It was Canduss the Methodical who introduced the use of coins as a method of representing wealth, back in the early days of the empire. One of the original White Lords, she combined the work of innumerable slaves, specially made presses and her own magical powers to mint more than a million small coins. Each was formed by melting loose a single drop of pure metal, then stamping it with the emblem of the White Lord that it represented. Over time, those representing Lords of higher power and status became worth more, with the result that in modern times the pale white coins stamped with the symbol of House Luciel are the most valuable of all.
As more coins were created, inflation began to set in and the coins steadily dropped in value. It was a later Imperial Treasurer, Calius III (one of Canduss's many great-grand-children), who shut down the mint to prevent more coinage from entering use and reducing the value of the existing coins further. To ensure that his decision was not overruled by the other lords, he had the apparatus that Canduss had built dismantled completely and the slaves that had maintained it put to death.
From that point forward, no new currency has entered the empire and the coins have slowly grown in value. The coffers of the nobility are kept full by taxing the populace, but enormous amounts of wealth from the early times are still scattered around the empire. As quantities have slowly dropped, there has been talk of minting more, but so far Calius III's belief that creating new coins cannot help but devalue the existing ones has kept any of the wealthy houses from supporting the idea. Instead, very small transactions are carried out with barter or by using crude wooden tokens that can be redeemed with particular establishments. Minting any sort of metal coinage is a crime punishable by death and seizure of all goods.
As a result of this, adventurers who stumble across an undisturbed cache of coins in some abandoned ruin (dating back to a period when such coins were of comparatively little value) can find themselves suddenly quite wealthy.
Posted by Kiz at June 4, 2005 03:43 PMCommentsPost a comment