Money

Money is an important part of Turiel in as much as it is important in the real world. Most adventurers don't do what they do for fame or honor but for cold hard cash and the benefits that it offers them. Everything valuable someone takes out of a dungeon or gets as a reward for a quest from the guild will have a coin value if you wish to sell the item to the guild or you can choose to keep the item for crafting purposes. Who knows someone might pay 5 times more.

Overview


Money in Turiel is much more Nebulous than in most other games because higher value items are not purchasable from NPC's. This means that the economy is completly based around the idea what people will pay for things more than what artificial value is put on any single item. This doesnt mean that some coins wont be rarer than others though and be worth more based on that.

As a rule of thumb 10 copper coins(1 silver) should be considered a real world American dollar. The average adult can live on 1 silver coin a day and the average rich citizen will generally spend upwards of 5 to 10 gold coins a day. This is the general amounts that a normal person in the City of Spires will spend on a given day, though clearly this will fluctuate based on holidays and such but in general this is what you would expect for room and board. A loaf of bread may cost you 5-8 copper coins and a beer at a midtown bar may cost 8-10 copper coins while a cheap dock beer could cost as low as 3-5 copper coins.

The average citizen of the City of Spires or any other major city will not actually use any denomination above a silver coin and a platinum coin is considered rare enough that many lower establishments will think its fake. This is because Platinum coins are only minted by a few groups and are only used in the purchases of land, valuable magical tools, and ships. Gold Coins are considered exorbitant by common standards and pulling one out will likely make you the target of thieves and bandits.

Every major nation except the Orcish Federation(who generally use craft trade, other nations coins, or jewels) will mint there own coins of roughly equal weight and value. This means that Temere Trade Union will be of roughly equal value to one from the Turiel Republic and rapid changes in these values have nearly caused wars. Most coins in richer nations are Mill Struck in a hard press while poorer nations will use hammer struck coins. This makes it fairly easy to tell if a coin from a certain nation is a counterfeit or not as a coin from the Temere Trade Union will always be at least generally centered and as perfect as possible(the Trade Lords insist that flawed coins be melted down and remade instead of being put into circulation) while a coin from the Carthae Lands can be off center or not perfectly round because they have only recently begun coinage of there own.

Large scale trade is a wholly different manner from normal purchases and since Turiel Coinage can get very heavy if you have to make purchases of over a thousand gold coins its considered easier and in some cases more polite to offer alternate payments. This means one of 3 things normally; That the purchaser will issue a contract of payment in the form of a Promissory Note which are usually issued by some of the few Banks around the world for any amount of currency that the owner has a backing in, these Notes are similar to real world Bearer Bonds in that they arent actually enforced by signage, Once stamped by the bank and signed by the issued party they are valid by anyone who holds them. The second form is the most common for larger purchases in the form of rare jewels. This usually means Diamonds, Sapphires, Rubies and Emeralds that are either cut or uncut depending on who is doing the trade and the estimated value between both parties. This means a jewel trade is usually a more loose and argued exchange but while the intrinsic value of coins may fluctuate with the power of a country and the market Jewels are considered to be a static value that never changes. The last major form of currency is usually only done by governments in the form of Bars, Usually gold or platinum(though Mythril bars have been exchanged once or twice these are of such rarity to be considered nonsense) these bars are usually traded in crates of fifty to one hundred bars each weighing 12-13 kilograms and being worth hundreds of coins on there own. Each bar is always stamped with its countries crest and private ownership of one is considered a crime in some areas.


Ancient Coins


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A collection of ancient coins.

Dungeons are usually not full of current legal tender that the nations and local stores will accept. These coins are generally considered to not be true legal tender despite being heavier and usually of higher quality than modern coins. Many adventurers have taken to using these coins as crafting material by melting the overly pure and magically active metals into whatever they are doing while others use them as part of ritual magic. In general though most people will just trade them in at the guild for an equal or sometimes higher return on coin rate.

Mechanically this is mostly for flavor. You will usually be told 'you have found 100 gold worth of ancient coins' or the DM can make it sound more elegant but overall ancient coins equal modern coins by exchange unless you want to keep them for some form of crafting.

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