Gold in the realms [Archive] - Wizards Community

Gold in the realms [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Greowhiste
10-27-06, 02:47 PM Is there any information on minting of coins in the realms? I feel like with these suppliments (Lost Empires, etc) there are ANCIENT places that could potentially have gold in them... How would ancient gold pieces (and other coins) draw reaction from our present day Faerun? Is there anything about minting published out there?
Gray Richardson
10-27-06, 11:56 PM There is some information about coins in Power of Faerun. There is information about ancient coins in the Cormanthor supplement also. An ancient coin from the giant realm of Ostoria is mentioned in Giantcraft.

Ed Greenwood has posted some information about coin minting in his answers on this page: http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/sse/so_saith_ed.htm
Ltlconf
10-28-06, 04:28 AM Hello Folks,

I don't know how Ed officially does it, but historically speaking a coin was worth its weight in metal, nothing more and nothing less. If a coin was worth more or less it was because it was adulturated with base metals (used to stiffen the VERY soft gold or silver) by various amounts. Therefor the age or origins if a coin had little meaning, it was it's weight that counted. In Medieval Europe a coin hoard could have coinage from a half dozen nations stretching over a couple of centuries.
Now truly ancient coins would have value depending on the person. The average person would care only for their gold or silver content and spend them accordingly (a gold piece is a gold piece) and be exchanged as such. An educated person (Cleric, Wizard, certain Thieves or Bard) would see the potential and hoard them until he could get to a good sized city and find a collector willing to by.
Remember, a piece of art or coinage is worth what it is not by what it's made of, but rather what people think its worth. This is based on age, rarity, demand, objects condition and lastly (very) its materials. A few centuries old wooden statue made by a jungle culture thousands of miles distant is likely worth more than a gold one a thousand years old but from the local kingdoms past. Wood rots so wood is rare to begin with and then the statue is from an exotic culture while the gold one never ages, is local and thus those statues common by comparison. Have fun playing with the players minds on that one!
To be realistic, a collector usually specializes in a particular item, but coins are the most common historical collectable, though worth much less than a book, a severe looting target before the press was invented, as each is handmade and written (and often one of a kind). Thus a coin collector will not be hard to find and the local wizards and thieves both will know who to go to as will and temples of gods of knowledge and learning.
Mind you, do as you will, though this is what I have done in all my games. Now the players have now learned to ignore the coinage unless ancient while they go for the art and books first. A few statues and books are light and can be worth tens of thousands!
Given far than asked for I know but no situation or question exists in a vacuum.
dragonheart
10-29-06, 07:49 PM this has been true since coinage was invented back about 500BC by Croseus. and it held true right up to modern times. a variety of terms still in use in the US today (albeit by us "old folks" mostly) include "Pieces of eight" of pirate legend - these were spanish reals - silver dollars that were used as dollars throughout the americas in the 1600s-1800s they get the name because they were regularly cut up into 8 sections for use as change - this is also the origin of the old ditty "2 bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar" a "bit" was an 1/8 slice worth 12.5 cents.
Greowhiste
10-30-06, 10:29 AM these are incredibly insightful. thank you so much for your responses. So much room for interesting gameplay, even with something as simple as currency. thanks!
Ltlconf
11-02-06, 05:40 AM Hello Folks,

