My WIP has a whole lot of countries and not enough currencies. I was thinking about using something more distinct than gold pieces or coins. Do you have any interesting ideas? What would make a fictional currency interesting in your opinion?
Depends on how "fantasy" your countries are. If they are relatively close to human civilizations, you may want to look into existing currencies. Precious metals were popular because they were rare. They existed as coinage, but there was also stuff like "Hacksilver". You could give it different shapes. What about rings/spirals of different weights that can be threaded on a string and worn around one's neck for safekeeping? Then of course there were things like cowrie shells and large stones. You could come up with similar things that are somehow important to people (maybe because they are pretty or otherwise special) and take a certain amount of work to obtain. Pretty crystals maybe? I have one fictional currency that consists of a kind of wooden scales from a fruit regarded as sacred. There is a myth about how this currency was invented, though its truthfulness is debatable. Those scales have inscriptions on the front side to mark them as currency as opposed to just the normal scales you get from peeling those fruit. On their backsides they have unique patterns of pores and the administrative body of the realm keeps a record of clay imprints of these patterns. So, if you doubt that the other person is using "real" currency, you could potentially go and check. That means there is a limited amount of official coins in circulation. It works because the have a large informal economy sector with bartering and gifting practices. Money is not used that often and the amount of people is manageable. For a larger economy it would probably become impractical.
That's exactly the kind of answer I was looking for! Thanks, I'll look into the different types of currencies you mentioned. I never really heard of any of them before. Your idea sounds sooo awesome! For me, little details like that make the world so much more fascinating! For me, the problem is that I have a lot of different countries in my world and I've run out of ideas. The main political power in my WIP uses glass coins with patterns made out of magical fire inside of them. I was really proud of that idea since it fits perfectly into the themes I'm going for. But then, there are at least three more countries that are gonna play a huge part in the story
Fable tells us that certain Yankee traders in colonial America were prone to making counterfeit 5-cent coins out of wood -- giving rise to the cautionary saying, "Don't take any wooden nickels." Is there a rare tree in any of your countries such that coins or small, rectangular blocks of wood could be used as currency? Banth teeth?
After going offline yesterday and into bed, I had two more ideas: 1) What about tiny figures of a deity your people worship? Bonus points if said deity really exists and strikes everybody down with lightning who tries to counterfeit the currency. It also makes for funny lines like: "What do you want for that chicken?" "Give me three fat ladies and a baby leg." 2) Flint arrowheads (and little flint knife blades and hatchet heads). Works for stone age and bronze age hunter-gatherer and semi-nomadic peoples. They are valuable not because of some societal contract, but because of their intrinsic use value (hey, daddy Marx ). And therefor they cannot be forged, because in doing so you would provide exactly that use value. Even if the recipient of this currency doesn't use it themselves, they probably know somebody who will use them and give them meat and pelts and other animal products for them. Of course you can use any other kind of thing that has a use value for your people. Maybe there is an expensive dye stuff made from something that can be transported easily. Even fabric fibers like spools of silk may work.
@Cress Albane Great question and coming from an old Banker might be able to shed some light here. Currency is a more effective way for goods/services to be exchanged rather than the barter system. Both parties believe in what they’ve exchanged against that currency’s total value as fair. The problem starts when you introduce a second currency or a third. Within your WIP you will need to know the impact of one economy and its currency on its neighbours. That’s a lot of detail to show and not tell… However, there are some interesting real-life stories that can be adapted which could fill out your world building. Wiki Spanish Doubloons it was the world’s first main currency for two centuries and shows how world trade evolves. That standardization of a key element to exchange was vital, above what had gone before in Roman times. Rome was dominant yet local currency still prevalent. The Spanish although less dominant prospered on its exchange. The largest and most dominant race in your empire need not have the best economy, even a weak currency? Another currency issue close to my heart and more dynamic surrounds Hong Kong where I’ve lived for the past couple of decades. Worth reading up on the whole history of the place and what happened. Here is a very short version… Europe was in the grip of a mad fashion storm. Everybody was drinking Tea; it was the must have thing. However, the only place on the planet that grew the tea leaf was China. The Honourable East India Company (EIC) from England and other first world nations had to buy solely from the Shanghai port. Tea wasn’t grown anywhere else. The next problem was the Mandarin sellers would only except pure silver and nothing else. The EIC tried in vain to offer Yorkshire woollens or other goods in exchange for tea. All attempts rebuffed firmly. This meant the EIC back home had to buy silver to ship to China to buy tea to then sell back at home. The price of tea was rising, but also too was the price of silver. The Bank of England (BoE) warned the King that if this situation carried on the BoE reserves would be depleted along with other European Banks that could cause a catastrophic financial collapse. The solution came from the EIC’s operations in India where from the poppy fields it produced opium. Having an FOB in Hong Kong ships sailed up the Pearl River Delta and delivered crates upon crates of free Opium to the local Mandarin. Everything went fine, the local Mandarin started then to demand more opium. The EIC said yes it would sell him opium for silver only… This then completes the triangle, and avoids a financial crisis. Loads of elements here to show different currencies in action and their cause and effect politically. The tea story could be easily adapted in all sorts of ways to bring in political intrigue into your WIP. For any currency to work it needs to be freely available with an inherent value that’s difficult to forge or replicate. If you want to go on further to notes then that’s another post. I hope this helps in some way and please let me know how you get on. MartinM.
