What do most people do as far as money storage/banking goes in a game? I'm not seeking to put interest rates and low finance loans or anything. However, a party needs to have a secure place to put their money once they've amassed their treasure hordes. However, just putting in a bank seems to be too modern and against the theme of most D&D, which is set in a medieval-based world. I don't believe they had banks, though I'm not completely sure.
So, what happened with money in reality, and what do most of you do in your games. The Church of Waukeen would probably solve the problem in the Realms, and isn't there a Greyhawk god of commerce? Moquol or something? I've been meaning to ask this question for a month but keep forgetting.
Perhaps the oldest evidence of banking is documentation of loans made from temple clergy to merchants in 18th century BC in Babaylon (according to wikipedia.org). People often trusted their money to religious institutions, seeing as temples were well build and theives were unlikely to rob a holy place. (also according to wikipedia.org) A Crimson Avenger has stated, the Templars were certainly no exception.
I remember playing Planescapes Torment and seeing a special buisness that stored objects in an extradimensional gate guarded by a creature that only opened to its master, suposedly impossible to rob. It's kind of a cool idea I thought. I belive it might be possible for a group of mages with specialized dimensional pocket spells to make good money protecting items of value. Anyhow, hope this helps.
>> hmmmmn I see an adventure hook here somewhere...)
Thirds of Purloined Vellum was an old Dungeon adventure dealing with this idea.
The Handy Haversack (spelling?) is a great idea for storing treasure.
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They took in coin and what not, and issued papers saying how muh credit you had access too. When you needed money or a loan, you just stopped into the next local Templar house, and adjustments were made to your bill of credit (there is a specific term for the paper but it escapes me at the moment).
I think the term you are looking for is "letter of credit". (In case you ever wondered where that term came from.) Bonds are pretty much the same thing.
If you've ever heard the term "bearer bond", it's just a bond that is payable to whoever is carrying it (the bearer).
In fact, that's originally what paper money was. Gold certificates and silver certificates were promissory notes from the government that could be redeemed in gold or silver (respectively).
Any of the above could be used effectively in a fantasy game, but watch out for forgery (both mundane and magical). It could pretty easily unbalance your economy. I'd look at creating a spell that acts as a sign of legitimacy. It would need to be permanent (or perhaps have a fixed duration if you want expiring letters of credit) and nearly impossible to counterfeit.
Thanks! That helps a lot. As for spells securing letters of credit, things like Secret Page and Illusory Script work good. So does sealing the letter and placing a warding spell on it (fire trap, glyph of warding, etc.) when anyone but the designated owner opens it. The real point being that even if the thieves survived the ward, the letter of credit is destroyed if the spell is triggered. A modified Arcane Mark only visible by a certain spell known only to predetermined clerics would work well, too. The aforementioned methods are not mutually exclusive.
It might be a little costly, but the only people who would use these methods can easily afford them. It's also just one more way for the banks to make money.
From what I've read, modern banking--in which people of relatively modest wealth deposit their money with a banker, who reinvests that money and pays them interest--got started in Holland in the 17th century. Before that, though, there were certainly great merchant houses before that whose main business was exchanging, loaning, and shipping money. The Fuggers of Germany and the Medici of Italy were extremely wealthy and powerful in the 15th and 16th centuries, and they each had branch houses all over Europe, loaning money to kings and financing mines, shipping, and other important enterprises. China and Japan also had businesses of this sort, which sometimes formed cartels or guilds based on family or native place ties--a letter of credit from one member of the guild could be redeemed with any other member house.
In a world where the main currencies are minted metal coins, the safe shipment of money was a huge enterprise in itself, and some businesses specialized in providing armed escort for wagons, barges, or ships loaded with gold and silver. (Kind of a premodern Brink's). Letters of credit were issued by merchants or bankers who had operations or branches in different cities--instead of shipping gold and silver back and forth, as long as there was not a big trade deficit on one end of the route, the letters obviated the need to ship coins, generating a substantial savings in business costs for many smaller merchants.
So, if you want your world to have a late medieval or renaissance feel to it (or a very civilized classical feel like ancient Rome), it would be appropriate for PCs to deposit funds with a merchant in exchange for a letter of credit, saving them from the trouble and expense of taking a caravan of gold-laden wagons and a small army of armed guards with them everywhere they travel at high level. This kind of thing would be possible in a monetized, commercialized part of the campaign world. If you're going for a more "dark ages" kind of feel, then a greater percentage of people's wealth is tied up in property, coin is relatively scarce, and businesses that specialize in handling monetary transactions and shipping money are also scarce. And of course, gold coins (or gems and jewelry) are more likely to impress people in backward, barbaric areas than a piece of paper with writing on it, so even in a commercialized world, travelers to remote frontiers have to carry an adequate supply of coin, trade goods, or other valuables to purchase what they need on the road.
Oh--to answer your Greyhawk question, Mouqol is the Baklunish god who oversees trade, and the deity revered by the Mouqollad Consortium. In the rest of the Flanaess, Zilchus is the god of wealth and most prominent deity worshipped by merchants. Priesthoods of such deities are often charged with enforcing fair and honest business practices, so inquiring in the temple of Zilchus or his counterpart in another world would be one way to locate a reputable banker.
One other note on pre-modern banking--the FDIC is a very recent invention (post-1929 crash), and banking houses that issue letters of credit can be quite vulnerable to "runs." This is when a rumor gets started that the bank has issued more letters/notes of credit than it has cash to cover, spurring a rush of people to cash in their letters before it's too late. If it becomes known that a banking house has been victimized by robbery, heist, or embezzlement, or if the banking house issues a lot of notes with no apparent source of income to back them up (there are also no credit bureaus or reputable accounting firms to certify a bank's liquidity), the resulting rumors are likely to trigger a run on the bank. This could be a great plot hook: the banker contacts the PCs to recover stolen money before knowledge of the robbery becomes public, or the owner of a rival house starts false rumors, seeking to ruin their rivals, etc.
