[Gatejammer] Finality: Brainstorming

[Username17]

The whole point of switching to a fiat or fractional reserves currency base is that the actual medium of exchange has essentially no intrinsic value, is easy to transport, and can be created on demand. At the moment your medium of exchange starts being something that is made out of expensive moving parts by skilled artisans and is as heavy as a lump of metal, you've failed on all counts.

Fractional reserve currency is useful precisely because it is in no way like a coin. It is in some way less certain than a lump of gold, so people are less inclined to hold it rather than spending it, which increases the economic activity. It is trivial for the banksters to print more of it, so there can always be enough currency to cover the amount of economic activity being performed. And it's light enough that it can be easily transported in huge amounts of "value".

The very most crazy the bank would ever do is to draw up drafts that have arcane marks on them. Other than that, it's just fancy engraving on semi fancy paper with somewhat fancy inks.

-Username17

[virgil]

A piece of paper with vaguely fancy ink/paper is easily subject to the Forgery skill, which is something that can only be detected by someone who also has the Forgery skill, an individual very unlikely to be every single merchant you ever deal with. Forgery can't work when dealing with a coin that has the engravings and gears of a master craftsman that would take a muggle more time than it's worth to duplicate.

Gold dollars in the US use a copper core, which has intrinsic value. The importance is that their intrinsic value is far exceeded by their stated value. A lump of metal is only a problem when you have so many of them it becomes a mass issue, but that's not going to happen when you have a single coin worth 1000gp or more before you start doing contracts that require you going before a banker to transfer funds between two parties. And a lump of metal is still necessary when constituents that are on fire will be handling it; or will Rust Town never partake in the banking system because of their insistence on using paper?

Ease of production is not an issue here. Using an arcane mark is more time consuming and limited in production speed. A single fabricate on a wall of iron can literally make a quarter million coins in a single casting with any accepted denomination he wants, and you will have someone capable and willing in a city with 7 million people.

[tehtow]

I'm one of the players in virgil's game and have been off and on brainstorming some things with him.

My thoughts on using currency are that it has 2 main benefits for the rulers of Finality:
1) Individuals at the top of a particular economy (or more powerful things dealing with them) can use handfuls of currency instead of hundreds of pounds of coinage.
2) It's a great way to keep the economy going while having all the actual valuable materials in the city's vaults instead of floating around in people's pockets.

Having the currency be overly complicated does give it value, but only because of the cost of construction, not because it has any actual value. The reason i suggested this to virgil was because the startup costs/ skill or spell requirements to create the currency wouldn't allow people to forge it until they're strong enough to make just about as much through legitimate means.

Also, since the banks and their vast piles of money are going to likely be run by older dragons or other creatures that are equally greedy and powerful; by the time you can forge, you should know better.

People are still going to occasionally forge the new currency, but given the size of the economy the likelihood of any particular single item of currency being counterfeit will still be small. One plot hook idea is that another rival planar hub city is forging large amounts of finality currency to disrupt the economy and also drain the vaults by sending agents to exchange it in.

[Almaz]

A piece of paper with vaguely fancy ink/paper is easily subject to the Forgery skill, which is something that can only be detected by someone who also has the Forgery skill, an individual very unlikely to be every single merchant you ever deal with. Forgery can't work when dealing with a coin that has the engravings and gears of a master craftsman that would take a muggle more time than it's worth to duplicate.

If the rules of your game are the most annoying obstacle in the way, then change them. It wouldn't be the first setting that includes certain house rules needed to play and handle the setting.

The Legal System is a framework for settling things, and the Runic Law of the Dwarves is not the same as Baatorian Law. Also, you need a Corruption number, which determines how much gets solved through the legal framework and how much is who you know and how much jingles in your coin purse.

-Username17

Hmm. If a locale/tribe/what-have-you was governed by customary law, would this be a different legal system or a high Corruption rating? Both? What if the system is like the Dark Assembly, where most of the laws exist to govern how you bribe people and law is literally rammed through by force?

[hyzmarca]

Why not just skip physical currency altogether and go full psionic on all transactions?