Thanks, you gave me some nice ideas to think about (also I just realized I made a typo in the thread's title. Sorry about that) The world in my WIP is mostly dependant on nature spirits, so I wanted some of the currencies to reflect the capabilities of the different countries. Hence the fiery glass coins - something that could only be achieved via magic in this world. Possibly the weirdest idea I've come up with is iron grass. One country is very hot and rocky (literary the home of fire, metal, and earth spirits). Since the citizens here can basically control metal, counterfeiting would probably occur daily if any sort of metal currency was used. And since there's barely any plant life, the citizens would be fascinated by any form of greenery. But the heat would render any attempt to bring the plants into the country fruitless. So, instead, some craftsmen would use their powers to carefully sheath grass and other plants in a very thin layer of metal. Over time, this could evolve into a currency similar to the Kissi penny. But I'm not sure if it's not too weird, so I'd appreciate the feedback. Part of the reason why I'm scared to write anything is because I tend to come up with these weird ideas
You portrayed the opium trade in China in a slightly more cheerful way compared to what I learned about it. The whole machination served as the precursor to two bitter wars fought between a major European colonial power and the Qing Chinese hegemony. It forever changed history. Also, nowhere else did I read that EIC trade opium for silver. I've always thought that they traded them directly for tea. Exchanging opium for silver first and then silver for tea seems a bit too convoluted.
A currency's function is to hold value; thus it has to be durable. It's what people tend to glaze over when designing fantasy currencies: gold & silver didn't become valuable because of their rarity, but because they are very durable and don't rust. Titanium is similarly rare but less malleable + actually rusts. Wooden coins / idols are tempting for "foresty" nations, but their decay leaves them hardly durable, and wood stiffens / grows when subjected to moisture. The next most important part is valuation, which depends on how stable an economy is. If it's rock-solid, a central government can convince people to accept slips of paper or digital data as currency. If it's de-stabilized, currency returns to its original notion of an intermediate in barter, and that's when functional currencies return. This is the core idea I have whenever I read about a fictional currency. There's quite a few good examples of alternatives to gold/silver: 7.62 Soviet Bullets in Metro 2033 is the prime example for a functional currency. It 100% fulfills the idea of durability - these bullets can be stashed away quite safe and sound for decades, which is far more than the outlook of the world in the Metro universe. They're also functional because their value is quite literally lending killing power to the most widespread weapons of the universe (the Kalashnikov). Another good functional currency example is petrol in Mad Max. In post-apocalyptic Australia distances are a great foe and the only obvious way to overcome it is the good old V8. While it's somewhat hard to store, it's still something that retains its value long term. A somewhat-functional currency are ley-shards / mana in Warcraft's Suramar, which is a magical city/kingdom of elves that sustain themselves on mana. Interesting consideration that in a civilization where magic can conjure food, servants, clothes and weapons, the real currency might just be the mana that fuels all of those. Similarly, anything enchanted to last can work for currencies. Then again, there's also the question of what you will want to do with currencies in your world. If they're simply for backdrop, can always use a rare metal that doesn't dent/rust. If you want story, a more functional currency or one more rooted in your world's lore is better.
