In my current work in progress I’ve added a bit about money into the story. While money obviously exists in this world, the topic hasn’t come up until recently within my own stories. I did mention some budget constraints in The Far-Off Kingdom but nothing indepth. In my current project, In the Court of Dreams and Shadows, I’ve been speaking more about currency in terms of being needed within the world. The issue is that, just like in the real world, every country is going to have its own set of valuing and issuing out money.
This is true in fantasy literature and other genres a well. First thing that comes to mind is Final Fantasy’s use of Gil and Suikoden’s currency called potch. In the first game of the Suikoden series the coinage was bits but then changed to potch in games 2 through 5. In GoT we see dragons and stags.
So, what to do about currency in my world of Caelus (the name of the planet that the Carolyngian Age takes place) and how should it be distributed?
For the easiest answer that is thus far there is only a couple different systems. First is in the Southern Kingdoms, an area that is mentioned in the beginning but will play larger parts in the future, and there they base everything on the weight of gold or silver. Simple and something I can expand on later. In the Kingdom of Panyakuta, the dwarven kingdom that comes in rather frequently, there is another system based on coinage. That one also needs some more detailing. However, I think that it will eventually come out as the same as the next one I’ll mention but with different exchange rates.
In the Kingdom of Lotcala, where the vast majority of my stories take place, the system is a bit more fleshed out. As it stands now: There are three sets of coins; Gold Falcons, Silvers Ravens and Copper Gulls. Each of the coins are minted with the bird that it represents. That’s one reason I picked three different birds. You have to be able to tell the difference on the go. With coins you have to be able to make change and have increments. So for the Lotcalan system it is as follows: Ten gulls to a raven and forty five ravens to a falcon. Simple but also shows that gold is the very dominate coin.
Banking will come into play later in the current novel but I think that I’ll stick to the medieval system of banking that was used extensively along trade routes for the pilgrims and merchants.
And that is that. It’s simple and pretty straight forward in terms of what is required for the story and it can be added to if need be. I can also add inflation based on the system now and since it is based on the gold system there can be shortages that could play into future story lines.
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Joseph S Samaniego 