Gold is a pain in the ass, Part 2

Let’s talk about currency in general, for a bit.

What does a gold coin buy? How much for a bowl of stew? A jug of cheap beer, a pair of hardy boots, a horse or that slave you’ve had your eye on?

How much does a farm labourer earn a year? What about a merchant, or a lord?

Who’s trudging through the sludge in homemade boots, who’s riding a horse, and who’s doing unspeakable things to their slave in that fancy carriage?

Just how big are the gaps in net worth between these people in your world?

This isn’t just an exercise in abstract thinking; all these answers have very real consequences in the world, fantasy or otherwise, and all are going to influence your decisions about currency, how keen your adventurers are to put their lives on the line to get their hands on some, and how much it costs the rich to protect what they have.

Here’s how I did it for my world of Grull.

I started by working in Australian dollars, because I’m an Aussie, and I know how much stuff costs in our fake-looking plastic notes and copper, nickel, and aluminium alloy coins.

I created the copper coin, colloquially known as a bit. One bit equals one Australian dollar, I declared. I wanted my serfs dirt poor, so I said they earned about 15 of these a day.

Check out ourworldindata.com—it’s depressing just how many countries’ citizens fall into this wage bracket, and even more depressing how many didn’t make this low bar. The good folks in Myanmar are nodding, unhappy with the knowledge that there, the average Aung earns less than seven bits a day.

Got a trade or can swing a sword with gusto? Double to quintuple it. You’re highly educated or a master craftsman; it could be ten times as much.

I created silver coins and decreed that it took a hundred bits to make up one silver. Then I made gold coins. Ten silver coins to a gold coin. I’m a metric boy at heart, but you do you.

A bit of quick math reveals that an average plebeian on Grull earns just five gold coins a year. For those following along with a calculator, Grull has just 336 days in a year.

It also suggests that a single gold coin buys $AUD 1000 worth of stuff.

For the folks in the UK, one pound is about $2. For the Americans, one of your bucks buys a buck fifty of mine. My suggestion: work with a base currency that doesn’t do your head in. If you’re in Myanmar, the kyat is fine.

Serfs on Grull aren’t eating steak and get chicken stew maybe once a week. Serfs eat a lot of gritty porridge and low-quality bread.

What about lords and such? Well, I just said they were like CEO’s of fairly successful companies, and, after giving the king his lion’s share, steal a thousand gold a year in tithe, or a million Aussie bucks. Successful merchants are the emerging upper-middle class and earn between 50 and 100K, or up to 100 gold a year.

Now, some things we have these days are ridiculously cheap, because we’ve got streamlined production processes, loads of precision machines, and lots of cheap labour—shout out to all those hard-working kids out there. Keep up the good work, Papa needs a new, cheap mini supercomputer to give himself a brain tumour with. Android, thanks. Can’t stand Apple. Right to repair, mutter, mutter.

On Grull, a gold pocket watch might set you back as much as 50 gold, and that’s not just because it’s got a solid gold case, ruby bearings and a crystal protective face, either. It’s mostly because a master craftsman will take bloody ages to crank one out.

Things that were once worth more than gold are now cheap as chips and shoved into every bloody thing. Lookin’ at you, sugar.

You may think that your fantasy world history was carved by might and magic, but ours was carved by millions of slaves, who got taken from wherever we could lay our hands on them, and then sent to farm sugar. Look it up, it’s fascinating stuff.

No sugar trade, probably no tea, no coffee and no chocolate, because let’s be honest, none of these things are very pleasant without a little sugar.

So you’ve got your gold. Time to work out who’s got the lion’s share, why and what it buys. You may be surprised how these questions shape the world you’re building.