Here's a list of random ideas: Animal Bones – You can carve them into cool shapes, or leave them as they are for later crafting. If they are left uncarved, then the type of bone could affect the value based on usefulness, like how a tibia could be more valuable than a radius because a tibia is used to make fish hooks, while a radius only makes hair pins. This would probably only work in a trading society, however, because the bones could be made into something instead of being trading again. Perhaps the practice of crafting with the bones could be lost to time, but the value of the individual types could still be present? The main problem with using bones would be getting them in the first place. Would the bones of an animal be set aside by hunters to be made into currency later? Would there be people whose jobs are to search for the remains of animals and harvest the bones? There's also the chance that some cultures may see using an animal's remains as money to be disrespectful. It would be an interesting currency, but not convenient for a large country/kingdom. Fossils/Gemstones – This one would be similar to the bones, but there are a lot of things you can do with it. Maybe in this world, there were once an abundance of gigantic creatures, or one huge creature even, that went extinct and was fossilized after millions of years. Now, at the time that this story takes place, this large amount of fossilized remains are carved into specific shapes and used as currency. There are a lot of ways that bones can be fossilized other than being replaced by rock. Some animal and plant remains are opalized (that's where I got my username!), in which bones are preserved in silica instead of sedimentary earth, turning them into opal. That gives a lot more freedom to make up a fossilized material that may not even exist in real life. The history of this fossil currency could also be an interesting topic to write about if it's important to the story. Tassels – Yes, this one's a bit more random than the other two, but when it comes to form instead of material, this could make for an interesting currency! The strings of the tassels could be attached to different types of beads, like beads made from wood, metal, crystal, even shells. These would be used to differentiate the value of the tassels. Any sort of trinket like a tassel could be used as a currency, really. Take a stroll in a crystal shop or a gift store and you'll see all these random items that could hold value in a fantasy universe. Online stores selling jewelry charms are also a good place to look for inspiration if there's not an in-person store you can go to. Star-shaped Tokens – Here's one with a lot of possibilities! One of the currencies could be based off of astronomy, with their coins being made to depict actual stars and planets in their universe. If you want to ramp up the fantasy aspect of it, then the tokens could be made out of an ethereal element that can be found around the world. It could even be meteorite, or actual stardust that has been magically compressed into a material that can be melted and cast into the shape of the tokens. If I think of anything else I'll add it to the list. I hope this helps!
@Lazaares deconstructed the idea of what currency should be quite well. Currency is decided upon by utility and durability. You'd not likely use food because it would spoil, it also wouldn't last long in your pocket. So food has limited durability but excellent utility; probably useful in a famine society and is akin to barter economy. If everyone is starving, a man rocking up with cured meat maybe able to barter in a baren land. I.e. the land where nothing grows but iron grass as you mentioned. But the problem is that it's not a good currency for a complex society. It maybe a good commodity to base the value of your currency against (like how the US dollar mainly bases their currency against oil), but it wouldn't last long. You could find work arounds but they'd require heavy lore to make it work. The other idea is to have something incredibly durable but no intrinsic utility. Precious metals are one sometimes, @Opalized also mentioned animal bones/ivory. Those are good choices and very similar to medieval societies and previously. But there are a reason societies have heavily swayed away from them because they are easy to counterfeit or be devalued. So the last point is about counterfeiting and devaluing currency. Romans were a classic example of devaluing currency. They increased the content of tin and bronze and reduced the content of silver, this destroyed their economy through hyper inflation: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/currency-and-the-collapse-of-the-roman-empire/ So devaluing the currency had some serious problems in the end for the Romans, but if you follow economics they sort of had to. Their empire had grown too large and there required too much circulation of money to make the economy and tradd run smoothly. Also counterfeiting becomes much easier when you only need 0.5% silver content. That's practically just plating rubbish metal in silver. The currency had completely lost value. So how has modern economics avoided the pitfalls the Romans fell into? Well by creating a paper based currency that is representative of value that we loosely use today. Gold and silver were useful as a currency because they were durable AND scarce (this is why they were good against counterfeiting because even if you counterfeit a gold/silver coin, it's still gold/silver and has even more value. But when the silver content dropped to 0.5% it had no value against counterfeiting). So paper currency while not super durable like gold or silver, is durable enough. Plus the best thing about it is that scarcity is controlled by printing from the government. The counterfeiting can be hard to replicate if you make some tough identifying markers. So paper based currency can be one of the most advanced form of currency you can develop and allows the government a statistical control of the countries economy. So I've explained a very general idea of currency has evolved in time, but what currency is suitable for your story? Well @MartinM introduced the idea of multiple currencies and how the interaction between currencies will create interesting dynamics for what currencies could be for each societies. Well there's always a generally a universal currency in geo-politics in modern history. The US dollar is a good example. Why was this the case? Well US dollar is fiat currency that holds it value based on the government