Alternative metal currencies

[drack]

So we all know 1000 copper=100 silver=10 gold=1 platinum, and that you have 50 GP in a pound of gold, 50 SP in a pound of silver, so ignoring astrial diamonds and paper currencies, but instead going off metal prices, anyone see any inherently cheaper or more expensive currencies?

A mythral piece is equivalent to a platinum piece. (SRD 500 GP/lb)
Five iron pieces makes a copper piece. (SRD 1 SP/lb)

[Eladrinblade]

Well, you wouldn't see useful metals (iron, mythral) being used as coins. One of the reasons weak, pliable metals like copper, silver, and gold were used as currencies is because they weren't useful for anything else (at the time).

In D&D, the books state that gems are used as currency for very expensive trades. They are a trade good, so you don't sell them for half price like you would other things.

[VoxRationis]

Aluminum, if you're looking for fantastically expensive coinage that has the side bonus of being much easier to carry.

[Flickerdart]

If your PCs are too trigger-happy with disjunction, leave them a treasure trove of riverine coins.

[drack]

Well, you wouldn't see useful metals (iron, mythral) being used as coins. One of the reasons weak, pliable metals like copper, silver, and gold were used as currencies is because they weren't useful for anything else (at the time).

Iron has been used as a currency IRL.

[BowStreetRunner]

I've run games with currencies being much more based off of medieval practices. There were a variety of groups minting coins (some governments, a few religious groups, a bunch of business enterprises) of varying qualities and sizes. Each had their own reasons for minting coins (governments to promote standardized taxation, churches to standardize tithing, moneylenders to standardize interest payments, etc.). There were also those who used raw metals and gemstones as currencies (vikings were notorious for melting down silver into similar sized slivers that were used as currency by weight).

Ultimately, the PCs kept track of their currency in 'GP Equivalents'. They didn't have to keep track of whether they were carrying Marks, Pounds Sterling, Drachmas, or Talents. They just wrote it down in GP/SP/CP. It was assumed that everything averaged out (some times they would gain off the exchange rate and sometimes they would lose). But for role-playing purposes, the exact currencies used might be discussed. For instance, they might find a chest full of newly minted Duergar Silver Kuerkes in the alchemist's lab, indicating that he had been dealing with the Underdark recently.

[Âmesang]

DRAGONLANCE^® typically uses the steel piece (stl) in place of the gold piece, with a gold piece having 1/40th its normal value, platinum having half its normal value, silver having half its normal value, and iron (ip)/bronze (bp) pieces having half the value of a steel piece; seems only copper pieces remained the same.

WORLD OF GREYHAWK^® has the electrum piece which is worth half of the value of a gold piece, and the Empire of Iuz also has the dullbone/bronze piece (worth 10 copper pieces) and the flat/iron piece (worth 10 bronze pieces).

The homebrew adventure, "Suel Imperium: Age of Glory," listed the following currency: 1/5 mithril ember = 1 platinum ingot = 2 gold wheels = 20 silver rods = 100 amber chips = 200 perfume orb; as an AD&D adventure, however, I believe currency was handled slightly differently, and the adventure lists the platinum ingot as the equivalent of 5 platinum pieces, the gold wheel equivalent to 10 gold pieces, and the silver rod equivalent to 2 silver pieces. Considering that The Shackled City Adventure Path has its own "platinum ingot" (valued at 100 gold pieces), and considering that its focus, the city of Cauldron, lies so close to the Sea of Dust/former Suel Imperium, I think I would use their ingot value when converting prices for the above currency if I wanted to add some Suel flavor to a GREYHAWK^® campaign.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You have two paths here:

1) Suspend disbelief and just choose a metal arbitrarily. Rule of cool is the order of the day here and you pick whichever metals strike your fancy.

2) Shoot for a semblance of realism and learn about trade standards.

I'll discuss 2 in a little more detail below. There will be a TL;DR at the end:

Ya see, in any economy that doens't use fiat money (money whose value is set by the government) something is chosen as the basis of all trade in that economy. Some arbitrary trade good is chosen on the basis of strong demand and (relatively) stable supply.

Many early cultures chose sacs of staple grains like wheat or rice of a standard (semi-arbitrary) size. In such economies, the common folk engage mostly in barter but the wealthy quickly find themselves needing something to represent large amounts of the trade standard (the grain); enter trade markers and promisory notes. The wealthy simply draw up documents of agreement to pay a given amount of the standard to one another in exchange for some other good that they've agreed is of mutual value.

