What could a medieval-level society with access to low magic use to make currency besides precious metals like gold? Also, is it plausible that another world would have different proportions of precious metals, such as silver being rarer than gold?
Paper.
Make a world where iron and copper are the rarest of metals.
>>46554310
It's possible you could mint some sort of indelible magic token that could be traded as currency, but there would need to be a way to ensure forgeries couldn't be manufactured or otherwise detect fakes. Inflation could be prevented because there would be regular use for magic, and these currencies could be rendered into magical components. Of course, this assumes there's also a trading economy going, because one could render down their money for a single costly application.
Still, if your currency is precious metals (whatever those may be) then minting coins is simply a means of producing an "official" currency with some level of uniformity and standardization (one gold coin is the same as all other gold coins, one silver bar the same as other silver bars), while trading in other forms of precious metals would produce uneven equivalencies in currency (silver candlestick needs to be weighed to determine approximate value, as does gold jewelry).
But currency is a very hard thing to try and work. Abstracted values can lead to inflation and valued tied to standards can lead to inflation if the standards they're based on flood the market (a gold rush ruining the gold standard for example).
It is perfectly plausible to imagine a world where there is a different abundance of transitional metals (the central part of the periodic table) compared to Earth, so you could have more gold and silver, less copper and iron. The problem is, using metals as currency worked because you didn't have to have any way to verify if the currency was real or fake... metal is metal and an ounce of silver didn't need to be verified to be valuable. If you want to come up with a new form of currency, it either has to be metal or a gem (with intrinsic value) or it has to have a way of verifying its fiat value (like modern bills do). Maybe you could have magic ways of screening out counterfeit currency, but that seems totally cheesy and lame, I wouldn't do it.
>>46554310
Salt
>>46554310
> What could a medieval-level society use to make currency besides precious metals like gold?
In the real world, most trade was done using a gift economy. The blacksmith would fix everyone's shit all year, and everyone would drop off a bit of grain when it was harvest season. You might run a tab - probably inaccurately and in your head.
Actual trade was mostly done by people who had never met and didn't particularly trust each other. Coins and spices are high value per effort to carry, so they're important for merchants and governments. Peasants would still accept a coin as payment for something, even though the economy as they know it doesn't actually use gold coins, and keep the coin around as a kind of magical amulet.
> What could a medieval-level society with access to low magic use to make currency besides precious metals like gold?
The most medieval-economics thing to do would be to have a hedge wizard who services a few towns, casting spells at planting season and collecting a share at harvest season. The most medieval-magic thing to do would be for the hedge wizard to take payment in the form of making you forget the song your mother used to sing.
If you want trade goods that people could actually cart around, minor magical amulets could work. Things like light, pain relief, or warding.
>Also, is it plausible that another world would have different proportions of precious metals, such as silver being rarer than gold?
The proportions of precious metals come from stellar physics. If those aren't the same in your universe, go hog wild. In the real world, the chances of that are pretty slim, but random stuff happens. It would be more likely for a planet to just plain have less or more metal, though.
As far as changing the laws of physics go, changing how stars work is one of the safer ones. Yeah you'll find inconsistencies if you really dig into it, but for the most part stars are far away and nuclear physics doesn't come up very often.
>>46554310
The issue here is that precious metals also tend to be heavier metals and would thus sink to the center of the planet. Oddities such as our iron are a good example of what could go absolutely wrong however as without insanely specific occurences happening not only would the "surface" iron not exist but so to would we as a species not exist. Its some crazy shit and links directly to how we have a breathable and temperate atmosphere you should reas up on as it no doubtedly has links towards other geological processes that would give you an abundance of normal not rare metals rare.
>>46555971
I would only say that altering the proportions of precious metals in the formation of a planet *might* cause it to have a radically different biosphere to Earth.
99.999% of the time it leads to a barren, lifeless, endless desert under an eternal night.
But in those 0.001% of times, the world could result in a biome that can sustain life. Some of those would be Earthlike. Very few of those would be "Human".