back the currency. If this is confusing, just imagine it that the US has a robust economy that produces a lot per capital and a large pointy stick that they can point at other countries to make them comply with their pricing of comodities. Actually the US has a very big and very pointy stick so they get away with this quite a lot (neoliberalism- e.g. we control the price of our interests). This is why US dollar is used as the world reserve currency and its propped by the fact that oil is to be traded in US dollars, commonly known as petrodollars. This creates a demand for US dollar no matter how well the US economy is doing at the time. If you have trouble understanding this, imagine that the US gets to print its dollars and they wouldn't run the risk of hyperinflation as much because the dollars will always be in demand to buy crude oil (used for plastics and fueling vehicles). If you made it this far, I applaud you. But to finally go back to your question: So what could be some examples of currency for your story? Well I kind of like seeds. They have value. They can be suspended away from the earth so that they retain their durability. They contain scarcity because they self regulate when used and they can be harvested from plants. Also, counterfeiting is resisted because their value is in being planted so it would be easy to test if a stash of them were to be palmed off and because anti counterfeit measures are believable (some signature signs that cannot be faked easily). Plus they also add an element of friction between government control and the populace; they could ban the growing of these plants outside of government sites, breaking these rules lead to criminal prosecution. Like how deers were property of the king and you would be hanged for hunting them. So seeds could be some sort of universal currency to trade in all societies depending on story. You could make one countries seeds more special than others because they have mastered the art of manufacturing rare seeds enmasse. That's how different countries seeds could have priority value. Another example is magic pills/crystals. Not my own idea, magic pills/crystals are a staple in Chinese Web novels. They work because they have ways to speed up cultivation of magic power. Think of it like fuel to grow stronger. For the characters who want to become deities these things can be very valuable. Depending on your story it could be useful for you. But anyway, I think these 5 things are crucial to creating a complex currency: durability, scarcity, counterfeiting, devaluing, utility- in that order. You could easily come up with a lot of ideas if you keep these factors in mind. Good luck!
Chromewriter thanks a bunch! I like the seeds idea, it fits the concept of a country based heavily on forest spirits. I wanted my world to have a few dozens of different currencies, actually. So far, here's what I've come up with: - Fiery coin (I'll come up with a better name someday) - The equivalent of US dollar in my world. These are issued by the Mages Guild and can only be created by a rare magic school called "glass magic". Therefore, these are entirely dependent on the guild. From a political standpoint, the world right now is being globalized by the Mages Guild, so the mages are trying to force the Fiery Coin as the dominant currency on which most of the world's economy would be based on. Not every country is pleased with this, and so not every currency can be bought with the Fiery Coins. - Mahca - Small beads made out of seashells, used by the more tribal southern countries. There are different types of Mahca, some used to weave images portraying important historical events (thanks SapereAude for giving me the "Wampum" idea). Not every type of Mahca is recognized as actual currency by other nations. - Flavis - an amber coin, made by Seers and Priest of the northern countries. Thanks to the power of the spirits, Seers can harden the resin and sharpen it into the shape of a coin. Due to political animosities, there are Northern Flavises and Southern Flavises, each with different adornments and values. - Lepirs - these are pretty boring . Copper coins with holes in the middle. The amount of bars crossing the hole in the middle shows the value of said coin. - Iron Grass - this currency is used by Ghobs, a race that lives near metal deposits. They can manipulate things like copper, gold, or silver with their minds alone, so coins are easily counterfeited in their country. Their civilization is on the brink of extinction, so their economy is also slowly returning to a more barter-based trade. - Opirs - Coins, similar to Roman ones. These are basically "our" money, introduced to give the reader something familiar in this strange world. - Rhews - Coins made out of never melting ice. Only mages and seers can create those, but since basically "any" seer and mage can create those, they have little value outside of Mga Bota (the country where they are used). Said country is very religious and they only allowed the "chief seers" of their villages to create and distribute them, but in the modern economy, most outsiders can easily forge their own, causing hyperinflation. - Unnamed banknotes - Currency used in the country of Agnitia. Agnitia is much more technologically advanced than the rest of the world, so they used their printers to distribute their currency. - Sgwârs - Square coins used in small, central countries. Nothing interesting. Some of those have their own variants, based on the countries they're forged in (like "Meridian Opirs" or "Nautician Opirs"). I'd also like to incorporate the seed idea for some countries on the Broken Continent. Thanks for the help everyone!
The Japanese used rice as a currency. It's an example of what is known as "commodity money": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money Earlier in their history, they also used arrowheads. In the Sinocentric world, Chinese coins, or copies thereof, were widely used, as China was by far the dominant power in the region. Foreign copies of Chinese coins were considered less valuable, many having a lower content of precious metals. In Planet of Adventure, Jack Vance's planet used "sequins" as currency, a kind of seed that could only be obtained from a certain area frequented by alien hunting parties, which made it extremely dangerous for any would-be sequin gatherers to venture into. Thus, the value of the sequins was determined by their rarity - there's no point in having something that's easily obtainable as a currency if anyone can pick some up off the roadside.
