For my Pathfinder game (using Savage Worlds), I'm going to use Rolemaster's ...And a 10-Foot Pole as the base costs for equipment and such, with high density urban areas like Magnimar and Korvosa at Middle Ages level, and most other civilized areas at Iron Age/Roman level. I like that its a relatively coherent and internally consistent money system to go with its fairly comprehensive equipment list (although since nothing is listed in platinum, I'm going to make it 100x gold, instead of 10x).

But ... I don't like the generic "silver piece" and "tin piece" and "bronze piece", so I want them all renamed. But since all the texts have "sp" and "tp" and "bp" and such, I want to give them all more setting-appropriate names to match the initials.

Here are the coin names I have so far:
platinum pendant
gold pegasus
silver pound
bronze plough or phalanx
copper penny
tin peasant

Here are the rates:
1 pp = 100 gp
1 gp = 10 sp
1 sp = 10 bp
1 bp = 10 cp
1 cp = 10 tp


Taking a page from the chinese, all the money has a hole in the center, allowing folks to string their money on leather thongs. The platinum coin is called the pendant because it is slightly larger than normal coins, and they typically strung on an ornate chain (instead of leather) and worn around the neck as a vanity item by the rich.

A typical laborer gets paid 2-3 bp per day (although only a small portion of that wage in hard coin) and a typical solider not much more. Because their pay is in bp, I wanted to make the name of that coin reflective of the class that gets paid in it - I'd really like to find a different "official" name for the coin, but have it referred to as a "plough" by the common farmer and as a "phalanx" by the common soldier.

Copper are pennies because they are the currently most used by the common folks, while silver is more often used by the merchant and upper classes for day to day stuff (with gold being used for larger purchases).


Any and all comments, suggestions and ideas welcome.

Hmmm, for an old homebrew I had, the coins were long and rectangular, minted from bar silver by a rolling press rather than a stamp die. The long coins were about half an inch wide, by six inches in length, and could be easily broken into eight pieces. Each piece had a different ship embossed on it, with a single coin called a 'ship' and a full strip called a 'fleet'. A Fleet could be worn easily as a bracelet, in a manner similar to hack silver. Fleets are most often broken, with individual Ships cut off and used. Shaving, drilling, and plugging are more common than counterfeiting.

Gold coins were fairly rare, and called 'Admirals' - earlier coins had the faces of kings and queens, but later gave way to the popular name and featured famous admirals and captains. Given the nature of the issuing nation it was not uncommon for members of the royal family to hold rank in the Navy, more commonly than in the Army. The royal faces were moved to a larger coin that became known as a Re'al or Regal, sometimes called a 'Crown'. These coins were valuable enough that they were seldom used.

Copper Bits (called just that) - small barely legible bits of copper that are issued by petty nobility and churches more often than the national mints. Their origin was as counters - a Ship or other coin being used to purchase a number of these counters for specific items - since petty nobility controlled the mills, for example, a bit could be used to purchases a bushel of wheat ground into flour, or four bushels of flour if the user provides the wheat. The idea being that rather than spending a Ship on the flour they would buy the Bits, and use them when flour was needed. In reality they were used more commonly in trade than the Ships, since everyone used the commodities they represented. Again, over time, this usage was lost, and they became a de facto currency. Whether the coins represented a stone of meal, a fist of salt, or a bushel of flour ceased to matter.

It is possible that I over think some things.... The players generally just called them 'coppers', 'silvers', and 'gold'.

The Auld Grump

Just rambling out loud here for a moment....

I had an interesting thought this morning about the marriage of magic and government. As a government, if you had magical resources at your disposal, whats one of the first things you'd try to lock down completely? Me, after the basics (army, food, etc), I'd try to make a foolproof exchange (currency) system that I completely controlled.

Once upon a time, scales were distributed and certified by governments. Imagine that same concept, but with magic. I'm imaging all currency being runemarked (or something along those lines), and the government issues magical scales keyed to those runemarks, to be able to immediately tell whether currency is legit or not. And imagine if those runes would change their signature slightly if the coin was tampered with (plugging, shaving, etc)?

With a system like that, the issuing government wouldn't even really need to have coins made from varyingly valuable metal types, as long as the currency was accepted at a given exchange rate (thus divorcing the currency from the vagaries of supply and demand).

But even if the coins were still tied to valuable metals, it would be MUCH easier to regulate them, and provide a safer trading environment (at least for the folks dealing in legal goods). As long as the magic system wasn't compromised, you'd know if your coins were legit or not.

