Creative Director
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So; as part of the revision work I'm doing on the Campaign Setting hardcover, I'm going to be including a list of sample names for coins in various nations in the Inner Sea—this is something that a lot of folks have asked about on these boards, and while it's something that we've traditionally shied away from, I'd like to include a little bit about it in the core book—because you demanded it! :-)
I have these strange proto-memories that we've already printed names for coins in some regions, but I'm having a hard time finding those citations in various Pathfinder Chronicles products. Which, of course, makes me suspect that we DID come up with some of these types of names but they just never got into print.
So, if anyone out there on the boards knows about a place where we've definitively listed names for coins in anywhere in Golarion, here's your chance to help! Post the names and what product they're from (and where that info appears in the product) and help me put the Trade and Commerce pages of the revised book to bed! :-)
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Creative Director
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Katapesh is my particular area of focus, and I can't remember ever seeing coin denominations for Katapesh other than "gold piece" or "silver piece" etc.
Ironic that this particular detail of the City of Commerce got overlooked so far.
Katapesh will be one of the five I'm making coin names up for, as a matter of fact, purely because it's such a center of trade.
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PFS Scenario 33 includes a special copper coin from Jalmeray with the sigil of the open road on one side and Jalmeray's flag on the other. It's not exactly a normal coin, but I'm noting it.
There's a coin engraved with a towering temple that was the currency of Dokeran in PFS Scenario 28.
Individuals in Corynten carry around coins engraved with the symbol of a human eye for good luck according to Cities of Golarion.
According to What Lies in Dust, Liger had triangular coins.
According to What Lies in Dust, Liger had triangular coins.
Liger was supposed to be Lirgen, according to the WLiD GM clarification thread.
Thats something my players also asked for, as they found a lot of freshly minted coins in "Crypt of the Everflame" (not very surprisingly). Just talking about gold pieces is unsatisfactory, and strains the suspense of disbelief IMO.
What´s more, this implicates that there is a mint in Tamran, which should be a solid building, probably
Stefan
Katapesh will be one of the five I'm making coin names up for, as a matter of fact, purely because it's such a center of trade.Katapesh is my particular area of focus, and I can't remember ever seeing coin denominations for Katapesh other than "gold piece" or "silver piece" etc.
Ironic that this particular detail of the City of Commerce got overlooked so far.
Nice, I'm glad to see this will be in the new guide. It sounds like we get $$ for: Absalom, Andoran, Cheliax (Korvosa), Katapesh, and I'm guessing Taldor?
Glad to see Katapesh on the list. I was just trying to decide if the Pactmasters would be involved in that or if the Abadarans ran the mint since the Pactmasters seemed to be fairly hands off.
Wish I could help with this, need to buy MOAR manuals though, it seems.
Errr, going off on a tangent here, but wouldn't it be within the bounds of 'realism' to have a standard 'trade' currency within various kingdoms, such as a 'merchant' Coinage system, heavily protected by both the Merchant Guilds and the Kingdoms involved in the treaties, being roughly similar in terms of wealth to 'standard' Kingdom coinage.
Dwarven Currency would likely have angular shapes and be stamped with not only the runic symbols of the Kingdom they were forged in but like as not also a 'carat' stamp, such as we find on modern Gold and Silver, 375 being 370 parts out of 1000 are 'pure gold', or 9 Carats, while 18 carat gold is expressed as '750' or 750 parts out of 1000 are 'pure gold'. Copper pieces I can imagine being sharp-pointed five-sided coins with a hole drilled at one point so that the Dwarves can string them together, with a specific rune for 'Copper' stamped or cast into one side and the face of the Dwarven Diety, possibly Dranngvit or even Kols. Silver Coins I'd perhaps see as a different shape again, the same with Gold and the rarest of all, Platinum.
While Dwarves have Darkvision, being able to fish out a string of coins based upon the feel, rather than having to take your eyes of the merchant you are haggling with, is an advantage.
In an alternative, other countries could have coins much like the system used in the Dark Sun setting, with each coin counting as 'ten' coins, but you can break off a 'piece' to count as one. This adds the intriguing question between merchants if the coin is worth as much when there is less metal involved, meaning the coins may have to have a higher purity of precious metal or otherwise have meaning that compensates for the lack of mass.
Errr, going off on a tangent here, but wouldn't it be within the bounds of 'realism' to have a standard 'trade' currency within various kingdoms, such as a 'merchant' Coinage system, heavily protected by both the Merchant Guilds and the Kingdoms involved in the treaties, being roughly similar in terms of wealth to 'standard' Kingdom coinage.
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This adds the intriguing question between merchants if the coin is worth as much when there is less metal involved, meaning the coins may have to have a higher purity of precious metal or otherwise have meaning that compensates for the lack of mass.
re: realism -- this actually touches on an issue I'm grappling with right now, i.e., how do you handle trade in a world where clearly there would be trade (and sometimes the source materials state outright that there is flourishing trade, relevant example here being the slave trade out of Cheliax), but things get a little funny if you actually spend too long trying to apply historical realism to a kitchen-sink fantasy setting.
Some things are pretty easy to figure: stamped or printed money likely doesn't hold a lot of value in Galt, where the government is constantly changing and today's dollar bill is tomorrow's toilet paper. There you'd probably have a barter economy supplemented by precious metals and gems being traded for some fraction of their "real" value (since everyone can agree that gold is valuable, but HOW valuable it is relative to a loaf of bread depends on just how hard you're starving at the time).
Other things are harder to figure. Evil nations with long-running stable governments have the advantage that their currency will probably still be recognized as currency by the next ruler down the line (or, in the case of Geb, the same ruler 200 years from now...) BUT to earn or spend that money in its place of origin, you actually have to go to Geb or Nidal or Irrisen or wherever, and probably not a ton of merchants are super eager to do that, since you have a pretty good chance of getting eaten by the denizens upon arrival. So my best guess is that their currency would be worth slightly less than face value outside the realms in question (how much less, who knows).
Anyway I spent a while trying to work this out in my head (it gets even more complicated when you're trying to figure out relative magic levels of the sub-realms, since merchants in high-magic areas have a huge competitive advantage over low-magic dealers who can't just teleport stuff to and fro) and eventually just went "aaagh! they use hacksilver! hacksilver! problem solved!!" and so for international trade where the party nations are not closely aligned or within close physical proximity of one another, that is henceforth gonna be my campaign's default answer. Value is determined by weight and purity of precious metal, not by what's stamped on its face.
Mmmm, that's what I think of with most Coins adventurers find is a form of 'Trade Currency'. Established countries would also be able to offer their currency as a viable substitute to the more common 'Trade Currency', while 'National currency' from richer, established and stable nations would probably be worth a fair bit more than the currency of a poorer nation, or one that is suffering a great deal of trouble.
On the other hand, if PCs are willing to leave a paper trail, they could possibly leave their loot in the hands of the God of Cities and open up accounts. While at the risk of making it a 'Magical Modern Bank', with access to spells that can span continents to speak to someone else, PCs could walk into a Vault of Abadar on the other side of the Inner Sea, ask for their Chelaxian coinage to be turned into Molthune Wafers (Think small ingots the size of the end joint of your thumb) or Nexian Rings (think poker chips sans the middles).
Countries sharing a common history should share a common currency, but if a country has separated violently from it's parent or has a rich magically back-ground or is otherwise 'different', national pride, monarch's whimsey and cultural drives can produce a wide variety of differences, even in coinage.
Barter is fun, but most PCs would be crushed to death under the weight of all those barter goods, which is why Coins and other methods of 'money' were invented, to save space, weight and other reasons that would drag this thread entirely off topic.