Credits, Availability, and Legality

The Directorate customs officer did not look at the crates. She looked at the manifest, then at the crew, then at the manifest again. "This lists a medical kit as item fourteen." She did not look up. "Item fourteen is a medical kit." She looked up. "The medical kit contains a bone-set injector. Bone-set injectors contain a controlled Schedule IV compound in Directorate space." She set the manifest on the counter between them. "The injector is therefore a controlled substance regardless of what its country of manufacture lists it as." The captain opened his mouth. She held up one finger. "I can impound the item, or you can pay the administrative processing fee and complete a retroactive import declaration." The captain closed his mouth. There was a fee schedule on the counter. He picked it up and read it carefully.

The Credit Economy

The credit (cr) is the de facto interstellar currency of the Verge. It is not issued by any single power; rather, it emerged as a practical neutral instrument from centuries of cross-faction trade. All five major powers accept credits and issue them, though each maintains its own internal currency for domestic commerce. The Irnan Directorate uses the Directorate Seal internally. The Funtari Confederacy uses the Confederacy Mark. The Shoiyan Concord uses the Concord Scrip. The Jaziri Caliphate uses the Djinn. The Antaean League uses the League Token. Exchange rates fluctuate, but for practical purposes at most cross-faction trade hubs, one credit converts cleanly enough that travelers do not need to manage multiple currency types for day-to-day transactions.

In fringe space, credits are king. Local economies may supplement with barter, faction scrip, commodity exchange, or favor accounting, but a crew that shows up with credits can buy what it needs almost everywhere.

Exchanging credits into a power's internal currency costs 2 percent at that power's core worlds and 5 percent at a frontier post. Exchanging back costs the same. A crew that works one power's space for a season saves money by holding that power's currency; a crew that crosses borders holds credits.

Reading a Price

Every price in this book is set against wages. A rated crew hand (a pilot, gunner, or operator) earns about 900cr a month, or 30cr a day. One honest freight contract pays about 9,600cr for a small crew and covers one working month. The cost bands used in the Void Drifters Player's Guide map to credits as follows.

What Credits Buy

The prices in this book are expressed in credits and calibrated to a baseline: a mid-sized independent commercial station with functional supply chains and reasonable competition between vendors. This is the most common environment in which crews operating in the Verge will make purchases.

That baseline is not always the environment you are in. What you can buy, how much it costs, and what the transaction looks like vary enormously by location.

Location Tiers and Price Modifiers

Core worlds and major faction hubs are the wealthiest markets in the Verge. Supply chains are deep, competition is fierce, and vendors operate under regulated pricing. Core world prices are typically 10 to 25 percent below baseline because the market is competitive and supply is abundant. However, legality is also most strictly enforced at core worlds; Restricted and Illegal items that might be waved through at a fringe station are seriously prosecuted here.

Major independent stations are the baseline environment for prices in this book. These are well-connected, commercially active, with multiple vendors for most categories and reasonable access to uncommon goods through specialty dealers.

Minor stations and regional hubs sit slightly above baseline: 10 to 25 percent higher for most goods, with reduced selection and fewer specialty dealers. Rare items require advance ordering or personal contacts.

Fringe colonies and frontier settlements run 25 to 75 percent above baseline for manufactured goods and have highly limited selection. Common items are usually available but may be used, old-model, or in imperfect condition. Uncommon items require weeks of sourcing. Rare and above may simply not be available at all without extraordinary effort.

Active conflict zones create two competing market conditions simultaneously. Weapons, armor, and military-adjacent gear surge in price as demand spikes and supply chains are disrupted; expect 50 to 150 percent above baseline. Everything else may actually fall in price due to displacement, desperation selling, and the collapse of normal commerce. Salvage is abundant. Legitimate commercial transaction is scarce.

Deep fringe and unsurveyed territory operates purely on what the nearest settlement happens to have, what the last ship through left behind, and what can be manufactured locally. Credits may not be the best currency here; trade goods and services often matter more. See Chapter 14 on trade goods and salvage.

