So it looks like the game automatically pools the gold collected by characters in the maze into a shared pool, which is then used for buying/identifying/healing etc in town. This is a great feature, basically automatically does what people did in the original games with a throwaway character.

However, the game doesn't seem to be pooling gold from newly created characters when you add them at the Tavern. When I first created my characters, the cold count at the top of the screen showed zero gold, but when I went into and came out of the maze, it updated correctly to 600ish, and I was able to buy my characters' equipment.

The same thing happened when I created a second team.