Money of Ǻrth

The way ounces of gold so quickly became insignificant units of value in most fantasy role playing always concerned me, it seemed that “penniless” peasants would need to scrape together several gold pieces a month to meet their meager fiscal obligations—and if peasants are using gold, what are the lesser coin denominations even in the game for?!? To try to decrease that problem and make it a little more likely that an army’s wages could actually be carried by an army, Cailore Fantasy™ uses a different coin system, which also makes it ‘feel’ a little bit more authentic.

The most common coin is the Silver Astrum (☄). A Silver Astrum is worth 10 Nickle Escudo (⛻). Each Nickle Escudo is worth 10 Copper Caballi (♞). In addition to copper, nickel, and silver coins, there are also Gold Crowns (♛) worth ten Silver Astrum (☄) each and Platinum Dragons (?), which are each worth 10 Gold Crowns (♛). There is also a monetary unit called a Talent (?) which is a small bar of platinum worth 10,000 Silver Astrum (☄) each.

The standard coin weighs about a third of an ounce (fifty to the pound). A Talent (?) weighs about two pounds, making it the medium of choice for transporting large amounts of money at once, it is also the unit of measure most often used by governments and their armies.

Table: Coins
	————— Exchange Value ————
	♞	⛻	☄	♛	?
Caballi (♞) =	1	1/10	1/100	1/1,000	1/10,000
Escudo (⛻) =	10	1	1/10	1/100	1/1,000
Astrum (☄) =	100	10	1	1/10	1/100
Crown (♛) =	1,000	100	10	1	1/10
Dragon (?) =	10,000	1,000	100	10	1
Talent (?) =	1,000,000	100,000	10,000	1,000	100

Converting Coins from Other Games

Most Open Game License games use the gold piece standard as their basic unit of coin. If you are converting your campaign from the gold piece standard, you can use the chart below to convert your wealth into Cailore Fantasy style coins.

Cailore Coin	OGL Coin
♞Copper Caballi	Copper piece (cp)
⛻ Nickle Escudo	Silver piece (sp)
☄ Silver Astrum	Gold piece (gp)
♛ Gold Crown	Platinum piece (pp)
? Platinum Dragon	Platinum piece (pp) x 10
? Platinum Talent	Platinum piece (pp) x 1,000

Wealth Other Than Coins

Merchants commonly exchange trade goods without using currency. As a means of comparison, some trade goods are detailed below. Merchants will always try to secure for themselves the best deal possible, so players should be prepared to haggle, lest they be taken advantage of.

Table: Trade Goods
Cost	Item
1 ♞	One pound of wheat (unmilled)
2 ♞	One pound of flour, or one chicken
1 ⛻	One pound of iron
5 ⛻	One pound of tobacco or copper
1 ☄	One pound of cinnamon, or one goat
2 ☄	One pound of ginger or pepper, or one sheep
3 ☄	One pig
4 ☄	One square yard of linen
5 ☄	One pound of salt or silver
10 ☄	One square yard of silk, or one cow
15 ☄	One pound of saffron or cloves, or one ox
50 ☄	One pound of gold
500 ☄	One pound of platinum

Selling Loot

In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price.

Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.