Over time, as the economy grows and comes into contact with other economies, long-distance trade becomes more common, and a demand for broader standardization rises. This causes some item of greater scarcity and/or permanence to gradually replace the original standard(s); enter coins made of metals and/or spices and gems. Whichever good is chosen, the same basis that was used originally is used here; strong demand, stable supply. This is the point where natural trade standards end, usually in a metal that isn't particularly useful (outside of niche cases) as anything other than a trade medium. IRL, most of the world settled on silver or gold until a point in modern history when the world's stable nations started switching to fiat currency.

In periods of geo-political stability, some ruling bodies of sufficient size will institute treasury backed currencies. This is money whose standardized value isn't based in the material the exchange medium (money) is made of but on what the governments' treasuries say its worth while the governing body stockpile's the actual trade standard. In theory, a citizen can exchange his money for the specified amount of the trade standard at some office of the treasury but doing so is generally frowned upon and/or inconvenient because the currency is much easier to transport than the actual standard and it's not uncommon to make trading directly in the trade standard within the borders of the state illegal. The ruling bodies, in the meantime, continue to trade with other rulers in the trade standard itself, as do many traders who engage in trade between states, exchanging the treasury backed currency for the trade standard whenever necessary and allowed.

Fiat money is entirely divorced from a trade standard and is what most people known of as "paper money" in the modern era. It requires a very high degree of stability in hthe geo-political landscape and isn't really viable in a typical D&D setting.

TL;DR: the preceding has been a very rough overview of how currency works in an economy. It was by no means exhaustive and I encourage anyone whose interest was piqued to look into such things in greater depth. Economics can be quite interesting.

[Thurbane]

The Lankhmar currency system (at least back in 1E) was Iron tik, Bronze agol, Silver smerduk, Gold rilk and Diamond-in-amber gluditch.

1E also had Electrum pieces, which were half of a GP from memory.

There's also this, which may be of use: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...-Metal-Pricing

Thurbane, I am here to help, though I can't help with all of them. Start with the basis that 3.5 sets where 50 coins of whatever material is 1 pound. (You can see that in the copper/silver/gold/platinum weights)

Brass - Generally around 2/3 copper, the rest zinc, but varies wildly. So around 3sp 8cp per pound.

Bronze - About 85% copper, 15% tin (see tin). 6sp 1cp per pound.

Electrum - Naturally occuring proportions varied wildly, but most coinage was close to 50/50 gold/silver, so 27gp 5sp per pound.

Lead - About 1/4 the price of copper, so 1sp 5cp per pound.

Palladium - About half of gold's value, I'll go 25gp/pound.

Rhodium - Generally about 15% pricier than Platinum. Go 575gp/pound.

Tin - Believe it or not, about 150% higher than copper. So 12sp 5cp per pound.

Zinc - About 1/4 the value of copper, so 1sp 5cp per pound.

I messed up on bronze. Should be 6sp 1cp per pound.

[drack]

You have two paths here:

1) Suspend disbelief and just choose a metal arbitrarily. Rule of cool is the order of the day here and you pick whichever metals strike your fancy.

2) Shoot for a semblance of realism and learn what about trade standards.

Yup, epic level handbook has backed paper money from churches and such. Still I was thinking towards the second. It occurred to me to look since I'm in a game with a character without a bag of holding and the GM's missed the question a few times. I figured lumps of metal make fine trade goods, but as it happens there are allot as expensive as platinum, but nor really any more so.

The Lankhmar currency system (at least back in 1E) was Iron tik, Bronze agol, Silver smerduk, Gold rilk and Diamond-in-amber gluditch.

1E also had Electrum pieces, which were half of a GP from memory.

There's also this, which may be of use: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...-Metal-Pricing

Ooh, interesting.

Still it's worth noting that Rhodium is so high because of its uses in the automotive industry. A rise or dip in the industry immensely effects its value. Thus while it is pretty rare the price would be below platinum in a mid-evil setting.

Edit:
this part of the SRD lists other mythral items as +500GP/lb thus giving a price for mythral equivalent to platinum, and when combined with the math on that thread tells us that mythral, adamantine, ect. Gear is not made entirely of the metal, perhaps being guilded or the like. Alas such math often doesn't work as well as we'd hope in D&D... /

[KarlMarx]

Rhodium and Palladium are pretty similar to Platinum, from what I understand.

Even if magic lets you tell the difference, there will be plenty of commoners who can't, making it inefficient as a currency.

Certain alloys might work, particularly if they are rare for in-world reasons.

A historical example of this could be "corinthian bronze," an alloy of bronze, silver, and gold supposedly created in the burning of Corinth by Roman troops.

