This wordy beast is the result of chewing on some nuts-and-bolts of the Mage Knight world. I had thought I already posted it, but it seems not, so here you go.
So. Basically, I've been looking over and picking apart background details for the Mage Knight setting. Since most of the time the warband I run and scribble about the most is a pack of mercenaries, I peek through that sort of lens. This go around, I focused on what mercenaries fight for: the moolah. What's the going rate for a hired gun? How do they get paid? Who made the money they get paid with? Do they have trouble spending it? Little world-building details that live in my brain and smack on the walls at times.
This wound up in the realm of numismatics. Put simply, numismatics is the study of money, especially coins. How they're made, who makes them, where they circulate, and so on. In this case, I'm dealing with a fictional world with an emphasis on combat and chaos, with little attention to things like economies and logistics. This is not a criticism; Mage Knight is a war game, the essential conceit is to grab your fantasy dudes and smite the other guy's fantasy dudes. Minutia like this needs to stay in the realm of background lore. Even so, sometimes you get somebody that wants to pick at things (like me.)
There are some obstacles here. Facts are few and hard between, so I have to resort to inference and conjecture to make the pieces fit. In any case, here we go.
All we really know is that gold, silver, and copper coins exist in Mage Knight. Their provenance is fuzzy; we've got lots of polities, large and small, plus defunct nations and an underworld so full of loot-laden complexes that the Land is basically a giant anthill. So let's start with the obvious. Atlantis most certainly has a mint and it's cranking out gold coins; shiny new gold coins were paid to an orc shaman to betray Raydan Marz while they were hiding out in the city. Between this and the designers explicitly comparing the Empire to the last days of the Eastern Roman (AKA Byzantine) Empire it's a fair bet that silver and copper/bronze pieces are also being minted. It can also be inferred that the Empire controls mints in other major trade centers like Venetia, Xandressa, and Caero. What denominations and exchange rates (gold:silver:copper) exist is debatable at best. Is it reliant on decimalization (1gp:10sp:100sp) or one of the many 'quirky' systems used in history? Probably quirky. Who else has a mint? Khamsin is both a nation unto itself and a major trade center; they almost certainly have a mint to pay all those newly-respectable mercenaries the place is famous for. They likely copy the Atlantean standard out of pragmatism and swapped out the gears for guns and beards. The Northlands probably a have a small one at Enos-Joppa. The Empire and Revolution's mints are probably really close to modern ones with steam presses and milling techniques. But who else? The Elementals probably don't bother, which is ironic since the most famously money-hungry character in the setting is the one and only Byrch, a Crystal Bladesman. Necropolis might be cranking out some coins, but more likely they pay their legal tender is blood and bitches while using whatever coins come their way when they raise or turn people. The orcs don't make any coins, but they'll happily take them off you with everything else. They might even have an internal economy where they spend their ill-gotten coins for tent parts or elf legs from the tribe next door. Shyft flat-out don't bother. The Solonavi might actually have a mint or two under their direct control to keep the plebs and more materalistic Oathsworn happy. The Draconum almost certainly don't bother with a mint, but since their whole schtick is "wandering Elder Scrolls player character" they certainly use coins and have a very good grasp on what a given coin is actually worth beyond face value. The next question is if any of the 'petty kings' or vassal states out there have their own little mints, which is possible especially give the Land's current state of being a political quagmire. They may or may not have permission from the big people's table, and most likely crank out just enough to suit their own needs. Finally, we have coins that aren't being made but are recognized, like the ubiquitous gold Heroes dig up and the pre-Kosian silver coins mentioned in the Scrying Pool.
So, where does this leave the average mercenary? Khamsin Fuser Jimbob and his buddy Utem Dave fight for pay, but how does that pay work? They probably see at least a few gold pieces a month, where they come from and how much actual gold is in the things dependent on how close their band is to Big Important Cities. If they're hanging out near an important fort they probably get at least a decent chunk of gold and better silver pieces, which the local tavern happily accepts for plenty of ale and roast chocobo legs. Out in the sticks, they wind up with a bizarre stew of banged-up coppers, old silver lifted from some skeletons that jumped them, and debased gold cranked out by King Ivanhoe the Incontinent. Maybe a pouch of hacksilver they got working for a Scythian nutball that though flexing at your enemies was a viable tactic in the face of lightning guns. Some worn but still good gold grudgingly paid by a sneering Magus after securing an old Magestone pit. Now they get to have a grand time dickering withe local hucksters for a new-ish canteen and a couple bowls of gamey mutton stew. If they had a good haul, they might have the fortune of finding a banker or money-changer that won't fleece them and take off.
Anyway, while going further would actually be a fun exercise in worldbuilding, it would also become pure speculation at this point. Thanks for reading.