Legality Across the Five Powers

Legality in the Verge is not a single standard. It is five overlapping standards, each shaped by the history, culture, monopoly interests, and strategic priorities of the power that administers it. Below is the detailed breakdown by power, followed by a comprehensive legality matrix.

Irnan Directorate Legality

The Directorate approaches legality as a matter of state security. The default posture is that items are subject to regulation unless explicitly exempted, not the reverse. Directorate customs documentation is extensive, cross-referenced with previous entry records, and maintained in perpetuity.

Personal weapons rated for civilian self-defense (Hold-out pistols, Standard Sidearms, Combat Knives) are legal in Directorate space with a registered owner identity. The weapon must be registered to a specific individual and must not have been reported in connection with a crime anywhere in Directorate records. Unregistered weapons are technically illegal even if the weapon itself would otherwise be legal.

Combat-grade weapons (Combat Rifles, Burst Rifles, Vibroblades) require a Class 2 Personal Armament Permit. Permits are issued by Directorate licensing authority on a per-weapon basis. The application process takes 10 to 30 standard days and requires identity verification, a criminal record check across all Directorate databases, and payment of a licensing fee.

Heavy weapons, military hardware, and anything rated as Restricted elsewhere in the Verge require a Class 3 Military Authorization, which is effectively only available to Directorate security contractors, registered military auxiliaries, and certain licensed private security firms operating under Directorate contract.

Antaean cloaking components are specifically categorized as espionage equipment and are prohibited in all forms without a Special Intelligence Exemption that no civilian applicant has ever successfully obtained.

Funtari anti-gravity technology (weapons and devices, not civilian tools) requires an import license and is subject to the Directorate's own technology security review, which may take months and may not be approved.

All items brought into Directorate space are logged on entry. Failing to declare an item is a customs violation. Presenting false documentation is a criminal charge. The Directorate does not have a lenient prosecutorial tradition.

Funtari Confederacy Legality

The Confederacy's legal tradition on personal equipment leans permissive. Funtari citizens have historically had broad personal armament rights, and the culture has not significantly shifted toward restriction even as the Confederacy's political institutions have grown more complex.

Personal weapons of any configuration up to and including combat-grade long arms are legal to own, carry, and transport within Confederacy space without a permit. There is no registration requirement. A Funtari citizen or visitor may carry a Combat Rifle through a Confederacy station without legal issue.

What the Confederacy restricts is different: anti-gravity technology. Hover discs, gravity-pulse weapons, anti-gravity field generators, and any device using Funtari proprietary gravity manipulation technology require a Confederacy Export License to leave Confederacy space. Within Confederacy space, citizens carry and use this technology freely. At the border, it becomes a controlled export.

Military-grade hardware (mortars, crew-served weapons, anything designed for vehicle or emplacement mounting) does require licensing even within the Confederacy, but this affects crew play rarely.

The Confederacy also restricts what it considers industrial espionage equipment: devices specifically designed to copy, replicate, or reverse-engineer Confederacy gravity technology.

Shoiyan Concord Legality

The Concord's legal framework for personal equipment has two distinctive features: mandatory continuity stack registration and a pragmatic "does it create problems?" standard for everything else.

Continuity stack registration: Any individual with a continuity stack implant entering Concord space must register the stack with Concord Biotech Registry within 48 hours of arrival. This is not about restricting the technology; continuity stacks are common throughout the Verge. It is about tracking whose consciousness backup data is in Concord space and ensuring that any backup data generated there falls under Concord data rights law. Failure to register is a misdemeanor on first offense and a serious civil violation on subsequent offenses.

Everything else: The Concord is genuinely pragmatic. Personal weapons, even combat-grade items, are regulated with a light touch in most Concord jurisdictions. The Concord cares more about what you do with a weapon than what category it falls into. A combat rifle carried without incident is not an enforcement priority. A combat rifle used in a commercial district is.

