Currency

> *"Like whispers on a breeze, numbers hold untold secrets, and those who grasp their language possess the key to bending their will to their own desires."* — Harold of Coin Bronn Fairer
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Several different types of **currency** are used in the world's various economies.
The Five Kingdoms have a uniform system of coinage based on the "Goldpiece" coin. The different cities and nations across the world utilize their own type of currency.

## Soothereos

After the War of Conquest, House Soothereos established a unified system of currency throughout the Five Kingdoms based on the **Goldpiece** coin. Smaller denominations include **Silverpiece** coins and **Copperpenny** coins.

## Banking

Each Rhaekland has its own bank for depositing and lending money. The largest bank by far is the Crescent Bank of Hagen, which is notably a bank independent of Pelopay, and is as large and wealthy as all the other banks put together.

## Insurance

Business ventures across the Five Kingdoms and other nations purchase insurance contracts from other merchants.

It is not anachronistic to the time period to sell insurance policies: there is evidence that the concept of insurance has been known and practiced by Chinese and Babylonian traders during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, respectively. It's even more appropriate for Hagen, an economic powerhouse akin to the Dutch Republic, Genoa, or Venice, all states where uninsured ships had little chance of successful ventures, and insurance policies first arose from Genoa in Europe.

## Story

### In the storyline

The coinage used in the Five Kingdoms is based on the Goldpiece, and its various denominations, chief of which are the Silverpiece and Copperpenny. As their names suggest they are made of these precious metals. The Goldpiece currency system is commodity money, based on the inherent value of the amount of gold or silver in each coin, as opposed to fiat money - like modern banknotes - in which currency is assigned a theoretical value but is physically just a medium of exchange (banknote paper currency does not exist in Soothereos, or even in other nations of the world, and no world culture has ever been described using paper currency).

That being said, sometimes possession is an abstract concept. Thus someone being paid thousands of Goldpiece coins will not have to physically carry them around, but will be presented with official financial documents declaring the transaction (much as a knight might find it difficult to carry around on his back a castle he has been granted, but can carry around a sealed charter as proof of the land grant). Still, even large sums used in accounting - ranging into the tens of thousands of Goldpieces - are supposed to represent physical gold coin reserves.

Reflecting real-life medieval practice, the currency of the Five Kingdoms is not based on a decimal system, but grew haphazardly out of many centuries of rival coinage systems becoming integrated, so the exchange rate between different denominations reflects tradition and not abstract sense. Each of the original independent "Five Kingdoms" minted their own money, but the coinage system was unified under the Sootherian dynasty after the War of Conquest 1030 years ago. The Sootherian Kings did not completely "nationalize" the minting of coins, as private mints also exist, but coinage is primarily minted by the kingship and is certainly regulated by it. The stamping of the coins guarantee the purchasing ability and prevents counterfeiting.

The denominations most commonly encountered are, in descending order:

* **Goldpiece** - equal to four Goldpennies, 16 Silverpieces, 64 Silverpennies, or 1600 Copperpennies.
* **Goldpenny** - equal to four Silverpieces, 16 Silverpennies, or 400 Copperpennies
* **Silverpiece** - equal to four Silverpennies, or 100 Copperpennies
* **Silverpenny** - equal to 25 Copperpennies
* **Copperpenny** - the poorest of all coins

Barter is, of course, still common on an everyday level.

Economic cycles of the world would provide such economic effects as follows:

* Winter - Food supply is low. Population starts off high, so food demand is still high, while cost of labor is low, so wages stay low even as food prices drastically increase due to demand exceeding supply.
* Spring - So many people died in winter that population is now low, so cost of labor increases, resulting in higher wages. Food supply initially remains low, but so many people died that demand is also much lower. Initially high demand means that prices are high, but wages are also high, balancing out. Numerical value of products is higher but relative purchasing power is balanced (i.e. a single horse is worth around 3.5 Goldpieces, but one laborer can make 3.5 Goldpieces in a year).
* Summer - Population gradually increases, causing demand to increase and cost of labor to go down. Food supply also gradually increases, however, and in good summers will exceed demand. Thus wages decrease, but prices also decrease - numerical value of products is lower, but wages are also lower, so relative purchasing power balances out.
* Autumn - Trends from summer reach maximum: very high food supply, and highest population results in lowest wages and highest demand - which ideally will balance out with the high supply. Numerical value of products reaches their lowest but relative purchasing power is still balanced (i.e. a single horse is now worth 1 Goldpiece, but one laborer can only make 1 Goldpiece in a year - fundamentally a single horse still costs "a laborer's wages for one year", as in Spring).
* Winter - The cycle repeats. Food supply is suddenly low but population is still high. Demand now drastically outpaces supply, sending food prices soaring while wages remain low. Relative purchasing power is now unbalanced: a single horse now costs significantly more than the the amount of wages that a laborer earns in a single year (this is just an example figure: it isn't clear how much a laborer actually makes in a single year in Soothereos, in fact a single horse seems to be greater than one year's worth of wages).

Each of the independent "Five Kingdoms" minted their own different local currencies until they were all united by Veryis I Soothereos in the Plight of Sixteen one thousand years before the roleplay start. The first Sootherian kings standardized the currency throughout their new unified realm, enforcing the Goldpiece/Silverpiece/Copperpenny system. Little has been discovered so far of pre-Conquest currency, but the Kingdom of the Rock minted gold coins known as "Bleeds", featuring the bleeding-sigil of House Bledswore on one side and the face of the king whose reign they were minted in on the other side. Surprisingly, quite a few Bleed coins remain in circulation, even though new ones ceased being minted one thousand years ago. A gold Bleed coin is only roughly half the value of a Goldpiece coin. However, gold Bleeds are also roughly the same size, weight, and shape as a Goldpiece, which may lead the unwary to confuse them. Khoroth wasn't even conquered by the Soothereians, and only entered the realm through peaceful marriage-alliance 400 years ago, thus it is probable that their own local currency may be even more prevalent than the Kingdom of the Rocks thousand year old currency.