Re: Money.

[Wright Frazier <khelek@ns1.cioe.com>]

Scuplt only works on stone.
raw bullion trade bars are still just as heavy as 10,000sp worth of
	silver.

I already included a coin worth 1000 leva, the Dragon.  That is 
	worth crap load, and FAR easier to transport 50 or even
	200 of those than 1 trade bar that has only a value based
	on its metal.  A trade bar itself, at least to me so don't
	take this as gosphel, has less buying power than a coin
	of equal value.  The trade bar is simply less useful.  You
	can't use them in the common merchantile arena in shops
	etc...  Coins are just more convient.  And if you are gonna
	go with the big value stuff, its much more convient to
	use letters of mark.

	In our history, the only time 'bars' of metal were really
	used was to store bullion, otherwise it was coins and
	letters.  That is how the Knight Templar grew so powerful,
	they were bankers.  You would deposit your money in France,
	get a letter, travel to jerusalem, make a withdrawl.

	This is only made easier with magic to verify the truth.
	If you have an insitution that does this kind of thing, you
	are placing a GREAT deal of trust in them, and to do that,
	they have to have a truely stirling reputation(the institution),
	and if they didn't, you wouldn't be using them.  So to make
	it more possible to prevent forgeries and thefts, your
	insitution which is PROFOUNDLY rich has at least 1 air mage
	that can cast Truthtell.  Hell, with the traffic this
	would generate, you'd only have to beable to cast it 1-2
	of'em a day MAX(this wouldn't be that high a traffic
	a venture).  You'd also need a priest with detect captivation,
	or the same same mage has witchsmeller.  You check to make
	sure the client is under no effects before, and the spell
	effects after, then truthtell them to make sure the letter
	isn't forged.  Granted it isn't 100% reliable, but still
	damn sure, and if you find out you've been suckered, do what
	the de Medichi's did, send a gang of guys after'em to kill'em.
	Another option for this, would be instead of having someone
	like the Barrits do it, have a temple do it.  I could see
	the Priests T'or or Ra doing this, they both stand for
	order and justice.  Granted the priests of t'or doing it
	would be a bit too much like the templars, but hey.

	Anyways, I'm babbling, you get the point.  I'd prefer to
	go with a banking institution of some sort that gives
	letter of mark, I think they are neater, but I'll write
	up trade bars if people want.

Wright
> On money:
> 
> I would like to see the larger value trade bars.
> How else can someone buy a ship for 50,000 silver
> or a nice enchanted item for 200,000 silver?
> 
> I suggest the following denominations:
> 
> 500 sp
> 1000 sp
> 5000 sp
> 10,000 sp
> 
> all slender trade bars with intricate markings
> that are hard to duplicate via spells.  Granted,
> with magic such as sculpt, there might be a way
> to make coins....but we can assume that the artistic
> talent is required to make an "exact replica of
> trade bar X".
> 
> *shrug*
> 
> 
> 
> By the way, Wright, do you still have that chart
> I made about cost of AQ materials and items?
> I'm not sure if I do or not.
> 
> -Pat
> 
> 
> --
> ============================================
> Patrick C. Collins      Purdue University
> Food Process Engineer   Class of 1997
> Biochemist              drunsen@ecicnet.org
> 
> 
>