Something something eatheral planes something something Tolkienesque Sliders plot
>>46556086
Nice. We >>46556138 hivemind nao
>>46554310
The main reason that noble metals were used as currency is because they were mostly unreactive, easy to reshape, rare, and relatively pretty. If you had a gold ring, then it would likely stay the same gold ring for decades. Compare that to a wooden table, fur rug, or even bronze sword, and those things would wear out over years.
You can look up "noble metal" on Wikipedia for a list of them, and similar metals which resist corrosion as well. Pretty much any of them could work as currency, assuming they were in large enough quantities to be known and can be isolated in their pure forms.
Also, any powerful enough and stable enough group could effectively begin printing money, though the use of payment notes and similar material.
>>46556138
Of all the metals, the rarity of gold is the least likely to have an affect on anything. It's pretty damned inert.
>>46554310
Plastic?
>>46554310
I've been running a bronzepunk setting for a while where people figured out how to make steel but the supply of iron ran out so its really stupid valuable due to better weapons being insanely useful in an age of warring city states.
Copper mixed with a tiny amount of the blood of a past, current or future emperor gives off a unique sheen at a certain low proportion or higher. Thus, only the copper coins with a sheen have value. Silver and gold react similarly, but at higher proportions of blood, thus making them more valuable.
You now have an inherently difficult-to-counterfeit currency controlled by the head of state. Of course, our intrepid heroes may find themselves having to save the kidnapped king from time to time, or investigate a source of blood theft.
>>46556265
Wasn't bronze swords (daggers?) used as currency in certain area's simply because you could:
A. Use it as a sword(dagger?)
B. Melt it down to make other shit cause bronze is pretty recyclable
And isn't bronze pretty durable in the sense that it won't rust ever and doesn't break like iron shit did? Also its anti-microbial so thats a plus.
>>46556669
yep, weapons made good currency in barter societies.
>>46556669
Bronze doesn't rust, yes, so it is fairly valuable. However, bronze purity could be called into question which is probably why it wasn't used as a currency - and pure copper does rust.
Bronze can be reforged, but the biggest problem is that it needs to be reforged whenever it is damaged. You can't just sharpen it or hammer a dent out. That's a major reason why iron took over as a weapon metal: it didn't last as long, but it was far easier to maintain. If you get a dent in a metal sword, you just put it onto a grindstone rather than taking it back to the metalsmith. And steel was quite a bit more flexible, if I remember correctly.
>>46556812
Depends on the steel. Crude steel was harder but more brittle and therefore much less flexible but held a much sharper more defined edge in a thinner blade. iron was softer so suffered less from the issue of just snapping but held an edge better than bronze did but was also a hefty. Bronze was heftier than steel but was soft in that it tended to bend after a bit but you could, and often had to in battle, bend it back in place quickly on the spot and if you forged the blade you could get an incredibly hard edge and sword that was comparable if not better than iron but again suffers from just straight bending out of shape till you actively bent it back. It wasn't until we had seriously reliable ways of controlling carbon input thaf reliable crucible steel was used for swords as prior to that it was hit or miss on if the sword would be springy, too springy, or brittle and came down solely to the blacksmith, his experience, his materials, and luck.
>>46556988
Fair enough. Medieval metallurgy and weapons are not something that I've studied extensively, so I just know some basics on the subject and no real in-depth knowledge. Thanks for the information and correction, in that case.
>>46554310
>What could a medieval-level society with access to low magic use to make currency besides precious metals like gold?
In one of my games the gods provided tokens in exchange for draining a limited/day amount of life force. People exchanged these tokens among themselves for services and goods. Tokens left the economy by items and titles being bought from the church.
Also, is it plausible that another world would have different proportions of precious metals, such as silver being rarer than gold? Absolutely, such planets have been spied by us humans, such as iron metal poor, silicon and carbon rich planets that are massive but have earth-like gravity.
i feel like i should be taking notes with all this info jesus christ. /tg/ came out in spades today.
