Verit - Currency

Currency on Verit – at least in urban areas – is almost universally Crossing-minted coinage. The main reason for this is the proprietary obverse of the coins – an invocation of the Code that grants the coins some extremely convenient properties.

Firstly, while Crossing coins do, individually, have weight, any collection of such coins weighs as little as a single coin. A handful, a purse, or a sack, will all weigh as little as a single coin.

Their most convenient property is that their denomination is fluid. Ten copper coins, stacked and pressed, will coalesce into a single silver coin. Likewise, a silver coin rubbed in a circle will split into ten copper coins. Of course, should coins transmuted this way be destroyed, they will return to the material they were originally crafted from. This greatly discourages defacement and re-minting, as destroying a gold coin is as likely to net you a handful of copper as anything else.

Copper piece – known colloquially as crosses, Xs, roads, or quarters, the reverse of Crossing copper pieces is marked with a simple cross design, two thick lines meeting in the centre. This symbolizes the crossroads of trade that Crossing provides.

Silver piece – known colloquially as ramparts, borders, naughts, or Os, the reverse of Crossing silver pieces is marked with an impression of the city walls of Crossing from above. This design updates when borders are revised, and newly-transmuted silver coins always show the latest borders. This makes silver coins depicting previous borders that have not yet been transmuted collector's items.

Gold piece – known colloquially as gates, the reverse of Crossing gold pieces is marked with the gates to the Patrician's manor, symbolic of the Patrician's visibility and authority.

Platinum piece – known colloquially as shines, baubles, and seals, the reverse of a Crossing platinum piece is marked with the seal of the city of Crossing.

The Farmshare has little use for the currency, but accept it as payment for any excess crops they pass on to another settlement. The Baronies each mint their own, mundane coins, in much smaller number and usually only in copper and gold denominations, usually trading in Crossing currency as well as their own. There are some merchants who will accept their own Barony's coins at a heightened value out of patriotic fervour. Independents generally do not want or use currency, but will gladly steal money just so people they dislike couldn't have it. The Dwarves of the Abiding Mountains usually trade in stock – ingots and gems and so on – but will value their goods in terms of Crossing coinage, and will use these coins in dealings with other races.

The most notable alternative currency on Verit is that used in The Fringe. Stones roughly the size of a copper piece, carved with an elaborate design that varies based on village of origin, are used in place of coins. They cannot be counterfeited, by Fringe reasoning, because the value comes simply from the effort put into the carving – even completely falsifying a design and passing it off as native to a distant village is generally seen as harmless.

The reason this stone-based system does not cause absolute economic anarchy is that their worth is largely a matter of conjecture. An item or service costs as many stones as the provider thinks it's worth, and may take stones they like the design of or make of rarer rock at higher value. Complimenting this laissez faire attitude is the fact that most transactions are done entirely without the stones at all, and is merely goods exchanged for goods.

There is a persistent theory that this and many other Fringe traditions is created and upheld solely to confuse, bamboozle, and aggravate city-dwellers. And, as with  most Fringe traditions, there is a certain kind of city-dweller who is fascinated and enthused by the idea, and will pay several times the “worth” of a trading stone to add it to their collection.

In the Aligned Realms, currency is treated slightly differently. Abnegation has no money to speak of, under the philosophy that accruing personal wealth is selfish, and that all that you have should be given to those in need without thought of payment. Currency in Liberty is as fluid as the acknowledgement of the concept of personal property, though coins find their way to Liberty as curios to be traded as shiny baubels and talking pieces. Hierarchy has its own system of currency entirely alien to most other creatures of Verit and the other Realms – each native Hierarch has a personal wealth-disc, stamped with their own personal identifying sigil and regularly re-marked with the total sum of their wealth, in arbitrary units. Ambition, like the Baronies, mints its own currency but is happy to accept just about any other, and in fact uses Crossing coins more than anything else.