Ack two MUD references in the same day...
Most parties would purchase a "Bag of Banking". Like a bag of holding but the money goes directly to a safety deposit box via the interdimensional space. Of course the bank would take their 10% and there was a really cool (somewhat random) descriptor such as "a shining white angel takes your bag and flies..."
So, what happened with money in reality
I have no doubt that all the examples of medival and classical banking are accurate but I am also pretty certian that we are talking about a small scale flow of money here. Mainly Merchant Houses catering to other Merchant Houses and lending to Aristocrats - (who might, or might not, pay off their debts).
In reality very little money would have been around at all and if you came into wealth for whatever reason you'd invest it in land. It was from ones estates that one derived wealth and power.
In later centuries you might invest your money by buying a stake in a trading expedition and then crossing your fingers that the ship would be heard from again at some point - prefferably loaded down with exotic trade goods from the ends of the earth.
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This, I believe, would also be the rationale for having vast sums of loose coins and valuables lying around in dark, difficult to reach holes in the ground ( I don't know... perhaps we could call these "holes"... dungeons?) guarded by various nasty traps and beasties.
I mean, if you have a large fortune to protect and there's no such thing as a "bank" in your particular paradigm... well, there are worse ways of doing it.
Just a thought.
Yes, the treasure trove--be it a sock under the bed or a dragon's hoard--is a sign of an underdeveloped banking system.
Sometimes, though, dungeons represent conspicuous consumption. The tomb filled with traps and incredibly valuable stuff is really a display of the tomb-owner's power and wealth--after all, if he could afford to have it buried with him, instead of passing it to his heirs, he must be pretty wealthy and powerful. And the funeral procession for such a tomb would of course display it all before hiding it away underground.
I think, though, that we do tend to underestimate how commercialized the urban parts of the ancient and medieval worlds were. They weren't always rich in coins, and peasants usually didn't have much coinage at all until governments started collecting taxes in coin instead of in grain, cloth, and corvee labor. And in most parts of the world, this didn't happen until the gold and silver of the New World began to flood the marketplace. But even if their wealth was in land, livestock, and commodities, people did accumulate and invest wealth in various ways.
An additional note--the price system in the PH actually reflects a relatively commercialized and monetized society, roughly equivalent to Europe's economy in about 1600, after silver from the mines at Zacatecas and Potosi flooded Europe with silver coinage and deflated the value of silver. If you want your world to reflect a less monetized economy, multiply the buying power of coins by 10 (so that, for example a composite longbow costs 10 gold pieces). Then dish coins out stingily, and have merchants barter frequently using trade goods instead of money.
Well, in D&D as well as life, the ocean has always served me well.
"Mmm, all this money...what am I going to DO with it all? *toss, splash* Yes, I'll come back for you later you little tease. (talking to now sinking bag of gold)"
It's like a giant blue bank!
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What do most people do as far as money storage/banking goes in a game? I'm not seeking to put interest rates and low finance loans or anything. However, a party needs to have a secure place to put their money once they've amassed their treasure hordes. However, just putting in a bank seems to be too modern and against the theme of most D&D, which is set in a medieval-based world. I don't believe they had banks, though I'm not completely sure.
So, what happened with money in reality, and what do most of you do in your games. The Church of Waukeen would probably solve the problem in the Realms, and isn't there a Greyhawk god of commerce? Moquol or something? I've been meaning to ask this question for a month but keep forgetting.
Well, as I DM an Eberron campaign, this is not really a question, because there's the Bank of House Kundarak.
From the ECS (p.234)"Possessing great wealth and the magical Mark of Warding, the dwarves of House Kundarak have established as the bankers and moneylenders of Khorvaire, as well as providers of persistent security for businesses and precious goods."
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I have no doubt that all the examples of medival and classical banking are accurate but I am also pretty certian that we are talking about a small scale flow of money here. Mainly Merchant Houses catering to other Merchant Houses and lending to Aristocrats - (who might, or might not, pay off their debts).
I recently read "The Last Duel : A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France". The book covers events in late 14th-century France, culminating in a judicial duel in 1386. One of the things that struck me was how similar the society was (at least in some respects) to our own.
There were lawsuits initiated by squires and knights against each other and against feudal superiors, purchase of estates, and well-established and complex procedures for criminal prosectution. Not at all the sort of "rule by fiat" that is commonly supposed.
In reality very little money would have been around at all and if you came into wealth for whatever reason you'd invest it in land. It was from ones estates that one derived wealth and power.
While the common peasant would have had very little or no money, the merchants, gentry, and nobility might regularly use cash. Land, weapons, armor, and livestock were historically bought and sold often.
In later centuries you might invest your money by buying a stake in a trading expedition and then crossing your fingers that the ship would be heard from again at some point - prefferably loaded down with exotic trade goods from the ends of the earth.
True enough, though this practice started very early. Trading expeditions, both overland and by sea, were a major source of wealth through much of European history. Venice, Genoa, and Constantinople (among many other cities) were mostly supported by trade income. In the north, it was the cities that would be come the Hanseatic League that controlled much of the trade.
I don't know enough about trade in Asia or Africa to comment cogently on the practices there, but at least in Europe, I wouldn't find a complex and formal economic structure at all unreasonable.