Hmmm.... Given Pathfinder's runic background (the Thassilonians), I think I'm going to have to explore this further.

An arcane debit card, is that what you are getting at?

If you war willing to steal a bit from d20...

The Eberron campaign setting uses Arcane marks to prevent the forging of offical documents, ID papers, signet Rings, and Letters of Credit.

To forge something like that, you need to be both able to cast the "arcane mark" spell and be good at forgery.

That sounds like exactly what you are talking about.
Money has to be marked with the visible (and invisible?) rune/mark in order to be considered valid in the country.

Something very much along those lines - I'm thinking all "official" currency is runemarked with a magical rune that not only identifies the coin as legitimate (when "measured" with an official scale), but can detect if the coin has been overly tampered with (overly being the key word - all coins are subject to some degradation).

Galleons, Sickles and Knuts, eh?

So, this is what I have at the moment, based on feedback here (love the idea of cutting the coins) and some back and forth with a friend over IM:

Coin Names
pp = Prime Pendant
gp = Gold Prince
sp = Silver Pound
bp = Burghers Portion (also known as a Bold Phalanx)
cp = Copper Penny
tp = Tepenny (Tenth Penny)

General Info
Most coins (all but Burghers and Tepennies) have square holes in the center of the coin, and the coins are typically strung on leather cords and worn around the neck (or looped through clothing, in pouches, etc). Pendants, Pounds and Pennies are all typically larger and heavier coins, while Princes, Burghers and Tepennies are smaller coins.

Modern coins are all runemarked, that is, magically marked on one side by the Crown with magical runes to ensure they are officially minted. The Crown also distributes magical scales to government officials and moneychangers that can magically verify that the coins are indeed legitimate. It is rumored that runemarking can also detect attempts to tamper with the coins (shaving, plugging, etc).

Non-runemarked coins are usually not accepted by everyday merchants – usually only moneylenders or metalsmiths will exchange legitimate currency for non-runemarked coins, and then at a substantial (usually 20%+) changing rate.

Prime Pendants
The official name of the Prime Pendant is an Imperial Crown, but nearly everyone calls them Pendants or Primes. These are the original gold piece of the ancient age, and are larger than the more standard Gold Prince. They are mainly for show, and instead of being strung on simple leather cords, they are usually strung on more ornate chains such that they can serve as both vanity items and functional currency (when necessary) for the wealthy.

Gold Princes
Gold Princes are much smaller coins than the Pendants, although still able to be strung on a cord. Gold Princes are not usually used as day-to-day currency, but they are relatively often by the rich, and for larger purchases among merchants and traders.

Silver Pound
The Silver Pound is standard day-to-day currency for merchants and for the upper classes. Large purchases made by freeman are sometimes made with these coins.

Burghers Portion
The Burghers Portion was originally the result of cutting Silver Pounds into multiple coins to handle fractional transactions. Like tepennies, over time the practice was codified by law into a specific practice (10 Burgers per Pound). The coin is often called the Bold Phalanx, as its the standard pay of soldiers.

After runemarking was instituted, this denomination began to be officially minted by the Crown, and the size of the coin remained relatively the same.

Copper Penny
The copper penny is the day-to-day standard currency of the lower classes. It is used for most daily transactions, except when fractions are required, and then Tepennies are used.

Tepenny (Copper Tenth Penny)
The tepenny (teh-peh-nee) is an interesting coin. Like Burghers, they are a denomination that doesn't have a hole in the center and can't be laced onto a cord. Like pounds, once upon a time copper pennies were cut into varying pieces and used as change for transactions involving fractional pennies. Over time the practice was standardized to 10 relatively equal pieces that were somewhat trapezoidal in shape (due to the shape of the coin and the hole in the center).

With the advent of runemarking currency, the Crown opted to retain the denomination, but instead of being cut by moneychangers or merchants, they are simply minted that way.

Currency History 101
In the dim ages of the past there were originally only three denominations: Gold (Primes), Silver (Pounds) and Copper (Pennies). The coins were roughly the same size, and each was worth 100 times the next coin type (1 gp = 100 sp = 10000 cp).

Innovation: Holed Coins
The process of casting coins is not an easy one, and to make the process more efficient a long-past Emperor decreed that all coins casted would have a square hole in the center of them. After molding, this hole allowed the coins to be strung on square metal rods that held the coins in place while the edges were filed in bulk, decreasing the amount of time necessary to produce a batch of coins.

Contrary to popular belief, the fact that the square hole in the center provides a convenient method for carrying coins is completely incidental, and not the reason coins were cast in such a manner.

