Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 20 Jan 2008 to 21 Jan 2008 (#2008-9) From: MYSTARA-L automatic digest system Date: 22/01/2008, 19:00 To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 4 messages totalling 307 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds (4) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:21:39 -0500 From: Greg Weatherup Subject: coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds Hmm... looks like the formatting of my last message came through a bit odd, I hope this one is formatted correctly. >On 20/01/2008, Giampaolo Agosta wrote: Thanks for your thoughts on historical coin sources. In each entry in my document I try to have a list or some ideas of historical coins for DMs to use to stock a old treasure chest with or an ancient treasure hord with, so that is why I asked. >- Minrothad: Harbortown and New Alphatia, and later the Minrothad Guilds would have a major influence on the politics of Halag and Marilenev, being the major trading partners; IIRC, Minrothad coins include a "crona" as well. The Guilds of Marilenev were also probably modeled at least in part on Minrothad. oh shoots, I completely missed about the 'Thadder Crona. I don't have much information on the guilds, is there any canon info on their crona?=20 We need some back story/reason for both Karameikos (or earlier Traladara if the Crona indeed predates the Thyatians) to have a silver Crona and the Guilds to have a gold Crona. Likely either some common "ancestor" denomination of both, or one is an imitation of the other (which raises the question, which came first?). I never did develop nor even understand the guilds monetary system, my only initial thoughts were that the various things (Quert, Byd, etc) were weight units and thus you can have both copper Querts and silver Querts, and both silver Byds and electrum Byds, but as I said I never developed it much. >> no official legal tender status, given that the goldsmiths guild is >> dominated by dwarven craftsmen, they are usually of very fine >> craftsmanship and quality so are widely accepted, but there is no >> official rate to the traditional/thyatian systems. (or should their be >> some set rate, ie 2.5 florins per lucin/royal or some such?). > These are coins made of valuable metals, not banknotes, so the Moneychangers and the Goldsmiths would be able to set exact change rate by evaluating weight and alloy purity for the coins. Obviously, others would have much more problems with the evaluation, so that's why the moneychangers exist -- they give you currency with which you (or the locals) are familiar instead of whatever you bring them, taking a small fee. > Very stable and common coins would be accepted also by other merchants, while unfamiliar coins or those known to be of inferior alloys would be not be accepted as easily. good points all, so these guilders/guilden/florins should indeed have a fixed rate depending on whatever their fineness/weight is. I have not yet got into setting details for coin weights/fineness etc., just as a working standard I adopted Christopher Cherringtons idea that a typical coin is 1/60 of a pound and for now have set things based relative to that working standard. I think that the actual rate of florin/etc. to lucin can remain absent from my guide for now and leave it up to individual DMs to decide on. Perhaps I'll just say the florin/guilder/guilden series produced by the goldsmiths guild would be a rare coin, single fl. coins would be very small and would see some limited circulation, but coins of multiple fl. (5 guilders, 10 guilders, etc.) coins would be large and largely would get exported. > The other influence on coinage would come from Highforge. It is very likely that a lot of coins used in NE Traladara and in Marilenev as well came from Highforge's mint, and influenced to some extent the local designs. >Note that Highforge is an independent gnomish kingdom -- the gnomes and dwarves there ignore the human laws. They probably mint on their own some currency for internal use, and accept human currency when trading abroad. So, rather than giving permission to mint coins, it would be more of an outsourcing of the mint (which, BTW, is still fairly common practice in RW). I keep forgetting about their independent status (I love the idea about outsourcing though!). Is there any info on Gnomish coinage systems, beyond that floating continent in the hollow world? Was any currency mentioned in Torkyn Falls in the Dragonlord chronicles? I have tried to give each demihuman race a different relationship to one metal or another (ie Hin don't value Gold but they know that humans do, Dwarves view Platinum as a base metal, etc.) so perhaps gnomes could have some difference with electrum or copper (I'm working on some ideals concerning elves and silver), perhaps because of coppers usufulness in machinery, the gnomes view copper as highly valuable? or maybe since copper gets used in machinery some other metal takes coppers place in their currency system? I don't know, just spitballing ideals here. In any case I doubt Highforge would have much domestic needs for coins, being a small, largely clan based, economy. >> -Much counterfeiting of the half-Kopec denomination coin takes place, but >> given a relative scarcity of coins, such counterfeits are usually >> knowingly accepted at face value out of necessity. (RW inspiration for >> this: counterfeit copper coins in the American Colonies due to a scarcity >> of coins shipped over from Britain). > What type of alloy is used? the legitimate half-Kopecs I have as copper, as for the alloy of the counterfeits- I never thought about it.... probably brass or tin. Maybe ancient worn and/or badly debased Thyatian Aes get restamped as half-Kopecs. (I already have that in Thyatis many brass Aes are debased and are viewed as worthless and get discarded, this could explain where they end up.) > Even lesser rulers might issue coppers in small denominations, maybe > not even officially minted, but just copper blocks with weight marks. 