In the latest version, you do get a huge amount of gold for completing that quest with Lenya, so that should help out with gold for a bit.
And at one point, I was thinking of adding something similar to light city building mechanics, but there's an idea I have for an arc of Terrene, way into the future, that might benefit from it more, so if I do decide to add light city building mechanics to Terrene, I'll probably add it in at that time, if I feel it still fits the game.
Also, as for huge gold debt, this is more related towards only Lily and her story/questline with James, so the game won't really be focusing on paying off characters gold debts, after Lily's story is complete.
Though, other characters will have their own individual problems and stories, which the player will have to solve, similar to Lily.