Money

[CupofJoe]

Iron coins are worth less than silver, but they can also be melted down and turned into steel for tools, weapons, etc., so they have an additional purchasing power when used for such things--you don't necessarily have to buy your iron (or pay for the equivalent amount) at an upcharge to make the steel for your tool/weapon if you pay in iron.

There was a time a few years ago, when one of the small denomination Indian Rupee coins was worth more for its scrap value than it's face value. Millions were being bought, smelted down and then resold as ingots for industry.

 

[radberry]

I actually spent a day figuring out coins when i had some writers block

the most common coins are copper and bronze coins with tin chips being used as pocket change. silver is a lot more rare to see in everyday use it's normally for buying things like animals for transportation and carts. Gold coins are held on to for as little time as possible since a few can be used to buy a small house in most cities. God bones are pretty much only used by banks to exchange large sums, any individual using these will probably be arrested out of suspicion of counterfeiting since these are worth more than gold bars.

 

[Jackarandajam]

I don't think I have a single scene where someone actually pays for something. There is a lot of bartering. In one scene, a character offers to pay with coins, but it is turned down in favor of a different trade. So...so far, it seems unimportant.

Reminds me of something i just read. In Consider This (Chuck Palahniuk's book on writing gooder) he says basically to always look at a hard measurement (time, currency, distance) as an opportunity to character build with a personal interpretation of the amount.

So Rich Character getting impatient as Poor Character slowly counts coins out for what they consider to be an uncomfortably large sum, or Poor Character shocked to see Rich Character toss three years worth of fish-scaling money onto the table for a sandwich, is far more important to the reader than the hard amount.

Granted, Mr. Palahniuk writes... what, minimalist school, ironic-horror-tragedies? So how much of the advice is transferable to fantasy world-building is hard to say, but I thought it a writerly consideration worth mentioning.

 

[pmmg]

Granted, Mr. Palahniuk writes... what, minimalist school, ironic-horror-tragedies? So how much of the advice is transferable to fantasy world-building is hard to say, but I thought it a writerly consideration worth mentioning.

Probably more than one might think. Horror is certainly an aspect of my writing. If I got the dark spider god hiding in his cave, I don't want the MC wandering in without an appreciation for how creepy it is.

 

[Super Fantasy]

Coins of various metals, bone tokens, small ingots, wood tokens.