Levis, who had come from another world, understood with utmost clarity that once a society's development began producing a vast surplus of assets, preserving—and even growing—the value of those assets became an urgent need.
Under such an essential demand, financial institutions like banks were bound to arise in response—like Blue Star's early money houses, or the Western "benches"—currency exchangers.
In fact, Coriel had long possessed similar institutions. To a certain extent, the Temples of Wealth of Waukeen, the Goddess of Wealth, served this role.
Yet the people they served were essentially nobles who held vast means of production in their hands, or merchants with trade needs.
The limits imposed by the number and social standing of her followers, as well as the scale of transactions, had practically nailed Waukeen firmly into the awkward position of a weak Divine Power.
As maritime trade on the Sword Coast rose, the scale of such transactions expanded year by year. The assets of most fortunate nobles swelled like rolling snowballs as they invested in seaborne trade.
It was then that Levis, who had abruptly emerged from the Underdark, brought his Hogg Mining and directly pulled the Northlands' three most important city-states into the era of the First Industrial Revolution, gradually replacing manual labor with factories and machines.
After nearly half a century and the accumulation of almost three generations, the process of industrialization, coupled with the growth of maritime trade, continually gathered the wealth of the Western Continent into the Northlands. It indirectly gave rise to large groups like John and the Iron Hammer family, who held some assets and even means of production in their hands.
And because Levis, as the leader of it all, had established relatively lenient rules and standards, more and more people who had originally lost their jobs beneath