Best Of

Esteem figurines aren't as useful as they once were, mostly they're just karma now? Usually if you're going to get serious about influencing and generating and using esteem you're going to build a wonderbrazier after your wondercronucopia, and that acts as a permanent level 40 figurine with the added ability of granular offerings (I can offer anywhere from 200-2000 esteem depending on how much karma I need).

Hallifax at least has an option for "qualified favors" as a reward. Basically if you do something that earns credits for the city and would normally get you a city favor, we track that favor in a separate project (whether or not you're CR 6), and at the end of the year a portion of the city's activity credits gets divvied out based on the favors earned that year. I ran a pseudo-power-contest a bit ago with them as a reward for the top contributor each weave, which certainly accomplished my goal. If your contest isn't something that benefits your org it might not be an appropriate reward though.

I personally feel like credits are still a viable reward, since unbound credits can be used to trade for curio bits or aethergoop if you still need those things, or sold for gold.

If you know the contest is going to end inside the current promotion, and the promo offers something tangible like crystals or coins, you MIGHT be able to find someone willing to spring for that as a reward (but there are a lot of waffle words in that statement for a reason, proceed with great caution). Otherwise if you can get a God on board, presents are nice.