'blink' 'blink'.... I can't believe I missed that idea. I even have the same idea as a key concept of my Thyatian traditional coinage system (as opposed to the Thyatian Imperial system) (as well as in other countries ie Ylaruam). There is every reason to believe that the Thyatians would bring this concept/practice with them into Traladara/Karameikos. Now that I think about it, I can just picture a large, debased copper (or more likely a brass) coin from Kelvin with a big depiction of the Baron on it valued at a quarter kopec or something knicknamed a "testone" (based on a RW northern italian renaissance silver testone with its big portrature). I would probably keep the threshold mint too busy as a (ducal then royal) branch mint to have it produce any Thresholdian coins. What about Ludwig von Hendricks? Perhaps Ludwig never bothers with coin making. I think that is all the barons in AC 1000-1004 right? >> at some point in the future one or the other of the two decide to start >> counterfeiting silver or gold coins and the adventurers must uncover the >> culprits) well, what does everyone think? > That would be very profitable, especially for gold coins -- adding > silver or copper in the alloy would decrease the actual value of gold > coins by one half or more. > Also, "shaving" coins was another RW practice that can be performed > even on relatively small scale and requires no special tools. yes, shaving coins was historically a big issue, hence why so many modern coins have milling or reeding or even words on the edges. I would think coin milling technology would be beyond Mystaran technology, what does everyone else think? Or perhaps that could be a trademark of Gnomish coins since it seems like they would have the technology. hmm.. many ideals to chew over here, keep them coming! Greg WeatherupGWxup@excite.comG= ecko_G@email.comhttp://members.fortunecity.com/gecko_g/ --=20 Want an e-mail address like mine? Get a free e-mail account today at www.mail.com! ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:52:22 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds On 21/01/2008, Greg Weatherup wrote: > oh shoots, I completely missed about the 'Thadder Crona. I don't have > much information on the guilds, is there any canon info on their crona? > We need some back story/reason for both Karameikos (or earlier Traladara > if the Crona indeed predates the Thyatians) to have a silver Crona and > the Guilds to have a gold Crona. Likely either some common "ancestor" > denomination of both, or one is an imitation of the other (which raises > the question, which came first?). I never did develop nor even > understand the guilds monetary system, my only initial thoughts were that > the various things (Quert, Byd, etc) were weight units and thus you can > have both copper Querts and silver Querts, and both silver Byds and > electrum Byds, but as I said I never developed it much. I'll have to check the sources, but I doubt there will be much on the origin of these names. However, your idea is good. > good points all, so these guilders/guilden/florins should indeed have a > fixed rate depending on whatever their fineness/weight is. I have not > yet got into setting details for coin weights/fineness etc., just as a > working standard I adopted Christopher Cherringtons idea that a typical > coin is 1/60 of a pound and for now have set things based relative to > that working standard. 1/60 is very realistic, AFAIK. It is circa the weight of a roman aureus. However, copper coins were usually heavier (and much larger). > I keep forgetting about their independent status (I love the idea about > outsourcing though!). Is there any info on Gnomish coinage systems, > beyond that floating continent in the hollow world? Was any currency > mentioned in Torkyn Falls in the Dragonlord chronicles? Not that I know of. For Torkyn Falls, maybe Havard knows more. > (I'm working on some ideals concerning > elves and silver), perhaps because of coppers usufulness in machinery, > the gnomes view copper as highly valuable? or maybe since copper gets > used in machinery some other metal takes coppers place in their currency > system? I don't know, just spitballing ideals here. Note that metals are generally valued for their resistance to chemical agents and rarity, especially for treasuring and coinage. Thus, while there may be differences in alloys (e.g., using brass or bronze instead of copper), any other difference would be relatively minor -- e.g., the dwarves may consider platinum worth as gold, but hardly less. > the legitimate half-Kopecs I have as copper, as for the alloy of the > counterfeits- I never thought about it.... probably brass or tin. That's important, because the alloy must be less valuable than the pure metal. It's likely not the case for brass. > coins. What about Ludwig von Hendricks? Perhaps Ludwig never bothers > with coin making. Or maybe he does -- he likes having his portrait shown everywhere. However, Black Eagle coins only circulate among the mercenaries that serve the Baron. > I think that is all the barons in AC 1000-1004 right? There's Vorloi and Halaran as well. However, Halaran has the main state mint in his domain, so he probably doesn't need extra coins, and Vorloi monopolizes trade in his own domain, and is based so near Specularum. So Ludwig and Kelvin are the most likely choices. > yes, shaving coins was historically a big issue, hence why so many modern > coins have milling or reeding or even words on the edges. I would think > coin milling technology would be beyond Mystaran technology, what does > everyone else think? Unlikely to be within the technological means of the human nations. Magic is sometimes used (e.g., in Glantri) > Or perhaps that could be a trademark of Gnomish > coins since it seems like they would have the technology. That's a good idea. GP ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:14:46 -0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=C1tila_Pires_dos_Santos?= Subject: Re: coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds On 1/21/08, Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > > On 21/01/2008, Greg Weatherup wrote: > > oh shoots, I completely missed about the 'Thadder Crona. I don't have > > much information on the guilds, is there any canon info on their crona? > > We need some back story/reason for both Karameikos (or earlier Traladara > > if the Crona indeed predates the Thyatians) to have a silver Crona and > > the Guilds to have a gold Crona. > > I'll have to check the sources, but I doubt there will be much on the > origin of these names. However, your idea is good. IIRC, the city-state Korun is also a gold coin. It's possible that the karameikan Crona was changed to a silver coin in order to have a gold Royal (and thus put the new karameikan order above the old traladaran ways; the same probably is true for the platinum city-state Halavs and karameikan electrum Halavs). ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:47:00 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: coinage and GP's Specularuam Trade Guilds On 21/01/2008, =C1tila Pires dos Santos wrote: > > > IIRC, the city-state Korun is also a gold coin. It's possible that the > karameikan Crona was changed to a silver coin in order to have a gold Roy= al > (and thus put the new karameikan order above the old traladaran ways; the > same probably is true for the platinum city-state Halavs and karameikan > electrum Halavs). Or, maybe, the Crona had lost so much value that it contained already more silver than gold and/or was under the standard weight. GP ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 20 Jan 2008 to 21 Jan 2008 (#2008-9) **************************************************************