Shoiyan Pulse technology (pulse rifles, memory disruption devices) is a Concord military export control, similar to the Funtari approach to gravity tech. It does not leave Concord space legally without authorization.

Jaziri Caliphate Legality

The Caliphate's legal system is inseparable from its religious framework. There is no meaningful distinction between civil law and religious law in Caliphate jurisdictions. Customs officers may consult with religious inspectors on unclear cases, and items can be flagged on religious grounds that have no parallel elsewhere.

Sanctified items are items that have received the blessing of the faith and carry religious certification. These are primarily weapons and personal items used by the faithful. Sanctified items worn or carried by non-Jaziri, or by Jaziri who cannot demonstrate their authorization, are treated as misappropriation of religious objects, which is a civil and religious crime.

Profane items are items specifically prohibited by Caliphate religious authority. This category shifts over time as religious scholars issue new rulings. At the time of publication, profane items include: technology designed to deceive the divine (cloaking devices that Caliphate theology interprets as hiding from God's sight), certain mind-affecting substances, and any device designed to suppress or interfere with an AGI's operation (since AGI is considered divine in Caliphate theology).

AGI components are in a special category. Unauthorized AGI hardware is treated as a theological offense of the highest order. Carrying components that could be assembled into a self-directing artificial general intelligence without Caliphate authorization is one of the most serious offenses a visitor to Caliphate space can commit.

Standard personal weapons, including firearms and melee weapons not otherwise categorized as sanctified or profane, are regulated by their purpose and who is carrying them. Personal defense weapons for citizens and registered visitors are generally legal. Combat-grade weapons require registration. Military hardware requires military authorization.

Antaean League Legality

The League has the Verge's most permissive personal weapons laws and its most distinctive restriction: cloaking technology.

Personal weapons: League citizens and visitors may carry personal weapons of virtually any configuration without a permit. Open carry is normal and expected in League culture. A crew walking through a League station with holstered sidearms and visible melee weapons is not attracting any particular attention.

Heavy weapons and military hardware: Even these have a relatively permissive framework within League space. Crew-served weapons require registration, and genuine military hardware (designed for vehicle mounting, emplacement use, or crew-served operation) requires licensing. But the bar for licensing is much lower than in other powers.

Antaean cloaking technology: This is the League's one carefully controlled export. Partial cloaking components, full cloaking field generators, shadow suits with integrated cloaking fields: all of these require League Export Authorization to leave League space legally. The League intelligence services (the Whisper network, informally) maintain detailed tracking of where their cloaking technology goes. An unauthorized Antaean cloaking device outside League space is not merely a smuggled item; it is something that League intelligence wants back and wants to know the provenance of.

Within League space, cloaking technology is unrestricted. Outside it, possession without documentation is a flag to every power's security services simultaneously.

The Legality Matrix

The table below summarizes legal status for major item categories across all five powers and fringe space. Legal means possession and carry are generally permitted. Permit means legal with the appropriate documentation. Restricted means documentation required and not freely issued. Prohibited means illegal under all circumstances.

Jurisdiction Friction: Crossing Lines with Contraband

The Verge has a fundamental legal geography problem: the five powers do not share a legal code. Items that are legal in League space may be prohibited in Directorate space. Items that require a permit in Funtari space may be entirely unregulated in Shoiyan space. The legal status of an item can change without the item moving a centimeter, simply because the legal jurisdiction changes.

This creates what traders and crews call jurisdiction friction: the legal cost of carrying gear across political lines.

The Basic Principle

What matters for legal purposes is not where an item was purchased or what the law said where you bought it. What matters is the law of the jurisdiction where you are currently located. A Funtari legal purchase becomes an unauthorized weapon the moment you cross into Directorate space without the appropriate Directorate permit. The Directorate does not consider Funtari law to be relevant.

This sounds brutal and it is. It is also the consistent reality of cross-faction operation in the Verge, and experienced crews plan around it.

Checkpoint Encounters

When a crew's ship enters a checkpoint controlled by a faction power, the following sequence typically applies:

1. Manifest review: The crew presents a cargo and equipment manifest. Standard manifests list everything being transported, including personal weapons and equipment of crew members.