Might fall into the same problem as above, though.

In addition, you can create fictional metals in-game, using them as currency material.

Finally, small, cheap gemstones could replace/supplement currency.

[BowStreetRunner]

A historical example of this could be "corinthian bronze," an alloy of bronze, silver, and gold supposedly created in the burning of Corinth by Roman troops.

Although I hadn't heard of this story before and some quick research indicates this origin legend was likely apocryphal, I love the concept for use in a game. Imagine an alloy that is accidentally discovered as the result of some apocalyptic destruction of a city - a combination of dragonfire and spellfire that leveled the city treasury left behind an enormous mass of metal with unique properties that could not be duplicated despite repeated attempts to do so. The coins cast from this metal are therefore among the rarest and most valuable in the world.

[Fouredged Sword]

I run a custom setting with a merchant republic that uses the standard c/s/g economically opposed to an empire that uses jade beads, coins, and plates.

[Thurbane]

Been a long time since I read them, but the Belgariad books mentioned red-gold currency of the Murgo's that drove people handling it to greed and evil. I can't remember whether this was a tangible magical effect, or just setting flavour from the author.

[drack]

Been a long time since I read them, but the Belgariad books mentioned red-gold currency of the Murgo's that drove people handling it to greed and evil. I can't remember whether this was a tangible magical effect, or just setting flavour from the author.

Ah, I recall that. It seemed to be a taint in the gold. Some corrupting evil influence. I don't think it was magical per say, but I do think it was divine in nature.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You can use glassteel. It's basically adamantine, with the weight of mithral, and translucent like glass (enemies even take a penalty on Spot checks to notice that you're wearing glassteel armour). It's also quite expensive, at 720 gp/pound (for a chain shirt) to 1000 gp/pound (for most objects) to 2500 gp/pound (for larger weapons). If you say that the coins are made with a very fancy mint, you have a good reason to use the higher 2500 gp/pound value, which puts it at 5 pp = 1 gsp (and the coins are a lot bigger, due to lower weight).

It can be cool to use a magically hardened material, made with matter manipulation, for example. It won't necessarily add a lot of value, but it definitely makes the coins more exotic.

Spoiler: Calculations

Show

The power allows you to instantaneously add 5 hardness to an object, and it costs 250 xp per point hardened. As an 8th-level power, its default cost is 15 * 8 * 10 = 1200 gp for a single manifestation, plus 6250 gp for the XP cost. The power affects 1 cubic feet per level, so 15 cubic feet at the minimum caster level. That's a whole lot of coins: 8200 kg of gold (18 100 lb, 905 000 coins), or 3345 kg of iron (7373 lb), which puts it at about 3686 lb of glassteel, or 184 300 coins.

In short, a very small cost to add to a single coin, about 1/121st for a gp, or 1/1237th of a gsp, but you do need to be able to get 15 cubic feet of coins together. Most likely, that's far too much (it's beyond 20th-level PC wealth, even for the gold, let alone the gsp), so you can harden, say, a pound of glassteel pieces at the time. That's 2500 gp, enhanced by 7450 gp, for a total of almost 10 000 gp per pound, 200 gp per coin.

[Boci]

Ah, I recall that. It seemed to be a taint in the gold. Some corrupting evil influence. I don't think it was magical per say, but I do think it was divine in nature.

The book was very vague on what, if anything, the actual effect of the red gold was. I believe it was just heavy handed symbolism for money corrupts, especially since in the second book, which aimed at humanizing at least some of the 5 nations, dropped the whole corruption angle of the red gold if I recall it correctly, and basically said it was gold mixed with a red substance, maybe even rusted iron?

[5ColouredWalker]

While it's not a metal, I find silk is good in DnD, having a set price qnd being near massless... that said, at high ends volume becomes a problem unless you have enveloping pits just lying around.

As for other metals, I like mithral for ease, and being lower weight is good.

[drack]

The book was very vague on what, if anything, the actual effect of the red gold was. I believe it was just heavy handed symbolism for money corrupts, especially since in the second book, which aimed at humanizing at least some of the 5 nations, dropped the whole corruption angle of the red gold if I recall it correctly, and basically said it was gold mixed with a red substance, maybe even rusted iron?

