![]() ![]() However, human sentiment also can increase the extrinsic value of gold. ![]() After being used for thousands of years for jewelry, gold is now used in electronics, as well as medicine, which has increased its extrinsic value. This chapter discusses how coined money introduced the conceptual distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value. The coin thus circulates at a value higher than that of the metal from which it is made. Coined money is based on the idea that the quantity and quality of the metal in the coin is guaranteed by some authority, often that of the state. When in the 6th century city-states in Greece began to strike coins in large numbers, the metal they chose was silver, with gold coming into use on a large scale only in the 4th century BCE. ![]() Coins were invented in three different places at three different times, but the earliest coins were in fact struck not in gold and not in silver, but in a naturally occurring alloy of both, known as electrum. Complex societies, such as those in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia, used both gold and silver as money (standard of value and a means of exchange) but not as coins. Despite the occasional use of silver in medicine, or of gold in dentistry and the production of stained glass, the primary use for both metals was the manufacturing of jewelry, sacred vessels (such as liturgical vessels used in the Church), and coins (made with gold and silver because of their high luster, pleasant colors, and tarnish resistance). Until the late 20th century, there were very few “technological” applications of precious metals. Good luck with that.“Gold is money everything else is credit.” -John Pierpont Morgan Abstract worth of abstract painting and sculpture, including some kinetic works. "The Party returns to the lair of their fallen Copper Dragon patron and finds 250,000 gp. In other words, coin or representation of money can be whatever the game wants, the gp is sort of the standard to give a universal sense of some baseline worth for goods and services. 2E they offered hacksilver as an alternative way to materially representing currency, but still used with the gp "mechanical" standard. Rather the term gp is an abstraction of value that can represents ingots/bars, letters of credits, paper printed money etc. Let's also keep in mind that the various denominations discussed in the PHB, particular at the "large" level aren't necessarily coins. So whichever published setting makes a big deal of Electrum, it's just running with that inspiration to be a "different" world, tis all. The idea that Electrum (and platinum) was otherworldly or past world currency is something put in as flavor inspiration sometime after 2E (if not conceived in 5e). There's a reason why the published campaign that makes frequent use of electrum is also the one that doesn't take place in the Forgotten Realms (or whatever world the players start out in).Įlectrum has been around since AD&D if not Red Box D&D. ![]() EP, GP, PP is high roller stuff for big deal trading and war finance. Copper and Silver are the main coins people do business in. I don't bother with a sophisticated economy, but coin, ingots and gemstones used as currency are a thing in my game, sometimes a motivating factor for either PCs or "the big picture." So since money doesn't really matter all that much mechanically in 5e, it becomes more a story element, so to speak, that I introduce or a PC can propose.Įlectrum is there as presented in the books. Towns have similar systems but much less secure. Similar to Lyxen's Runequest note, some coins don't have currency in some parts of the world, but usually PCs can find someone willing to negotiate a bulk exchange rate where they're buying just the metal at a substantially reduced value, not the coin value, to be melted and reworked for other purposes. Cities also provide "banking" of a sort, PCs can even take work as a sort of Western Union and transport funds from one area to the next. Exchanging bulk lesser value coins into gold is largely something that can only be done in cities (and sometimes gives reason to go to cities). I just use the regular coin values, though I'll sometimes describe coins to give PCs a sense of their origins (lands they're familiar with, lands they've never seen before, inscriptions not of their plane of existence, etc). Monstrous Compendium Vol 3: Minecraft Creatures ![]()
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