Introduction & Economy

[Kosal]

Hello all, I thought I would take the time to give a little introduction as I'm new to the forums. I've done some play-by-post roleplay before and I like the look of the depth of storyline involved in this community. Previous roleplay forums I've posted in before have been almost solely focussed on combat so this looks to be a refreshing change.

I have a couple of queries about the economy of Thar Shaddin, since my character is a fence, cash is going to be an important aspect in my roleplaying.

What currency do the denizens use, and how much is a lot? If someone could provide me an example of say the value of a clay mug in the Thar Shaddin currency, compared to a kingly estate, for example; it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Niabi]

Hello and welcome to Thar.

About your question regarding currency I would like to refer you to the setting.

The Bishan

Currency on Thar Shaddin is not the usual copper-silver-gold system or printed money. It was discovered shortly after the magical explosion of the Changers' War that gold was one of the first things that began to get produced by mages. For obvious reasons, anyone who could figure out how to manipulate matter to create gold or silver did so. Combined with the complete chaos of the War, standard monetary systems became worthless and for a long time it was militaristic rule, slavery, and the barter system that governed who had wealth.

Once the war had subsided and Pal Tahrenor came out of its dark ages, it became apparent that society would have to find a structured monetary system that would be hard for mages to take advantage of. What was settled on was the Bishan (plural Bishani).

Bishan, in the native language of Thar Shaddin, translates to soul or energy. A Bishan consists of a small coin about the size of a penny, but rather than metal they are made of a translucent green crystalline substance that contains a magical signature unique to the factory of its creation. There are only five factories on Pal Tahrenor, all created by gnomes and some of the greatest magical minds around and located across the continents you would call Europe and Asia.

Forging Bishani is possible, but it's nearly impossible to do perfectly. Many mages from many races have the ability to feel the magical imprint on a Bishan, and skilled readers are exceptionally good at identifying a forgery. The signature is so complex that forging just Bishani would take the average mage at least a year or two of practice, and each one would be an effort in itself. In the end fake Bishani, usually just made out of glass, do circulate, but nobility and governments always employ a skilled reader to check their money.

Denominations:
1/4 Bishan, 1/2 Bishan, 1 Bishan, 5 Bishani, 10 Bishani, 50 Bishani

For the purposes of playing on Thar Shaddin, 1 Bishan is roughly equivalent to 1 dollar. The people are somewhat poor, and because of the setting and general lack of huge luxuries, most people never handle more than a few hundred of them. Average wage is about 150 to 300 Bishani a month.

Now this part can be confusing to most people and we have had more than a few conversations about it over the years. Basically, some things like bread might cost about what they for us $1 or 1 Bishan but obviously other things are going to cost less in Thar Shaddin than they do for us as the people are rather poor and a middle class person might only make 200 Bishani a month and that has to cover food, clothing, house payments and everything else your family needs for the month. Basically cost are determined by the supply and demand of such an item or service and how much man hours must go into creating such an item.

Being a rather small town (Marn) with a smaller village (Shim) located within an oasis surrounded by a low-laying desert way out of the way, probably drives the cost of certain imported items up where things that can be made locally probably stay fairly low. It's been stated that the weather in the region stays pretty constant throughout the year so I'm assuming that the cost of produce grown on the local farms stays consistent throughout the year. Without much room for grazing animals, I would assume things made out of leather would be somewhat costly as cows would be in short supply and it takes time to both cure leather as well as make things like boots out of them.

It's been stated that gold and silver aren't super valuable (they are still valuable just less so than in our world) in our setting and with how they aren't really all that good for anything other than jewelry, I wouldn't think that they would necessarily be all that costly unless they happened to be within a fine necklace or other piece of decorative work but than again most of that cost would be paying for the man hours it took to make it.

I saw that your character deals in drugs and magical drugs, now that might be where the real money is.Now normal (no magical drugs) won't necessarily get you in trouble with the law and in fact quiet a few people walk down the street smoking who-knows-what out of a pipe or hand rolled cigarette but those drugs of the magical variety would be both rare and highly illegal. Basically you could name whatever price you wanted for such a thing and the only thing you would have to take into consideration is how much the average person might have available to them.

Oh and you really really don't want to be caught and prosecuted as a magical drug dealer.

[Kosal]

Thanks for the advice Niabi, it's good to know I've placed Kosal in even more danger before I've even begun lol. No, it should be fun, and make for a more interesting situation.

Thank you very much for the information on currency, I'm glad I asked now. It's good to see that Thar has a very established and well thought-out economic structure already.