Depends on your roleplayers, but our group is made up of social sciences majors, military vets and reenactors (and combinations there-of) so little details like this are our bread and butter. Other it can bore to tears. My old group back in the Corps was DMed by a Masters in Western history and was heading towards a Doctorate. With him it was do your research or die! As you can imagine we've severely retooled the Realms for plausibilty but maintained the history and basic backgrounds and premises of the people and places (it's a pain, but the more you know the harder it can be to suspend disbelief on certain points).
So if your players like these little bit s of detail, keep introducing them and modify aspects of the setting to suit. After all the Realms is set up as a modern "money economy" when a pre-industrial society is clearly not. Also it's a gold-rich economy when silver wouldbe used (common, lighter and harder thus more transportable for everday use. Gold is HEAVY). Caravan DON'T carry money though the men in it have some for personal use. Caravans are two way after all what they carry in trade is used to buy the goods they'll sale once they return. They may do this all along the way! If they do carry gold or silver, they'll carry ingots not coinage: too bulky for the amount.
BTW platnium would nver be used in coinage nor often in jewelry. It't to hard to smelt as it takes a temperature higher than that to create high quality steel (we're talking a 19th century+ blast furnace here). Not even Dwarves would mess with it everday in the amounts needed to make it even a rare coin. Plus it's VERY hard and thus would have to hand carved into and thus not every coin would be identical (silver and especially gold are soft enough to impress by hand-stamp and a light, wooden hand mallet). This means it would never be trusted by the masses as it could be counterfited easily. Gold and silver can be bit to ensure it's soft enougth to be relatively pure, platnium is too hard. Trust me, my mother used to design fine jewelry.
Actually, bronze and brass coinage was widely used as coinage in many places and times. Bronze and brass, due to the fact tin, zinc and copper were rarely found anywhere near each other and were vital for industry and craft and had corrosponding value. They are soft enough to stamp while not needed proof beyond appearence to prove purity: adulturation changes the color quickly.
Copper was rarely used as coinage until near modern times as coppper was so heavily used to make things copper coinage was often seen as a waste not to mention too common to worth much otherwise: it was the aluminium of its day. Many of the things we make today of aluminium would have been made of copper. Copper was most used as tin was actually rarer and had chemical uses, had to be refined from impure ore and took effort to mine (often deep shafts). Copper often came up in near pure chunks of ore, was often near the surface (unlike today), and used mainly to make objects and rarely used as a chemical ingredient.
Lead even was more valuable in pure market terms! Remember its the fact we know how deadly lead is that it so worthless today but at the time it was a valuable metal for tools, machinery, buckles and such, paint oxides, and a variety of chemicals. Lead braces were also used to butress walls in the same theory as we used rebar. On top of it it was a deep-shaft mine ore that took real work to get to. However some suspicion must have always been there because lead has always been "bad luck" and never used as a trade bar or coinage.
ShadezofDis
11-02-06, 04:40 PM Ltlconf,

That was a joy to read :)

When you've got some time would you mind letting me know your groups thoughts on magics effects upon the economy? I'm currently running and writing (oh so much writing) a game based in Turmish where my theory on running it is basically;
There are a bunch of plots going on (ie. real life is happening around the PCs) and the PCs get to decide to do whatever they would like (except for leave Turmish, I've wrote WAY to much to let them do that yet *g*) and they will effect the world but the world won't be driven by them.

So I've been trying to develope a good feel for how the economy works so that if the PCs end up ignoring a threat (ie. goblin tribe) then they are still effected (goblin tribe raids caravans delivering goods to the region, thus people are strapped for certain necessities, etc)

I've played around with the idea of "magic is just to expensive" but that leaves me in a lurch on what to do with sorcerers and adepts (I'm pretty sure adepts don't need training) as they have magic (and not the type of ties inherent to being a cleric, druid or wizard) and they need to eat.
Ltlconf
11-14-06, 01:56 AM Hello Folks,

Sorry for the delay, ShadezofDis but the new shift crew I have is taking alot of beating into shape (WHAP! Thank you sir, may I have another!).