It did say something red mixed in, but it didn't really drop it...
Some merchants kept away from it while others didn't. Essentially owning it made you compelled to hoard and count it and made you want more. The more you had the stronger the effect, but it had no effect on how you view normal gold, just the red. The evil race used it generously in order to spread that corruption around, but mostly it just made you obsessed with it, want to hoard it, and made you want more of it, kinda like a drug. Normal gold didn't have this effect and it was well known enough that some merchants refused it because they didn't want any of that effect, bad for business or for personal reasons, and those who did accept it always wanted more so it worked out well. Honestly I'd been wondering through the books, since the taint was something mixed in, and because that was the difference and thus probably what caused the obsession, if one couldn't magically extract the taint itself and just give that to someone obsessed with the red thus leaving you with nice clean gold.

[Boci]

It did say something red mixed in, but it didn't really drop it...
Some merchants kept away from it while others didn't. Essentially owning it made you compelled to hoard and count it and made you want more. The more you had the stronger the effect, but it had no effect on how you view normal gold, just the red. The evil race used it generously in order to spread that corruption around, but mostly it just made you obsessed with it, want to hoard it, and made you want more of it, kinda like a drug. Normal gold didn't have this effect and it was well known enough that some merchants refused it because they didn't want any of that effect, bad for business or for personal reasons, and those who did accept it always wanted more so it worked out well. Honestly I'd been wondering through the books, since the taint was something mixed in, and because that was the difference and thus probably what caused the obsession, if one couldn't magically extract the taint itself and just give that to someone obsessed with the red thus leaving you with nice clean gold.

I really don't think that's how we left things. I mean, Mallorean ended with mining of the red gold to commence again, there was even a small detail on who would get right to it or something (Silk vs. Tolnedra). If it really were tainted, wouldn't the heroes have, sealed the mines? Human sacrifices were over in the land, everything coming up, end of an evil, peace, diplomacy and prosperity is about to set across the land, but the tainted gold mines can be kept open?

[drack]

Honestly I haven't a clue why they never took a hostile attitude regarding it. The only way that they really saw it as bad was that the other race was using allot of it to buy influence. I don't know if it was just too ingrained in the system, if the mages couldn't really do anything about it, or if perhaps it might be far worse if they didn't leave it in circulating gold corrupting those who chose to be corrupted by it. I mean if I suddenly tell you one day that all checks are bad, and that while I won't refund it, you need now turn it all over, how would you react? I mean they clearly didn't have enough normal gold to buy out all the red gold in the world. Maybe over an immortal life they could remove it from the system, but then they're corrupting a powerful mage. I happen to recall a powerful mage having a rather full treasury of the stuff at one point and they weren't particularly friendly to the protagonists...

[Flickerdart]

No currency is more metal than the skulls of your enemies.

Or you can use these guys' albums.

[Thurbane]

What's the D&D conversion rate on a quatloo?

[LudicSavant]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzaTP6s_HcY

[Âmesang]

Ah, I recall that. It seemed to be a taint in the gold. Some corrupting evil influence. I don't think it was magical per say, but I do think it was divine in nature.

Makes me want to introduce red steel pieces from RED STEEL™, although they'd only be worth 12 gold pieces per coin.

I've also decided to not change the currency values for the Suel Imperium coinage, since there's no reason that their values should be equivalent to modern coins or that platinum couldn't have been cheaper and silver more expensive. I based the weight of the amber chips on what I could find regarding its density and its description as being "thumbnail-sized," and I'm assuming that a mithral ember has the same weight as a typical coin; although, if based on relative size, I suppose it'd be half the weight, no? Then again the mithral is infused with cinnabar, so not exactly "normal." I have no idea what a "perfume orb" would weight, aside from it being a crystal.

Coin	Orb	Chip	Rod	Wheel	Ingot	Ember	Weight
Perfume Orb (po)	1	1/2	1/10	1/100	1/200	1/1,000	——
Amber Chip (ac)	2	1	1/5	1/50	1/100	1/500	1/500 lb.
Silver Rod (sr)	10	5	1	1/10	1/20	1/100	1/25 lb.
Gold Wheel (gw)	100	50	10	1	1/2	1/10	1/5 lb.
Platinum Ingot (pi)	200	100	20	2	1	1/5	1/10 lb.
Mithral Ember (me)	1,000	500	100	10	5	1	1/50 lb.

Suel Imperium: Age of Glory, p.24

[Kingsnake]

Iron has been used as a currency IRL.

The people of Yap island used boulders that could weigh multiple tons; just because something actually happened doesn't mean it should've.

Ultimately, the big checks on metal's use as currency are going to be threefold: availability (you want it rare, but not too rare), utility (unless it's abundant or your economy is puny, you don't want it too useful), and workability- gold is rare, melts at a low temperature, is both malleable and ductile, and before conductivty was an issue, was useless; a perfect choice for many societies. Iron requires very hot fires, lacks bronze's brittleness, won't hold much an edge if it's pure, and is a pain to work with. The idea of iron being worth less than bronze, let alone copper, is ridiculous outside of some very specific supply and technological situations.