Just remember something - unless the currency plays some role in the story, most readers won't care. You can use it to add colour to your world, but don't spend a load of time on details that are essentially window dressing.
Ah true! I forgot about rice in Japanese culture. Also I didn't know that it had a specific name so thanks for pointing that out. But while better than most food staples, rice can still be eaten by pests and get damaged by water and large transfer of rice would require equally large logistical support. Also storage is a big problem over time. In addition rarity and scarcity is harder to manage because the intrinsic value of rice would only go up in famine societies. So I don't think rice is good for more complex societies.
I kind of agree on this point. You'd have to justify the details so that they are a part of the story that requires explaining. So your story would require these elements generally: Geopolitics - the strength of currency is always vitally important geopolitically. Mercantile - merchant plot lines would require deep analysis of currencies. War - the relative economic strengths between countries can be important or incentive for war. Trade - even simply doing transaction in different countries can require some trade knowledge. Adventure - just being in a different country may require knowledge of the currency. But you have to vary the level of focus depending on which elements you have. If your story is political, currency details can be quite important and something you could prioritise as a plot point. But if all you have is adventure as sub genre then you should only briefly talk about the difference.
@Travalgar Your view on my cheery romp of a description to the London – Tea – China – Opium trade was correct. In my poorly worded scribble, I was only trying to describe a real-world scenario for @Cress Albane to do further research on. In the briefest possible way, to show a completed loop that involved currencies, countries, products and politics. This all too often is lacking in most fantasy settings you’ll agree. Something like what happened, put to a fictional role can have many threads to pull on. World building goldmine. I would never openly try to bore the forum with a completed drawn out telling of the story. Some may argue I do ramble on too much anyway. It was only designed as a brief tasting to tempt the OP to look into further research. Not to trigger anyone into thinking my happy go lucky spirit was in my lack of empathy for all that suffered... MartinM
I think it's pretty relevant topic and your writing wasn't a ramble or poorly written. I mean... compare it to mine! But in all seriousness currency details CAN be incredibly important and complex enough to warrant a whole spiel about it. Because the details are so subtle at times that a simple thing like running out silver and having to trade with opium can have some devastating consequences. But it truly depends if you want to keep that level of detail throughout otherwise it would feel out of place. So political genre would be pretty important.
It’s a great topic @Cress Albane has put forward. The problem to some of his currencies descriptions make them seem more like a barter object and not an easy mode in which goods/services can be traded for a fair value. Neighbour to neighbour must freely exchange coins fairly giving the currency an underlying set value… Take his Flavis amber coin. If the Northern Government will give 100N-Flavis for an amount of rice. The amount of rice feeds 1x Soldier for 1x year. Now it (the coin) as got a real underlying practical value, proved when the Northern countries want to raise an army to go to war. Internally it can be fairly exchanged for goods and services against producing an amount of rice for 1 year. The Southern amber coin will give 50S-Flavis for an amount of wheat. Again, the amount of wheat feeds 1x soldier for 1xyear. I hope now you can see what’s happening? Internally all is well, but what happens to external trade? If I told you, it was twice as hard to produce the same amount of wheat as it does rice, what would you do…? It gets complicated and boring really quickly. So, using multiple currencies is good but to make them believably fit in the world maybe hard. A currency with a magic uniqueness causing external demand still needs to be traded freely and fairly internally as well… MartinM
I don't think the conversation is boring at all imo. As to your problem, that's why I mentioned the idea of a universal reserve currency. Maybe one country holds a monopoly in a certain industry which cannot be replicated by others. This creates a demand for that currency making it the one that they all base their value out of. You can still have a bunch of barter systems, but they will always be valued or devalued based on what that particular country wants to spend their currency based on a unique commodity.
@Chromewriter The universal reserve currency like the Spanish Doubloon sort of works with Spain the world’s dominant superpower. It’s (Spain) collapse with the rise of France and England’s expansion still took an age for the Doubloon to fade. If @Cress Albane wishes to use a universal reserve currency, that civilization’s Government must be totally dominant in trade and military might. I believe making superpowers here moves away from his OP of wanting multiple currencies with different make-up and meaning? There is no easy answer, but already I can see many hours of thought needs to go into the world building fabric. To then deliver that understanding across to the reader in an entertaining fashion that’s not an info dump is extremely hard. MartinM
I don't know, I quite enjoy learning about the complexity of it all. I can see how some may think its info dump though haha.
I remember reading about a primitive tribe that got round inflation (and many other problems) by only having one coin. It might have been hypothetical from an economics textbook, but the idea was that it worked like an 'iou for 1 favour' that could be passed on.