This is the way I look at it. Realms has always been rather schizophrenic concerning magic and its affects. On one hand it makes magic extremely common to the point of Auroras Whole Relams Catalog (cool for looking up little bits of color) but then ignores the logical outcome of such common use of magic on the economy. For one it would kill the feudal system they've described in the core book. For another it would make the magic users the defacto ruling class (He who has the power...).
Here is how I handle this.
First I read between the lines on all source material. It makes quite clear that many towns lack wizards and thus you can assume the majority of rural villages do as well (and one can assume a cleric above 3rd level is pretty rare to). In most cities its implied wizards are fairly unpopular if they do not belong to a existing guild or some such. This is logical as they can cause ENORMOUS amounts of damage in the typically crowded and overbuilt city. The next thing to take into account is that wizards are highly educated and trained and often instructed by men with extremely high opinions of themselves. I don't see such men lowering themselves to the equivelent of flipping hamburgers on a daily basis. Sure they may take a commission or two to meet lab expenses but like the University elite PhDs today they will often see such activities as needed but distatseful.
Next the core setting and supplement go on alot about guilds. One thing to remember about guilds is one of their primary purposes is to preserve proffessional secrets. Thus they and the membership have a lock on income and no real competition. No Magic Guild will throw spells around for everyone to see and use without a VERY high price and alot of restrictions. This is beyond the sheer distaste for lowering of themselves to work on commerce. They're trying to unlock the very secrets of the universe! Even the court wizards are not laborers, rather they are the Leonardo di Vincis and Micheangelos of the Realms. They not only advise and use their magic for their employers but the employer gets the prestige of supporting magical endevours and research. Think how rich folks today take pride in giving grants to artists and scientists.
All this means that Mages avoid trade and commerce and when they do dabble they charge outragiously, backed by guilds and the sheer power Mages can wield (or so folks believe). It's a matter of pride, power (what folks don't know...) and prestige.
Lastly, though many of the UberPCs are wizards this is more a matter of the nature of wizards than a matter of numbers. Remember how in every game smart players protect their wizards? Also wizards just live longer once to a certain level so they will outlive alot of folks from attrition alone. I've always made wizards somewhat rare and clusterd in regions and in the cities. This comes from the fact that most Heartlands and North wizards take on (normally) one apprentice at a time and then for up to a decade or more. This means that wizards are produced at a trickle. Some places such as Thay this changes but even then powerful ones are uncommon if for no other reason than intercine fighting. As for sorcerers, well, those that survive the early years without self-destructing must survive a self tutorlage that can't be safe. Take from this what you will.
d4everman
12-04-06, 09:31 AM Wow, Ltlconf, thats very interesting. I know i'm coming into this thread late but i like the way you explained things. I had questions about these things myself that I worded badly in this thread. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=750005)
Ramenth
12-04-06, 12:36 PM Just pointing out-- Coinage predates Croesus by over 100 years. The first recorded coin is from Lydia. :)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Greowhiste 10-27-06, 02:47 PM	Is there any information on minting of coins in the realms? I feel like with these suppliments (Lost Empires, etc) there are ANCIENT places that could potentially have gold in them... How would ancient gold pieces (and other coins) draw reaction from our present day Faerun? Is there anything about minting published out there?
Gray Richardson 10-27-06, 11:56 PM	There is some information about coins in Power of Faerun. There is information about ancient coins in the Cormanthor supplement also. An ancient coin from the giant realm of Ostoria is mentioned in Giantcraft. Ed Greenwood has posted some information about coin minting in his answers on this page: http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/sse/so_saith_ed.htm
Ltlconf 10-28-06, 04:28 AM	Hello Folks, I don't know how Ed officially does it, but historically speaking a coin was worth its weight in metal, nothing more and nothing less. If a coin was worth more or less it was because it was adulturated with base metals (used to stiffen the VERY soft gold or silver) by various amounts. Therefor the age or origins if a coin had little meaning, it was it's weight that counted. In Medieval Europe a coin hoard could have coinage from a half dozen nations stretching over a couple of centuries. Now truly ancient coins would have value depending on the person. The average person would care only for their gold or silver content and spend them accordingly (a gold piece is a gold piece) and be exchanged as such. An educated person (Cleric, Wizard, certain Thieves or Bard) would see the potential and hoard them until he could get to a good sized city and find