Account holders are issued a small crystal that has their account number encoded on it as well as a security code. Merchants rent a Point of Sale Crystal from the Bank. The purchaser inserts his crustal into the POS, touches it, and thinks his pin number into it. The POS is connected directly to an insane and heavily drugged Elder Brain who transfers money from one account to the other.

Forgery is impossible because no physical money changes hands and all transactions are recorded so tax cheating is also impossible.

Ans since you money is literally numbers inside an elder brain's mind, you have total control of the currency supply.

[Username17]

1. The absolute best way to make currency is to have magic stamps that create arcane marks every time they are hammered down. This lets the treasury make as many bills as necessary while making forgery of bank credits excessively difficult (without stealing the printing press, which is an adventure in itself).

2. The original reasoning for the fractional reserves situation was almost certainly just an excuse to keep as much of the physical gold in a pile as possible. The head of the bank is a Black Dragon who seriously just really likes sitting on a giant pile of gold. The fact that overall commerce improves markedly with the fractional reserves lending system and letters of credit over physically swapping bars of copper around is a happy accident.

3. I'll work more on the law systems in a bit. My thought is that while the "government" systems are defined mostly by how you can take them over or delegitimize them, the legal systems are defined by how you can know what is or is not legal.

• Runic Law - all the laws that are ever written down are still in force. If you find an old secret set of laws somewhere, that's in force too. Judges follow whatever laws are brought to their attention, and decide on a case by case basis when two or more laws conflict.
• Declared Law - there are nominally only a handful of laws that were declared a long time ago and cannot be changed. Since that period, all new legal philosophy are merely "glosses", that are supposed to produce logic (however convoluted) to apply those declared laws to new situations. Glosses that go unchallenged for long periods of time become fixed, and new glosses are supposed to harmonize with the declared laws and also the settled glosses.
• Jungle Law - there actually isn't anything written down anywhere, and people get away with whatever they can through charisma or force. Punishments are dispensed by lynch mobs, vigilantes, or tyrants.

Now I think you'd want something that was more similar to Common, Civil, and Sharia law, with possible humorous additions for the expys.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

You'd need some sort of Cosmic Law, which is really pretty much arbitrary binding agreements between the Greater Powers that reality enforces - that's stuff that's pretty close to (super)natural laws but covers shit like "Zeus cannot go house to house asking for converts" and "devils cannot take a soul that has not been promised to them" and "highlanders cannot fight on sacred ground."

[virgil]

1. The absolute best way to make currency is to have magic stamps that create arcane marks every time they are hammered down. This lets the treasury make as many bills as necessary while making forgery of bank credits excessively difficult (without stealing the printing press, which is an adventure in itself).

I was attempting to avoid just throwing a custom magic item at the problem, but using that works. We still can't have it on paper so long as we expect Azers to be a part of the economy.

[Grek]

You'd need some sort of Cosmic Law, which is really pretty much arbitrary binding agreements between the Greater Powers that reality enforces - that's stuff that's pretty close to (super)natural laws but covers shit like "Zeus cannot go house to house asking for converts" and "devils cannot take a soul that has not been promised to them" and "highlanders cannot fight on sacred ground."

Sounds like a good fit for declared law to me.

[Almaz]

[*] Declared Law - there are nominally only a handful of laws that were declared a long time ago and cannot be changed. Since that period, all new legal philosophy are merely "glosses", that are supposed to produce logic (however convoluted) to apply those declared laws to new situations. Glosses that go unchallenged for long periods of time become fixed, and new glosses are supposed to harmonize with the declared laws and also the settled glosses.

This reads to me like it results in hilarious contradictions. You should totally have a faction that suffers from some sort of Article 9 contradiction, where they've simultaneously disavowed violence and aggression but have become party to several treaties which oblige them to assist others who are attacked, and thus actually have a well-developed milit-I MEAN PEACEKEEPING AND SELF-DEFENSE force.

I was attempting to avoid just throwing a custom magic item at the problem, but using that works. We still can't have it on paper so long as we expect Azers to be a part of the economy.

