
By a spidery fairy-creature to expand their web of promises.
D20
This bank’s headquarters:
1
Is a spiralling tower that goes as far down below the earth as it does above.
2
Is a fortress converted from war to commerce, though no less impregnable for it.
3
Can only be accessed by a series of enchanted keys. Each further key can take you deeper into their vaults.
4
Is said to be haunted by the bound ghosts of those who never fulfilled their contract to the bank.
5
Is encased in ice, to better preserve the property they hold.
6
Is protected by physical layers of bureaucracy, a paper fortress.
7
Is carved into the beached corpse of a dragon-turtle.
8
Is an entire town dedicated to the bank, the inhabitants raised from birth as its clerks and accountants.
9
Is a dungeon carved down to the roots of a mountain. In its depths lurk things even the bank has forgotten.
10
Is a repurposed pyramid complex, its grave goods used for seed capital, its restful dead chopped up and used for firewood.
11
Lie in the tangled throats of a petrified hydra.
12
Is secreted and ever-expanded by specially-bred molluscs.
13
Is built on land dredged up from the seabed, an artificial promontory.
14
Is slung beneath a fleet of airships, always on the move.
15
Is built with pearly gates, gold-tiled floors, and fountains of rosewater: an imitation of heaven on earth.
16
Is built in stacked, mirrored rings, so that a few properly situated guards can see everything that goes on within.
17
Is a decoy. The bank’s real executive functions are conducted not-quite-covertly at a beerhall nearby.
18
Can in desperate times be animated as a massive golem, though this consumes large quantities of expensive magical fuels.
19
Keeps its vaults flooded, accessible (in theory) only by its staff of fish-men.
20
Has recently been devastated by a roc seeking to steal some shinies.
D20
This bank has a reputation for:
1
Using the letter of agreements to drain their spirits.
2
Enslaving those debtors who default.
3
Being able to purchase anything.
4
Funding the construction of monuments for positive publicity.
5
Grinding even their own employees down to nubs.
6
Taking payment in more gruesome means.
7
Pursuing profit no matter the risk, loaning for any endeavour.
8
Dealing with the more contract-abiding sort of maleficar.
9
Internal corruption, containing many greasable wheels.
10
Knowing no discrimination except against lack of liquidity.
11
Gathering all the occult knowledge and artifacts they can get their hands on.
12
Generous charity.
13
Investing in underground fighting rings and other criminal enterprises.
14
Incompetence and nepotism.
15
Employing spies to gather market intel and sabotage competitors.
16
Exploiting the ignorant and desperate.
17
Attempting to use their economic power to acquire other sorts of power, bribing priests and princes.
18
Ostentatious displays of wealth to prove their success.
19
Funding all sides in a war to profit regardless of who wins.
20
Collusion with certain noble families for mutual enrichment.
D20
This bank wishes to fund:
1
An expedition to the lands of the dead, to contact a deceased relative of its founder(s).
2
A voyage to the place where the sun rises.
3
The construction of an impregnable vault. Experts in security and details of treasure-protection measures will be well compensated by them.
4
The construction of an artificial calculator-mind.
5
The breeding of dogs able to smell debt.
6
Their chairman’s ascension to autocratic domination.
7
A monopolistic takeover of all other banks.
8
The retrieval of an artifact-ring which spawns yet more rings every night. It’s terrible for inflation.
9
The arming of an insurrection to replace the current government with one more amenable to their profit.
10
The raising of an island from the sea, beyond the reach of law and taxes.
11
Some industrial espionage to steal the craft secrets of the dwarves.
12
The construction of a tower that stretches to heaven, to advertise their wealth to all on earth.
13
A convocation of the greatest artists of the age, to patronize art that will glorify commerce unto the end of time.
14
A heist on the Akashic Records, to steal the Platonic principles of banking.
15
The breaking out of a devil that has been bound in a saint’s tomb for centuries, in return for its eternal service as a lawyer.
16
The adoption of a fiat system of currency which it will control the supply of.
17
The founding of a university unrivalled by any other under heaven, to educate a labour pool of shrewd professionals.
18
The discovery of the cure for a plague ravaging the land, so the bank can win profit and influence by metering it out.
19
A mass acquisition of letters patent bestowing nobility, to merge the bank’s bourgeoisie into the aristocracy.
20
A theological revolution in the Church, to make usury more pleasing to God.
D20
This bank collects debts:
1
With a gold-skinned, many-mouthed demon. It’s said the founder bound it to the bank’s service, though which serves which in the current day is ambiguous.
2
Withs its junior members, recruited from the cream of protection racket-running crops.
3
With retriever-golems cast from runed silver.
4
With flesh-eating beetles that have evolved to resemble precious coins.
5
With government forces in their pocket with bribes.
6
With consummately professional and deadly mercenaries.
7
Politely and effectively, from fear of the horrific punishments they inflict on those few who do default.
8
With doppelgängers of their debtors, bought from the other side of mirrors with the promise that they’ll be able to take over their copy’s life afterwards.
9
With their own private secret police force, experts in the breaking of bodies and minds.
10
Only sometimes, and they’re failing as a result.
11
By requiring its borrowers to imbibe a slow-acting venom, and handing out doses of the antidote with repayment.
12
By raising the corpses of debtors to work their debt off if they have to.
13
With barbarian sellswords who sneer at the concept of currency (paid in cattle).
14
With lobotomized drakes.
15
In pounds of flesh if the gold won’t suffice.
16
With mobs of other debtors, promised a waiver of repayment if they bring in the target.
17
With squads of homunculi that are legally the property of the bank.
18
An order of warrior-monks who believe that dying while saddled with debt weighs down one’s souls.
19
With loathsome haunting spirits of guilt and shame.
20
With brutish orphans raised to view the bank as their parent and master, riding giant magpies.
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