a collector willing to by. Remember, a piece of art or coinage is worth what it is not by what it's made of, but rather what people think its worth. This is based on age, rarity, demand, objects condition and lastly (very) its materials. A few centuries old wooden statue made by a jungle culture thousands of miles distant is likely worth more than a gold one a thousand years old but from the local kingdoms past. Wood rots so wood is rare to begin with and then the statue is from an exotic culture while the gold one never ages, is local and thus those statues common by comparison. Have fun playing with the players minds on that one! To be realistic, a collector usually specializes in a particular item, but coins are the most common historical collectable, though worth much less than a book, a severe looting target before the press was invented, as each is handmade and written (and often one of a kind). Thus a coin collector will not be hard to find and the local wizards and thieves both will know who to go to as will and temples of gods of knowledge and learning. Mind you, do as you will, though this is what I have done in all my games. Now the players have now learned to ignore the coinage unless ancient while they go for the art and books first. A few statues and books are light and can be worth tens of thousands! Given far than asked for I know but no situation or question exists in a vacuum.
dragonheart 10-29-06, 07:49 PM	this has been true since coinage was invented back about 500BC by Croseus. and it held true right up to modern times. a variety of terms still in use in the US today (albeit by us "old folks" mostly) include "Pieces of eight" of pirate legend - these were spanish reals - silver dollars that were used as dollars throughout the americas in the 1600s-1800s they get the name because they were regularly cut up into 8 sections for use as change - this is also the origin of the old ditty "2 bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar" a "bit" was an 1/8 slice worth 12.5 cents.
Greowhiste 10-30-06, 10:29 AM	these are incredibly insightful. thank you so much for your responses. So much room for interesting gameplay, even with something as simple as currency. thanks!
Ltlconf 11-02-06, 05:40 AM	Hello Folks, Depends on your roleplayers, but our group is made up of social sciences majors, military vets and reenactors (and combinations there-of) so little details like this are our bread and butter. Other it can bore to tears. My old group back in the Corps was DMed by a Masters in Western history and was heading towards a Doctorate. With him it was do your research or die! As you can imagine we've severely retooled the Realms for plausibilty but maintained the history and basic backgrounds and premises of the people and places (it's a pain, but the more you know the harder it can be to suspend disbelief on certain points). So if your players like these little bit s of detail, keep introducing them and modify aspects of the setting to suit. After all the Realms is set up as a modern "money economy" when a pre-industrial society is clearly not. Also it's a gold-rich economy when silver wouldbe used (common, lighter and harder thus more transportable for everday use. Gold is HEAVY). Caravan DON'T carry money though the men in it have some for personal use. Caravans are two way after all what they carry in trade is used to buy the goods they'll sale once they return. They may do this all along the way! If they do carry gold or silver, they'll carry ingots not coinage: too bulky for the amount. BTW platnium would nver be used in coinage nor often in jewelry. It't to hard to smelt as it takes a temperature higher than that to create high quality steel (we're talking a 19th century+ blast furnace here). Not even Dwarves would mess with it everday in the amounts needed to make it even a rare coin. Plus it's VERY hard and thus would have to hand carved into and thus not every coin would be identical (silver and especially gold are soft enough to impress by hand-stamp and a light, wooden hand mallet). This means it would never be trusted by the masses as it could be counterfited easily. Gold and silver can be bit to ensure it's soft enougth to be relatively pure, platnium is too hard. Trust me, my mother used to design fine jewelry. Actually, bronze and brass coinage was widely used as coinage in many places and times. Bronze and brass, due to the fact tin, zinc and copper were rarely found anywhere near each other and were vital for industry and craft and had corrosponding value. They are soft enough to stamp while not needed proof beyond appearence to prove purity: adulturation changes the color quickly. Copper was rarely used as coinage until near modern times as coppper was so heavily used to make things copper coinage was often seen as a waste not to mention too common to worth much otherwise: it was the aluminium of its day. Many of the things we make today of aluminium would have been made of copper. Copper was most used as tin was actually rarer and had chemical uses, had to be refined from impure ore and took effort to mine (often deep shafts). Copper often came up in near pure chunks of ore, was often near the surface (unlike today), and used mainly to make objects and rarely used as a chemical ingredient. Lead even was more valuable in pure market terms! Remember its the fact we know how deadly lead is that it so worthless today but at the time it was a valuable metal for tools, machinery, buckles and such, paint oxides, and a variety of chemicals. Lead braces were also used to butress walls in the same theory as we used rebar. On top of it it was a deep-shaft mine ore that took real work to get to. However some suspicion must have always been there because lead has always been "bad luck" and never used as a trade bar or coinage.
