Restore $5 Action - Looter
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand.
Choose one: Gain a Silver; or gain a card costing up to $1 more than the trashed card.
-
When this is trashed, each player (including you) gains a Ruins to their hand.
For all its focus on the trash, Dark Ages doesn't have a straightforward flexible remodeler for the card you gain - sure, it's got Altar, where you turn ∀ into a $5; it's got Procession, but that's a fixed +$1 remodeler; it's got Rats, where you turn ∀ into Rats*; and it's got Gravedigger, where you expand Actions only; and it's got Rebuild, which turns games into boring - but nothing that turns ∀ into ∀+$1 (or less! you decide! run down piles!).
I considered having it gain a Spoils instead of Silver, but i think Silver will be better what with Feodum in the same set (plus, it makes it so you still have to deal with junk when Silver engine-detrimental). It's on-trash effect is designed for interaction with Knights, or self-interaction as a sort of Messenger-style nonattack attack. It's nonterminal, in the vein of Rebuild. And it gets you out of the $1 hole that Remake/Upgrade/other +$1 remodelers put you in, which could be problematic in Poor House games.
*
Update: made changes that anordinaryman suggested.