A civilization doesn't arise out of a vacuum, though; as a DM, you decide material availability and tech level, and with a bit of physics tweaking, can set the values at whatever you want- who says you can't magic the aluminum out of bauxite as an at-will SLA for the ancestor-spirit guardians that protect every village in the land?

[drack]

Oh, of course, I agree that there are tons of logistical reasons that make gold the best choice off the periodic table.

Iron however is quite common as it's the core of every star just prior to supernova. With the universe shifting slowly towards it it's certainly among the most common elements in existence (lagging behind hydrogen and helium if I recall.) It's plenty reasonable for it to be cheaper if extraction methods are known and have been for some time. I think the best argument for it as a currency would be that there's enough excess to make a currency, that one can always make tools and such from it, and that by that same logic, to (potentially illegally) print currency, one would need buy and reforge god usable tools, thus a central supply could be gathered and regulated or not, but the same holds true for any asset, and generally at such a point it would lack sufficient rarity to hold the value you'd want it to. Still, it may be ideal for lower denominations. *shrugs*

Gotta say this thread's shaping up to be a hoot.

[KillianHawkeye]

gold is rare, melts at a low temperature, is both malleable and ductile, and before conductivty was an issue, was useless; a perfect choice for many societies

Being all shiny and pretty helped, too. After all, before technology, gold's only other "practical" use was for decoration (gold jewelry, gold eating utensils, gold-plated furniture, et cetera).

[Xuc Xac]

Aluminum, if you're looking for fantastically expensive coinage that has the side bonus of being much easier to carry.

50 coins per pound is 50 coins per pound. 50 aluminum coins would weigh as much as 50 gold or 50 platinum. But 50 aluminum coins would be huge because it's much less dense. Unless aluminum coins are worth much more than gold or platinum, they aren't going to be any more convenient to carry around.

[ekarney]

I told my players that despite them travelling all through Faerun their coins would be accepted solely because of ease, and that the town they were based out of had become a massive trade hub, having currency from everywhere floating around it to the point where nobody cares "If it's gold it's gold." Obviously I still have wealth disparities between towns so things may be cheaper elsewhere but for the most part it's not too difficult. I do however have three (or 2.5, whatever) exceptions:

1. Drow. In order to keep their cities "clean" (See also: Making sure only the Drow have money) they artificially inflated currency and prices within many of their cities and settlements, which means that inside cities Drow only do business with other Drow, and travelling traders and the like have to trade with certain slaves for supplies or try to pay for the Drow's ridiculously overpriced goods. (I swear this sounded better when I explained it to my players, and I promise it makes sense)

1.5 The flaw in that plan is that when Drow go top the surface they have to carry incredible amounts of currency with them, so they've started using church authorized notes, kind of like IOU's redeemable with any Drow who has the physical coinage on them since the Drow are usually looking to rid themselves of incredibly heavy amounts of money. Though this has spread through interior Faerun and now most people simply pass the slips onto other people without redeeming them, forming a primitive version of paper money.

2. I recently had them (my players) travel to a very out of the way canyon which had its own very powerful currency for weird and unexplained reasons. They're made out of strange alloys, and have the same circumference of a beer can, I'll put the exchange rate in a spoiler tag.

Spoiler: Currency of Slackswamp

Show

Spitnickels.
26gp, 9sp, 1cp = 1 Toothrooter
1 ½ Toothrooter = Sallywagger
161gp, 4sp, 7cp/6 Toothrooters = 1 Golgummer
⅔ Spitnickel = Beer token
1,130gp, 2sp, 9cp/7 Golgummer = 1 Spitnickel
2 ⅓ Spitnickels = Loolodger
3,390gp, 8sp, 7cp/3 Spitnickels = 1 Fancyfarmer
35,604gp, 1sp, 4cp/10 ½ Fancy farmers= 1 Strange Cousin From Out West.

Other fractional currency may be used at will and/or random by the locals, but it doesnt have an official name.

Currency can only be exchanged at the Slackswamp Fancy Bank, upon exchanging for a Spitnickel or more, travellers are gifted a +1 Magical dagger, or a “Chipper”, as not only do the locals only deal in this weird currency, but they also deal in ⅓’s and ½’s of coins too, the bank itself will not deal in fractional currency.
Strange Cousins From Out West all have a myriad of random magical effects on them, unbeknownst to the locals. Locals will refuse to deal with anything other than “legal-like tender”