ShadezofDis 11-02-06, 04:40 PM	Ltlconf, That was a joy to read :) When you've got some time would you mind letting me know your groups thoughts on magics effects upon the economy? I'm currently running and writing (oh so much writing) a game based in Turmish where my theory on running it is basically; There are a bunch of plots going on (ie. real life is happening around the PCs) and the PCs get to decide to do whatever they would like (except for leave Turmish, I've wrote WAY to much to let them do that yet g) and they will effect the world but the world won't be driven by them. So I've been trying to develope a good feel for how the economy works so that if the PCs end up ignoring a threat (ie. goblin tribe) then they are still effected (goblin tribe raids caravans delivering goods to the region, thus people are strapped for certain necessities, etc) I've played around with the idea of "magic is just to expensive" but that leaves me in a lurch on what to do with sorcerers and adepts (I'm pretty sure adepts don't need training) as they have magic (and not the type of ties inherent to being a cleric, druid or wizard) and they need to eat.
Ltlconf 11-14-06, 01:56 AM	Hello Folks, Sorry for the delay, ShadezofDis but the new shift crew I have is taking alot of beating into shape (WHAP! Thank you sir, may I have another!). This is the way I look at it. Realms has always been rather schizophrenic concerning magic and its affects. On one hand it makes magic extremely common to the point of Auroras Whole Relams Catalog (cool for looking up little bits of color) but then ignores the logical outcome of such common use of magic on the economy. For one it would kill the feudal system they've described in the core book. For another it would make the magic users the defacto ruling class (He who has the power...). Here is how I handle this. First I read between the lines on all source material. It makes quite clear that many towns lack wizards and thus you can assume the majority of rural villages do as well (and one can assume a cleric above 3rd level is pretty rare to). In most cities its implied wizards are fairly unpopular if they do not belong to a existing guild or some such. This is logical as they can cause ENORMOUS amounts of damage in the typically crowded and overbuilt city. The next thing to take into account is that wizards are highly educated and trained and often instructed by men with extremely high opinions of themselves. I don't see such men lowering themselves to the equivelent of flipping hamburgers on a daily basis. Sure they may take a commission or two to meet lab expenses but like the University elite PhDs today they will often see such activities as needed but distatseful. Next the core setting and supplement go on alot about guilds. One thing to remember about guilds is one of their primary purposes is to preserve proffessional secrets. Thus they and the membership have a lock on income and no real competition. No Magic Guild will throw spells around for everyone to see and use without a VERY high price and alot of restrictions. This is beyond the sheer distaste for lowering of themselves to work on commerce. They're trying to unlock the very secrets of the universe! Even the court wizards are not laborers, rather they are the Leonardo di Vincis and Micheangelos of the Realms. They not only advise and use their magic for their employers but the employer gets the prestige of supporting magical endevours and research. Think how rich folks today take pride in giving grants to artists and scientists. All this means that Mages avoid trade and commerce and when they do dabble they charge outragiously, backed by guilds and the sheer power Mages can wield (or so folks believe). It's a matter of pride, power (what folks don't know...) and prestige. Lastly, though many of the UberPCs are wizards this is more a matter of the nature of wizards than a matter of numbers. Remember how in every game smart players protect their wizards? Also wizards just live longer once to a certain level so they will outlive alot of folks from attrition alone. I've always made wizards somewhat rare and clusterd in regions and in the cities. This comes from the fact that most Heartlands and North wizards take on (normally) one apprentice at a time and then for up to a decade or more. This means that wizards are produced at a trickle. Some places such as Thay this changes but even then powerful ones are uncommon if for no other reason than intercine fighting. As for sorcerers, well, those that survive the early years without self-destructing must survive a self tutorlage that can't be safe. Take from this what you will.
d4everman 12-04-06, 09:31 AM	Wow, Ltlconf, thats very interesting. I know i'm coming into this thread late but i like the way you explained things. I had questions about these things myself that I worded badly in this thread. (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=750005)
Ramenth 12-04-06, 12:36 PM	Just pointing out-- Coinage predates Croesus by over 100 years. The first recorded coin is from Lydia. :)