Innovation: Additional denominations
Over time more denominations were needed. Initially all of the larger pieces were cut into smaller pieces, providing the original currency that would become Princes, Burghers and Tepennies. This practice was tolerated for the smaller denominations, but quickly discourage for gold pieces. The Crown decided to officially mint a second denomination of gold, smaller pieces they called Princes.

Interestingly, until Runemarking, the Crown did not mint Burghers or Tepennies, although they did eventually codify the laws regarding their cutting and usage.

Innovation: Runemarks
After a long series of problems with currency, shaving, counterfeiting, ancient treasure hoards and other general currency malfeasance and issues, the Crown finally decided to do something to solidify their control over the realm's currency. They spent a great deal of money and commissioned any number of experts to come up with a solution, and finally the court mage came up with the system of Runemarking coins.

All coins produced by the Crown are Runemarked; they have a special rune magically imprinted into them after they are cast. The rune identifies the coin as legitimate, and is rumored to be able to detect any tampering with the coin, such as shaving or plugging. In tandem, the Crown also developed magical scales that can verify that coins placed on it are indeed legitimate (and untampered with). These scales were distributed to various government personnel and moneylenders, and over the years a great number of them have found their way into society.

Hmmm, in regards to casting coins - in the West they are generally stamped rather than cast as the process is much faster, and allows greater detail (making counterfeiting harder). This is part of what makes authenticating Chinese cast coins (yes, the ones with the square holes ) so difficult - the lack of detail makes them easier to copy, and sometimes harder to identify. (So I am not saying you are wrong, I am just going into why the West did not use similar methods. I recognized your coins fairly quickly. The square holes also made it easier to count the cast coins by weight, stacking them on a post built into the scale.)

Hopping back over to the West, the stamping machines were often powered by horses or oxen - something that could not be done with detailed casting, which relies on jewelers techniques. In the mid to late 1700s steam powered mints started coming into use, which might be something to think about when doing dwarf currencies (if your dwarfs discovered steam power a bit early, which often seems to be the case.) In the homebrew I mentioned above a good deal of coining and minting was jobbed out to the dwarfs, who could produce better coins, faster, and at a lower price than relying on the national mints.

Filing the edges of coins, to create that crinkly edge still seen on Quarter Dollars and Dimes here in the States, was a fairly late innovation, and was a means to combat clipping and filing, the practice of taking just a little bit off of every silver or gold coin as it passes through your hands, selling the accumulated bits of metal afterwards. As a result people started plugging instead - drilling a hole into the edge of a coin, then filling (or 'plugging') the hole with lead, copying the crinkly bit could then be done with a knife. This is the source of the term 'not worth a plugged nickel'. If anyone, aside from myself, still uses the phrase....

The Auld Grump, who was actually more interested in the history of counterfieting than in coinmaking....

I have the following coins in my home brew campaign, from worth the most to the least.

The platinum piece, which is called the Soverign. Mostly used by the most powerful members of the government, king, queen, leaders of extremely weathy merchant houses, etc.

The gold piece, which is called the Royal. Also used by most power members of government, but also lesser nobility.

The silver piece, which is called the Guild. Usually the form of currency that guilded craftsmen use.

The bronze piece, which is called the Wage. As you can guess, it's what those who are paid for menial tasks use most often.

The copper piece, which is called the Penny. Used by free members of society.

The tin piece, which is called the Serf. Guess you know who uses those!

Anyway, to give my players an referrence point for the costs of things in my game, I set a real world comparison value of $1 equals 1 wage. So that way, my players will get an idea of whether they're getting offered enough money for employment.

My pricing structure goes by values of 10. 10 Serfs to 1 Penny, 10 Pennies to 1 Wage, etc, up to the Soverign, which is worth only 5 Royals.

I came up with that system after talking with an acquaintance who knew something about metalurgy and at the time I devised the system helped me get approximate values for the different metals. Course, since we are talking a fantasy game here, you could just as easily make tree bark have a particular value, so I'd say that you should get a general idea of where you want to go with your money system and make sure that you're consistant.

Skunk

You wanna be alright you gotta walk tall
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That's probably where I got some of my inspiration, but honestly, I don't remember the Rolemaster coin system even though I ran Rolemaster for oh around 10 years!

I also know about players making the I'll never remember that comment! Tell them to write it down or give them a hand-out with the values written on it so that they'll have a cheat sheet!

Skunk

You wanna be alright you gotta walk tall
Long Beach Dub Allstars & Black Eyed Peas

Check out what games I’m working on and their status by visiting .