In Heilbronn, ransoms are sophisticated financial instruments where human life is assigned precise value based on bloodline, political utility, and market conditions. The business of captivity is not merely extortion but a recognized economic and political system.
Royal Hostages: Highest value—often taken during battle and worth entire castle holdings
Noble Scions: Priced according to house prominence and succession position
Knight-Captives: Valued by martial reputation and equipment quality
Merchant Princes: Worth determined by liquid wealth rather than bloodline
Strategic Commoners: Master craftsmen, scholars, or those holding valuable secrets
Proof of Life: Standardized methods including personal tokens, written testimony, and occasionally severed appendages
Treatment Standards: Unwritten rules where captive value determines conditions—royalty housed comfortably while lesser prisoners suffer
The Honor System: Paroled captives allowed limited freedom after swearing not to escape
Death Calculations: Complex formulas determining when a captive becomes more valuable dead than alive
The Initial Overvaluation: Opening demands always exceed actual expected payment by 30-50%
Counter-Offer Rituals: Formalized rejection and counter-proposals following established patterns
Mediator Class: Professional ransom-brokers who take percentage of final settlement
The Escalation Calendar: Scheduled torments or appendage removals to encourage timely payment
Reputation Factors: Known reliability in previous ransom transactions affects price and terms
The Neutral Ground: Designated exchange locations with traditional immunity protections
Staged Release: Captive freed in phases as payment portions are verified
Collateral Captives: Secondary hostages given by paying family as guarantee against escapes
The Ransom Fair: Semi-annual gatherings where multiple exchanges occur simultaneously
Ransomer Orders: Religious organizations specializing in captive redemption for percentage fees
The Abandoned Captive: Political calculation sometimes means prisoners are deliberately left unclaimed
False Capture: Staged kidnappings to extract wealth from one's own family
The Damaged Return: Captives intentionally maimed before release as political statements
Ransom Insurance: Wealthy families maintain emergency funds specifically for redemption
The Exchange Economy: Captive-for-captive trades rather than monetary settlement
Remember: In Heilbronn, ransoms reveal the exact worth of a person in cold, hard figures. The negotiations expose which family members are truly valued and which are merely claimed to be important. Many captives discover their actual worth is far less than they imagined, while others learn they are more valuable to their enemies than their allies.
The wisest players in the ransom game understand that sometimes refusing to pay speaks more powerfully than any gold offered—and that everyone's price can be calculated with brutal precision when necessity demands it.