currencies in game realism

Money

Trandle’s Stand

There are few resources through the years of its infancy and the gold standard existed throughout the many nations of the world, but here is was very limited.  In Gutral Mastekeena the money is in theory interchangeable with gold, but they do not use gold.  Adopting that idea, the matters of the city chose to use the Chit system. 

The Chit System

Trandle’s Stand Chit	Typical Standard	Trandle’s Stand Bar
Brass Chit	Gold piece	Platinum piece
Bronze Chit	Silver piece	Gold piece
Lead Chit	Copper piece	Silver piece

A Chit is a coin shaped metal disc which has tab where it attached the other chits when it was made.  Ten chits come in a bar that is worth 10 chits.  Each chit can be cut off the bar to make change, but most people are reluctant to do so because there is prestige granted to the intact bar.  There is greater prestige granted one who breaks a bar, it says that the prestige of paying with a full bar is meaningless as they do it so often. 

Money changers typically have gold coins on hand as the Chit system is not accepted outside the city.  Any chit can easily be cut in half and in quarters, but further denominations are generally not accepted, many establishments will not even accept the quarter chit.  There area other denominations.  The Block which is ten bars still attached, 2x5 and the Sheet which is ten Blocks.  Sheets are forged in the treasury and often have flaws in them and so the flaws are discarded and broken down into Blocks and Bars, but the occasional Sheet is kept intact.  A Sheet is only worth a 1000 chits, but there is prestige to paying for large purchases this way. 

Gutral Mastekeena

In an Empire this large there is a lot of gold mined in it to allow purchases, but there is a certain amount of power for a nation to just tell others that it will not honor that idea.  There is one coin issued in the Empire, it is a simple copper coin with a hole through the center that is often carried in long strings.  Larger currencies are printed on cloth paper embossed with insoluble inks and sometimes leaf metals.  The currencies are roughly equivalent to the silver coin value.

Gutral Mastekeena currency	standard
Yen Coin	Copper coin
Siu Note	Silver coin
Quian Note	Gold coin
Koku Note	Platinum Coin

There are note values greater than the Koku Note, the Ten Koku and the Hundred Koku, but after this they usually become Bearer Bonds for greater values, sometimes they are Trading Bonds when large sums are being carried and security is necessary.  The Siu note is worked with purple thread and has an impression of the current king.  The Quian is worked with silver thread and has ink mark of the current king.  The Koku Notes are worked with gold thread and the Emperors image is worked with silver thread.  The value of the note is worked with gold.  It is possible to counterfeit this money, except the  cloth has been magically created and imbued with a sigil.  The paper naturally repels liquids.  Which is one if the ways counterfeits are uncovered. 

Foreign traders have the most difficulty with this system, but it is the price of doing trade.  The fact that Mastekeena currency is not accepted outside the empire is part of the reason why most native traders only trade inside the Empire.

The Empire

The Dwarven Empire has an abundance of base metals.  Their coins are especially fat and weighty.  It is part of the pride of the dwarves that when they pay, they pay in heavy currency.  As such dwarves pay half of what others do. 

Causnought

The typical Causnought currency uses Gold Silver Copper currency with Electrum.  The Wose Elves likewise.