2. Cross-reference: The checkpoint authority cross-references the manifest against the crew's documented history (available records), any outstanding warrants, and the legal categories of items listed.

3. Inspection: Physical inspection occurs at the checkpoint authority's discretion. At major Directorate checkpoints, inspection is nearly certain. At most Antaean League checkpoints, it is rare unless the manifest triggers a flag.

4. Resolution: Items that are legal and properly documented are cleared. Items that are Restricted but improperly documented are flagged for administrative resolution (typically: pay a fine, file paperwork, or surrender the item). Items that are Prohibited are seized, and charges may follow.

The severity of enforcement varies by power and by individual checkpoint authority. A Directorate inspector at a major hub applies the full weight of Directorate regulation. A Directorate inspector at a minor fuel depot on a contested fringe lane may care more about the bribe than the paperwork.

Bribes, Permits, and Practical Workarounds

Experienced crews do not simply carry whatever gear they want and hope for the best. They navigate legality as an ongoing operational concern. The following approaches are common.

Legitimate Permits

Where permits exist and are obtainable, obtaining them is the cleanest solution. The Directorate issues Class 2 Personal Armament Permits. The Caliphate issues Visitor Armament Registrations. The Confederacy issues Anti-Gravity Export Licenses. These documents have real value: they allow the crew to carry their gear openly and resolve checkpoint inspections without complication.

The cost is time and money. Permit applications take days to weeks. Fees vary. Some permits are genuinely difficult to obtain for non-citizens or crews without faction connections. But for crews that regularly operate in a particular power's territory, the permit investment usually pays for itself in reduced friction.

Bribes

The bribe is a universal instrument of practical commerce throughout the Verge. Almost every checkpoint has a price. The art is knowing what it is, who to offer it to, and how to offer it without making the situation worse.

Bribes work best when:

• The violation is minor (a documentation gap, an expired permit, a minor caliber sidearm in a permit-required jurisdiction).
• The inspector has discretion (a junior officer at a secondary checkpoint rather than a senior inspector at a major hub).
• The crew is otherwise clean (no outstanding warrants, no obviously suspicious cargo, a consistent and credible story).

Bribes fail when:

• The violation is too serious to ignore (prohibited military hardware, AGI components in Caliphate space, unregistered cloaking tech).
• The inspector is under active oversight (supervisors present, inspection quota under review, recent enforcement crackdown).
• The crew has made the bribe offer too obviously (inspectors who feel insulted may escalate rather than accept).

The mechanics of attempting a bribe are covered in Chapter 11: Services, Licenses, and Bribes.

Gray-Market Documentation

A layer above the bribe is gray-market documentation: permits, licenses, and registration certificates that appear legitimate but were obtained through non-standard channels. This might mean a permit that was issued legitimately but for a different weapon than the one being carried. It might mean a license obtained from a corrupt official. It might mean a carefully reproduced document that has never been through an official process at all.

Gray documentation works until it is checked against a database that it is not in. At major checkpoints with full database connectivity, gray documentation fails reliably. At minor checkpoints or in territories where database connectivity is patchy, it may work indefinitely. The risk is that when it fails, the consequences are significantly worse than if the crew had simply been carrying undocumented contraband. Presenting false documentation is a distinct and more serious crime than mere possession.

Concealment

The third approach is not to declare the item. If the item is not on the manifest and the inspector does not find it, the problem does not exist.

Concealment is covered in Chapter 12: Black Markets and Smuggling. For now, the key point: the risk level of concealment varies dramatically by inspection regime. In Antaean League space, with minimal inspection culture, concealment is nearly zero-risk. In Directorate space with systematic scanning and documentation review, concealment is extremely high-risk.

Species-Specific Access and Restrictions

Some equipment categories carry species-specific access requirements that go beyond standard legal frameworks.

