Brutal Magic Desert Campaign: Currency

 

The OSR grindset is all about “disregard danger, acquire currency” and that is certainly gonna be true for my game. But what do you do when your Bronze Age-Mesoamerican-Dying Earth desert crawl is deeply metal-poor, and all metal items are incredibly ancient and inherently magical?

 

You reject the Gold/Silver/Copper economy and substitute your own. Obviously, I am ripping off Dark Sun pretty heavy – so how did it work there?

 

In Athas (Dark Sun world) metal coins exist but are much more valuable. For the record, I’m talking about the currency system from the OSE Dark Sun adaptation by Lixu. There, the standard coin value is expanded with the inclusion of bronze and ceramic pieces, along with ceramic “bits” worth 1/10 a ceramic piece. So the conversion is as follows:

1 Gold Piece = 10 Silver Pieces = 20 Bronze Pieces = 100 Ceramic Pieces = 1,000 Bits

PCs start at 3^rd level with 3d6 x 20 CP and the XP system is CP = XP, rather than gold.

 

I could (and probably will, at least initially) just copy this wholesale but my setting is even more metal poor than Athas. I would like barter to be a bigger deal, coins to be rare, and different cultures to have very different currencies worth very different amounts.

 

Here’s what I am currently considering:

• The city-dwelling humans of the starting river valley use ceramic coins of the standard denominations as an easing-in point for the players

• The dwarves who live in cliff dwellings and mesa top pueblos use turquoise beads and shards of obsidian as money, but in different denominations than the standard 100/10/1

• Elves, as desert nomads (totally just Fremen), have an economic system centered on water and animal husbandry – thinking of a “water-ring” being worth a person’s daily water ration

• Halflings I envision as small family bands of hunter-gatherers who solely use barter

 

The idea is that money should be a cultural signifier that tells the players something about the world they’re playing in, rather than just a numerical indicator of purchasing power on their character sheet. Is it more unwieldly to use and track different currencies? Yes. Is it more interesting than just ___ GP in my pocket? Yes. Is that worth the trade? Time will tell.