Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
A thought about currency.
Chips
Created as a form of highly portable rations during the wars that accompanied the apocalypse, Chips are a form of highly compact vegetable and protein matter. When boiled in water they will dissolve, creating a highly nutritious, if somewhat tasteless, broth.
Chips never go bad, and out on the wastes anybody with a chip, some water, and a fire can have enough food to keep them going for another day. This intrinsic value, plus their low-weight, makes them an ideal currency. In the early days of the Apocalypse Chips were mainly used as food, but nowadays they're far more frequently used as a currency. Still, it's better to be a broke man drinking broth than a rich man starving in the wastes.
Quick "reality" check suggests that a day's worth of chips would weigh somewhere between about 4 oz (110 g) or 9 oz (250 g) for a starvation diet (1000 cal). Long term, this would result in severe muscle loss (- STR) and gradual gain of fat weight, accompanied by deteriorating organ function (- CON) and diminished mental acuity (- DEX, - INT, - WIS) as well as the reeking breath of ketosis (- CHA).

Nonetheless, the concept of emergency rations as currency makes a great deal of sense. Another interesting currency concept - water purification tablets. Of course a silver coin, in a plastic bottle, could serve that function.

Quote Originally Posted by ShadowLord79 View Post
Yea, the coins would have intrinsic value, you can do other things with them.

Wow, cool.. Looks good. We need graphics. (and a map)
We seem to be agreeing: any currency in a post-Event economy would have to have intrinsic value.

A map sounds good. It should be regional, not global. It should indicate weather patterns (e.g. which way do the storms blow in from the Serpent Sea? Where are the flood zones? Where does drought hit hardest, where are the wildfires and dust storms?) as well as vegetation, water sources, arability, aridity, and risks of Rot / other known plagues...