Jaziri Religious Items

Caliphate-sanctified items carry authorization chains tied to the individual, not just to a category of person. A sanctified sidearm is authorized to a specific named individual. Transfer without religious authorization is not a sale; it is a profanation. Non-Jaziri who acquire sanctified items through legitimate gift, inheritance, or formal grant need documentation of that transfer. Non-Jaziri who acquire sanctified items through purchase, theft, or informal transfer are in a more complicated position, regardless of the intent of the original owner.

Ssarathi-Built Gear

Some equipment built in Ssarathi-majority fringe settlements is calibrated for Ssarathi physiology in ways that make it non-functional for other species. Coil-harness weapons, wrap-frame tools, and thermally calibrated instruments built to Ssarathi specification are legal everywhere a standard equivalent would be legal, but they carry the additional consideration that non-Ssarathi users may find them awkward to impossible to operate. This is not a legal issue; it is a practical one. GMs may add difficulty to checks involving species-mismatched equipment.

Dhoran-Frame Equipment

Dhoran-specific gear is large. Carrying Dhoran-frame armor or weapons through a standard inspection means carrying items that are visually striking, may not fit through standard screening equipment, and flag as unusual. This is not illegal, but it draws attention. Inspectors who see Dhoran-frame military hardware on a ship manifest without an obvious Dhoran crew member will ask questions.

Faction-Locked Technology

The five major powers each hold a monopoly on a specific class of technology. These monopoly technologies are controlled not just by legal restriction but by the practical reality that the knowledge to produce them is closely held by the controlling power. The legal framework around each monopoly technology is among the most strictly enforced regulation in the Verge.

Irnan Teleport Tokens

Zero-point wormhole devices (the Directorate's teleportation technology) exist only in state-issued forms. Private production of teleportation technology is impossible outside of Directorate facilities and is punishable by the most serious penalties in the Directorate legal code. Tokens are issued to individuals with specific authorization and are technically tied to the issuing authority's registration. Unregistered tokens or tokens that cannot be traced to a legitimate issuance chain are treated as state secrets that have been compromised. See Chapter 10 for full details.

Funtari Anti-Gravity Devices

Civilian anti-gravity tools (hover platforms, construction-grade lifters, personal hover discs) are common throughout Confederacy space and are legally exported under license. Anti-gravity weapons are held to a stricter standard. The underlying technology is the same; the Confederacy's concern is weaponized application and the precedent of arming other powers' forces with gravity technology. Anti-gravity weapons without a Confederacy Export License are contraband in the sense that they have left Confederacy control improperly, even if they are not otherwise illegal in the jurisdiction where they are found.

Shoiyan Continuity Stacks

Continuity stacks (consciousness backup/transfer hardware) are commercially produced by Shoiyan Concord and are widely distributed throughout the Verge. The Concord's control is primarily through data sovereignty: they want to know where their stacks are and what data they contain. A continuity stack that has been modified to operate outside Concord data oversight protocols is treated as both a hardware violation and a data crime. Military-grade continuity stacks with combat trigger features are additionally restricted.

Jaziri True AGI

The Caliphate holds the only known operational true AGI systems in the Verge, and they treat this monopoly as both strategic asset and religious trust. True AGI hardware is essentially impossible to acquire through any legal channel outside Caliphate authorization. On the black market, fragments of AGI-adjacent hardware exist, but a complete functional true AGI system has never been documented outside Caliphate control. Possessing what the Caliphate determines to be AGI-capable hardware in Caliphate space is treated as theft of divine property.

Antaean Cloaking Technology

The League's cloaking technology is their most carefully exported item. Unlike the other monopolies, cloaking devices are commercially available through League-authorized channels for a significant but not prohibitive cost. The control is on unauthorized distribution. An item bought through proper channels is documented, registered, and tracked. An undocumented cloaking device is something the League actively works to recover and trace. The Whisper network, the League's intelligence service, maintains one of the most comprehensive item-tracking systems in the Verge specifically for this technology.

Common Legal Categories Reference

The following table summarizes the major legal categories used throughout this book. These categories are used in item entries and legality references.