with alot of personal experience, i think 1 week would be difficult to set up a good adventurer, especially starting from peasant or hero status. If you are allowed to create up to four heroes and have 1 week with each then, that would take a total of 12 weeks (2 in worldgen upon creation and 1 of gameplay) that is approaximately 3 months or 1 season. Do some science to make sure a week isn't too long, but that's my thought process.
The problem with rewarding adventurers with items created inside the fortress in lieu of db payment, i am conflicted. It makes sense, but it seems if you have a military fort, you could get free runners by having them stop by ur fort for free gear.
i don't know how well my seasonal payment idea was explained, but let me give it another try to make sure u understand it.
Every season you would pay a predetermined amount, based on the hiring status of your guild employed adventurers. (peasant 50db/month, hero 250, demigod 1000) This money would go into a separate inaccessible stash (this could be the adventurer's family or bank). If your adventurer is returning from a successful run with the db, and is captured (or killed) before returning it to his emplyer. The offending party has access to the db on his person. If he is captured as opposed to killed (not quite sure how you would do this, so there would definitely need to be some creativity involved) you could ransom him/her back to their families for a portion of the stash monthly payments. After completing monthly payment, a guild could decide to fire/retire an adventurer if they are too wounded or far away to complete a run. Rehiring a retired adventurer would cost a month's payment up front as opposed to the free month you would get from hiring a new adventurer. (as a side note, the stash could possibly be split among the companions so that if you manage to capture 1 runner in a group of 5 which had a stash of 1000, you could ransom the 1 for 200db)