D&D General Tell me about the "coinage" in your homebrews!

[Tonguez]

On the Paper Front

The largest city in my world is Bishnagar which sits at the center of the north south gold-salt/spice trade and the east-west silk trade. Bishnagar was founded by and is ruled by a dragon of the same name. The dragon accepts tribute and secures deposits to his hoard in return for which his minions issue Dargon Marques bearing the dragons personal seal. These Marques have become tradable comodities accepted from Tien to Anziko (across the civilised world) as they are backed up by one of the worlds most powerful dragons who jealously protects his interests and will hunt down and destroy those who dishonour the name of Bishnagar (ie attempted forgers are often found incinerated).

 

[Knightfall]

On the Paper Front

The largest city in my world is Bishnagar which sits at the center of the north south gold-salt/spice trade and the east-west silk trade. Bishnagar was founded by and is ruled by a dragon of the same name. The dragon accepts tribute and secures deposits to his hoard in return for which his minions issue Dargon Marques bearing the dragons personal seal. These Marques have become tradable comodities accepted from Tien to Anziko (across the civilised world) as they are backed up by one of the worlds most powerful dragons who jealously protects his interests and will hunt down and destroy those who dishonour the name of Bishnagar (ie attempted forgers are often found incinerated).

That's just a great concept. (And I'm assuming that you meant to write Dragon Marques and not Dargon Marques. ) I'm going to steal this idea for Kulan if you don't mind. I already have the perfect place for it for the Lands of Harqual.

How do other dragons feel about these marques? Do they covet them or do they destroy them in a jealous rage? What exactly do they look like? Are they like paper bills or done as scrolls. More details please.

 

[earthbinder]

In the Larp setting Myself and friend have put together, Coinage is replaced by Pureified Glass different shades are of varying values. (both making it easier to physrep and a nice change)
any alchemist can tell by sight if the glass is pure and therefore coinage, most normal folks can tell with a bit of training or some inspection time

Kursts - Copper/Brass coloured small glass beads - Lowest currency most common - Ale standard
Stadts - (Ssh-Dats)- Sliver or clear glass beads flat on one side - most commonly seen large currency - Payment standard
Fúrhers - Yellow or golden glass hemispheres - rarely seen by the genral populace -Trading standard

Provisionally
12 Kursts make a Stadt
12 Stadts make a Fúrher


the old coinage system is still in place from the times before the Alchemists organised the currency.

Pennies - copper coins - circular with a square hole - Ale standard
tupps - Copper coins - square and solid - Room and board for a night
Loaves - large copper brass alloy ingots made to look like loaves of bread - an excellent meal
Sheep - Sliver nuggets moulded with little legs - will buy a sheep
Lions - A gold coin with a moulded carved mane - will buy a house/Good horse

2 pennies make a Tupp
10 Tupps make a Loaf
8 Loaves make a sheep
20 sheeps make a lion

hence why the alcjhemists imperialised everything when they took over currency.
(after all when you really can turn any metal into gold it kind of gets devalued re:aluminium)

 

[Knightfall]

Earthbinder, that's very interesting stuff. This is the sort of thing that gets my creativity going. In a fantasy world, eventually, something else besides "precious metal" is going to be fashioned into currency.

Alchemical purified-glass! Brilliant.

 

[Shieldhaven]

I haven't actually used this in a game setting yet, but some time ago my girlfriend and I were tossing around the idea of a world where all of the currency came from living things. You'd have coins or other tokens of ivory, coral, amber, and ebony. We didn't settle on a conversion rate for these things.

The idea presumes that these things have an intrinsic value even in coin-sized amounts, presumably relating to some mystical significance or ritualized usage.

Haven

 

[Morandir Nailo]

I've got Copper Pennies, Silver Marks, Gold Crowns, and Platinum Dragons (partly stolen from Eberron, obviously). Don't have anything for Astral Diamonds yet. While it would certainly be interesting/more immersive to have different types of coinage in different regions, I think it would just be too confusing. At most I'd just say "the citizens of [Asian-themed land] use different types of jade coins" and give each color/shape/etc of jade coin a cp/sp/gp equivalent. I do different ancient coins though, as those are going to be worth more than face/metal value; they're more art object.

As an aside: do those of you with more types of coinage than renamed cp/sp/gp/pp actually give those alternate coins out as treasure, or just use them as fluff? If some DM told me the purse I just stole contained 3 groats, 1 denarius and a ha'penny, I'd probably just throw dice at him. It just seems like unnecessary math and book keeping to me.

Mor

 

[Knightfall]

As an aside: do those of you with more types of coinage than renamed cp/sp/gp/pp actually give those alternate coins out as treasure, or just use them as fluff? If some DM told me the purse I just stole contained 3 groats, 1 denarius and a ha'penny, I'd probably just throw dice at him. It just seems like unnecessary math and book keeping to me.

I used alternate coin names and types in my last campaign and my players enjoyed the "fluff" to a point. They didn't mind finding coins from ancient times as long as there was a story to go with them that they could decipher.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I'm still working on it, not sure if I want to do a copper or silver-based economy, but the general order of things is (I've stolen a lot even from Dark Sun):

ceramic pieces, bronze pieces, copper pieces, silver pieces, electrum pieces, gold pieces, platinum pieces, mithrial pieces, adamantine pieces, astral diamonds

Each of which is worth 10 times as much as the previous one.

I've done some research on true ancient and medieval coinage and found out the real proportions of coins which would be as follows:

1 Gold piece (Solidius) = 27 silver pieces (Denarius) = 14,400 copper pieces (Nummus)

Then I decided that the platinum piece would be the equivelent to a pound of Gold (Libram) which would be about 30-40 Solidii.

or somewhere about there (I have to find that book on ancient and medival coinage again). I'm not sure I want to go that far and even though decimalized currency is not realistic, it is far easier to deal with.

 

[Storminator]

In my PBeM world I've used two basic lines of currency. The main country of the setting is a theocracy, with gold Rannels, silver Corbins and copper Wilamoras. Rannel was the founding priest, Corbin the second high priest, and Wilamora the first of the Seers. These coins are colloquially known as the Saints. Each has a stylized face of the saint on one side, and Areon's Hand on the other (Areon being the god).

The second set of coins comes from the Empire of Heroes. The empire is a loosely feudal mess, with various petty kings and tyrants rising and falling on the strength of their arms and armies. Each one dreams of immortality and mints his own coins. No one thinks of them as worth anything but their weight. They have the lord's face on one side, and his seal on the other. The coins (no matter who mints them) are called heroes.

I even had an adventure where the PCs had to figure out where all the heroes were coming from in the capital... someone was spreading some out of town money around!

PS

 

[Knightfall]

In my PBeM world I've used two basic lines of currency. The main country of the setting is a theocracy, with gold Rannels, silver Corbins and copper Wilamoras. Rannel was the founding priest, Corbin the second high priest, and Wilamora the first of the Seers. These coins are colloquially known as the Saints. Each has a stylized face of the saint on one side, and Areon's Hand on the other (Areon being the god).

Hmm, coins named after Saints. I like that. Thanks for sharing Storminator!