Just have it made from the deceased form of some fire-eating fungus... dead brown mold? Pulverized and treated until it is rendered into a paper-like substance. It won't grow (it's not alive) but it should be inflammable. It's less likely to be eaten by a rust monster, too.

[Vebyast]

This reads to me like it results in hilarious contradictions. You should totally have a faction that suffers from some sort of Article 9 contradiction, where they've simultaneously disavowed violence and aggression but have become party to several treaties which oblige them to assist others who are attacked, and thus actually have a well-developed milit-I MEAN PEACEKEEPING AND SELF-DEFENSE force.

Alternatively, the faction has managed to avoid a blanket disarmament order, but its political enemies manage to force through an endless stream of geneva-convention-style bills blacklisting particular technologies, tactics, magic, and military practices. So it's an extremely well-developed military, and has to remain so to keep making money, but it's utterly bonkers because nobody's allowed to do anything that makes sense. You might even try turning this into some kind of artificers' or enchanters' guild, the idea being that they keep their military armed - and their money flowing - by continually inventing new stuff that just barely fits through the loopholes.

Hell, let's do this right:

Why the fuck would I help these people? They have cool toys. You might also get cool toys.
How the fuck do they pay for all this shit? People hire them to use their cool toys to keep things safe. Their military also turns over its entire inventory approximately every five years, so they sell a lot of cool toys.
Who are these people? A stereotypical movie military platoon, led by Captain Jack Sparrow, employed by The Ministry of Silly Walks, and with Tony Stark as the quartermaster.
What the hell do these guys do? The actual military guys get hired out as guards, enforcers, and general armed manpower, both in Finality and for outfits that operate out of Finality's gates. The inventors also run a thriving business in military surplus.
In their own words: Join the navy, see the world! Gain unique life experiences while keeping your friends, family, neighbors, and business associates safe. Oh, and maybe make some good money while you're at it. Look at this poster here - in ten years, that awesome-looking dude could be you. Alternatively, if you can make cool toys, sign right here and we will give you your very own machine shop.

So, how unrecoverable is that faction?

Just have it made from the deceased form of some fire-eating fungus... dead brown mold? Pulverized and treated until it is rendered into a paper-like substance. It won't grow (it's not alive) but it should be inflammable. It's less likely to be eaten by a rust monster, too.

Coming up with the physical currency is an interesting technical problem in itself. The following properties are basically necessary:
[*]Tolerate indefinite exposure to high heat
[*]Tolerate extended immersion in water, including handling
[*]Tolerate handling while frozen

Small chunks of metal work surprisingly well. You'd have to do something to make them easier to handle than IRL coinage; larger denominations, smaller coins, and money changers instead of wallets go a long way toward this. Metal is particularly nice because it does all of this nonmagically and without exotic materials (unless you want to mint your coins out of mythril or something to keep them light). You might try making bills out of woven metal fiber. Not sure how you'd make it safe, though. Steel wool will shred your fingers without even trying.

I think the only way to do paper money is with magic. I can't think of any flexible material that could survive being burninated, then dunked in water and left to ferment for a few months, and then frozen and stuffed in a wallet. You might find some kind of crazy synthetic fiber, but that'd be a hard problem even for a modern materials science lab. And even then all the good magical fibers (brown mold, etc) are slightly difficult to farm.

Then you have the issue of differently-sized people. A Storm Giant would have trouble picking up a medium-size dinner plate, much less a coin or a bill. Similarly, Small and Tiny creatures would have a really hard time handling bills the length of their arms. So maybe the answer is just to provide multiple parallel currencies, each with properties suitable for different demographics. You have the high-heat cash, the water-and-cold cash, the acid-resistant cash, and the normal cash, and then small, medium, large, and XL size variants.

[virgil]

Fascinating thing I'm noticing with regards to RL money. A Sacajawea Dollar Coin has about the same volume of a dollar bill, but eight times the mass (very roughly the same density of iron).

