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I noticed that Russia is sitting on an Impact Crater with 2+ Trillion Carat in Hard Diamonds (that's about 120,000,000,000,000 gold pieces in particularly hard diamonds that make regular diamonds look like glass), and I was thinking wouldn't it be neat if there was some huge crater in Golarion where humanoids lived and suddenly those Humanoids are in a position to buy and sell the economies of the World for the next couple thousand years. Basically with the ability to carve out an Empire that would make the rest look primitive by comparison.
It would certainly push the rest of the world to go to war over it. Who wouldn't want 120 trillion gp in diamonds that undermine the value of existing diamonds and any economy that doesn't have them?
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>position to buy and sell the economies of the World for the next couple thousand years
Not really. They can't sell too many diamonds or they will devalue. So they will need to do what DeBeers has done and artificially constrain supply.
>It would certainly push the rest of the world to go to war over it.
I could certainly see neighbors trying raids (if they are tribal sorts) or actual wars to take over one or more mines only because they are right there. I don't see the whole world going to war.
I could see a powerful group of merchants (the Aspis Consortium for example) acting like Debeers and engineering a war to maintain their monopoly.
Another avenue you might consider is that with a sufficient supply of diamonds, and the creation of a "secret process" by local shamans, crystalline weapons could suddenly become cost effective.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/special-materials#TOC-Crystalline
Cost effective as in, "Oh, those Orc guards and archers? Yeah, they ignore half your armor."
This kind of ties in with something I noticed. In RL prior to modern times rubies were the most caught after gems. They come from only a few places.
Diamonds are pretty common and a lot of their value is modern marketing. Common compared To some other gems at least.
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>position to buy and sell the economies of the World for the next couple thousand years
Not really. They can't sell too many diamonds or they will devalue. So they will need to do what DeBeers has done and artificially constrain supply.
>It would certainly push the rest of the world to go to war over it.
I could certainly see neighbors trying raids (if they are tribal sorts) or actual wars to take over one or more mines only because they are right there. I don't see the whole world going to war.
How about the Diamond Throne hires every mercenary band in the world - under the banner - a black field with a white Diamond. Their tasks are to assassinate the rulers of every Kingdom and raise the Diamond Banner. You pay them a million gold pieces and that again on success. Think of it as a two million gold piece bounty.
How many guards wouldn't hesitate to depose of their monarch for two million gp?
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I am sure a lot of monarchs could be killed. My point is that if they put that many diamonds into circulation they will devalue them to such a degree that the will destroy their own economy. They will be unable to raise money because the value will drop as they sell them. All the extra diamonds mean is that they will be able to have slightly lower tax rates or more money left over after taxes are received.
They might be slightly more powerful but not significantly so.
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I am sure a lot of monarchs could be killed. My point is that if they put that many diamonds into circulation they will devalue them to such a degree that the will destroy their own economy. They will be unable to raise money because the value will drop as they sell them. All the extra diamonds mean is that they will be able to have slightly lower tax rates or more money left over after taxes are received.
They might be slightly more powerful but not significantly so.
Certainly the spell component idea is good - but I think if you pay one group in isolation of another then the idea of your diamonds cheapen the value of my diamonds doesn't really hold. Its not until you run out of have-not's capable of chopping off a king's head for a sack full of diamonds that they become worthless.
Perhaps even more so when your possession of those diamonds are proof of complicity in treason.
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I am sure a lot of monarchs could be killed. My point is that if they put that many diamonds into circulation they will devalue them to such a degree that the will destroy their own economy. They will be unable to raise money because the value will drop as they sell them. All the extra diamonds mean is that they will be able to have slightly lower tax rates or more money left over after taxes are received.
They might be slightly more powerful but not significantly so.
Certainly the spell component idea is good - but I think if you pay one group in isolation of another then the idea of your diamonds cheapen the value of my diamonds doesn't really hold. Its not until you run out of have-not's capable of chopping off a king's head for a sack full of diamonds that they become worthless.
Perhaps even more so when your possession of those diamonds are proof of complicity in treason.
Each group will spend those diamonds. Given that they killed the king they will probably need to run to a neighboring kingdom or kingdoms if several people were involved. You can't get around it. Even if you succeed in killing every king you will put so many diamonds in circulation that your own diamonds will no longer have any value.
If you want proof just look at the real world. If something like that could be pulled off then someone would do it but they don't. They all recognize that artificial scarcity is how they maintain value.