Spurs are the dominant currency circulating throughout The Fractured Reach — a unified credit system used on Credence, across the Freecrews’ worlds, throughout the Void Cartel underbelly, and even begrudgingly across Corporate Constellation holdings.
The name comes from their earliest form: metallic chits stamped with a starburst spur, once used to pay frontier haulers and mining crews.
Though now fully digital, the name stuck.
In the Reach, “spending Spurs” is as common a phrase as breathing dust.
Spurs function as both a standardized digital credit and, in some regions, a physical currency, depending on technological access and local preference.
Before Spurs existed, every world used its own currency:
Corporate brands used proprietary scrip
Freecrews used barter tokens
Cartels used encoded promissory chips
Independent colonies used literal metal bars or printed notes
Trade was a nightmare.
It wasn’t until the formation of Wayfarer Crown’s Trade Authority that a universal credit was proposed: a currency backed by distributed servers embedded throughout the Reach, resistant to tampering and not controlled by a single faction.
The Spurs system was born, starting as frontier mining pay-chits before evolving into the Reach’s default economic backbone.
Spurs function on a dual-layered system:
The most widely used form. Stored on:
pilot IDs
vendor slates
mech cockpit consoles
personal comm-tabs
Cartel-grade encrypted “ghost wallets”
D-Spurs are:
transfer-safe
trackable
secure against duplication
recognized across all major factions
Used in frontier settlements, salvage towns, Cartel dens, or places where digital stability is unreliable.
Hard Spurs take the form of:
stamped alloy disks
hexagonal polymer chips
reinforced cred-bars with reactive inks
They cannot be digitally stolen and always carry value in black markets.
Spurs scale upward in simple tiers:
1 Spur — basic food item, ammo rounds, toolkit parts
10 Spurs — routine repairs, lodging, cheap weapons
100 Spurs — full mech tune-ups, armor refits, flight tickets
500 Spurs — high-grade mods, black market goods
1,000 Spurs — mech weapons, reactor components, Guild contracts
10,000+ Spurs — heavyframe purchases, illicit Cartel gear, Constellation bribes
The Reach is a place where a single Spur can keep someone alive —
and a thousand Spurs can change the course of a settlement.
Accepts Spurs for everything: fuel, housing, trade fees.
Uses Spurs to maintain civilian stability.
Spurs are trusted… so long as they’re backed by a reputable issuer.
Crews often carry hybrid wallets of both Spurs and bartered materials.
Use Spurs openly but encrypt every transaction.
They also mint their own “shadow spurs” — illicit but interchangeable in Cartel territory.
Despise relying on a universal currency but do so anyway because it’s profitable.
Offer bonuses in “Constellation Credit Bonds”—only redeemable in corporate stores.
Strict Spur oversight.
Confiscated funds from criminal activity often get funneled back into community infrastructure.
Spurs are the lifeblood of the Guild.
All contracts use Spur denominations, from small courier jobs to Redline hazard work.
In the dusty corners of the Reach, Spurs aren’t just money—they’re identity.
Frontier sayings include:
“A man’s worth ain’t in Spurs, but Spurs sure help.”
“Spend fast, earn fast, die slow.”
“Two things don’t lie: the barrel and the balance sheet.”
Bars, vendors, and scrapyards often keep:
a digital vault
a physical lockbox
and a “no questions asked” fund for desperate pilots
Scraphaven, in particular, values Spurs as both survival tokens and social currency.
Mech pilots live and die by their Spur reserves:
repair fees
ammunition resupply
module swaps
fuel and coolant
emergency retrieval drones
black box insurance payouts
A pilot with no Spurs is a pilot with:
no armor
no upgrades
and no way out of a battlefield
The Contract Wall directly feeds this economy—Scraphaven thrives on the constant churn of Spurs in and out.
The Void Cartels maintain an underground Spur system:
Black Spurs are:
off-ledger
untraceable
encrypted with shifting biometrics
impossible to counterfeit (for long)
They’re used for:
illegal mech mods
Rift-adjacent experimentation
deniable operations
Cartel broker dealings
Possession isn’t illegal…
but Marshals treat them like an admission of guilt.
Spurs survive because:
no single faction controls them
everyone benefits from convenience
counterfeiting is nearly impossible
the Reach depends on neutrality in trade
frontier societies rely on efficiency, not ideology
In a fractured sector held together by welds, duct tape, and stubbornness, Spurs are the closest thing the Reach has to universal trust.
Spurs represent:
reward scalability
faction interaction
survival resource management
mech progression budgeting
They are the perfect frontier credit:
simple, tough, universal, and always in short supply.