Mass is certainly a concern, as the examples cited previously is that buying a +2 sword would require 160lbs of gold. Even if you convert that to paper money, that's 20 pounds in your pants for a rather mundane purchase (by adventurer standards). This is why we're wanting to use those letters of credit, to transfer to other parties (likely with paperwork) without having to trade sacks with dollar signs on them.

Once we're doing this, we're not beholden to have the letters or notes be given in 1gp increments, nor do they have to be more portable than a regular gold piece. The little people who don't make enough to justify using letters of credit and have to use bank notes can still use the coins, as that was done before the invention of paper money for some time; while the larger people would use the equivalent of a checks to transfer the money.

This isn't to say that I'm against paper per-se, but as Vebyast says, it needs to be something that can't be readily destroyed through extreme heat, cold, or humidity. My first suggestion was a wizard printing press, as it would take little effort on their part to carve into an iron slab to meet the monetary needs of the city. Merging Almaz & Frank, we could also do some kind of blend of bloodthorn fiber and brown mold to make a tough enough 'paper' that's stamped with an arcane mark.

[Whipstitch]

I'd recommend having rather large holes of various shapes in the middle of any coins used. That way guys like the grimlocks can tell denominations apart easier and because that way you can string them together more easily. Once put on a length of cord the crazy small races can drag their cash home easier while the bigger guys can have you loop their change around something big enough for them to handle more easily. That's admittedly still a bit of a pain in the ass for the extreme outlier races, but storm giants tend to be as scary rich as they are scary huge, so between servants and specialty shops I'm sure they come out OK even if they bother to worry about smaller amounts.

[Winnah]

Alchemically treated biopolymer banknotes. Made from Kaorti resin. Lightweight, tough and resilient.

Use some powdered gemstone in the alchemical process and it should thwart the most basic attempts at replication via polymorph or fabricate.

Forgery requires milking a Kaorti for fresh resin, in addition to overcoming the other security measures, which are likely to include similarly exotic materials.

[virgil]

[fectin]

I don't understand how controlling fear drives them to hold life paramount, or vice versa. I also don't understand how they define life, if this is an undead-heavy faction.
It's not unworkable, just unclear.

[virgil]

I also don't understand how they define life, if this is an undead-heavy faction.

When you can have lunch with your great-grandfather two centuries after his funeral, and a pulse is optional, everybody has to expand their definition of life. As the Sign of Tetra wasn't intended to be a bigot faction, that definition isn't on their agenda.

[fectin]

Sure. And that's completely fair.
But if "life" is the most important thing, it's fair to turn around and ask what that means. Is a petitioner still alive? What about a thought bottle? Undead are a lot more durable, if they're alive, shouldn't we be converting everyone to Cursts?

[Parthenon]

I still think this is the wrong way round and doesn't explain the link between holding life paramount and fear.

You currently have it as the logic behind individuals who are part of the group is:

1. They are based on and brought together by fear.
2. So they want to reduce death as much as possible.
3. So they study fear

The second part doesn't follow on from the first. And the third doesn't follow on from the second.

Now, to me, it makes a lot more sense if their logic is more like:

1. They want to reduce death as much as possible.
2. They think that the stick is more effective than the carrot- the best way to get the general public to act in ways that reduces death is through fear-based tactics
3. They study fear to make their actions more effective
4. Some people who are obsessed with fear jump on the bandwagon

[virgil]

I've mentioned it many times before; they study fear because it's useful for detecting potential threats, which they need in order to meet their goal of countering any threats to survival.

[Parthenon]

Sorry virgil, I must have missed that, mostly because it's a shitty argument that still works backwards.

1. Their main priority is to counter threats to survival,
2. Therefore they try to find potential threats,
3. ?
4. Which means that fear is the best thing to study to find or solve potential threats.

How does that even work? Potential threats could be overarrogance and hubris, to overuse of resources, to lack of caring about a known threat. Why are they obsessed with fear specifically?

I mean, I've given you one reason already- they have historically found that negative reinforcement works better at motivating people than positive reinforcement so they want to research ways to create the correct sort of fear. You could have other reasons like fear being a main factor stopping people improving or working against threats, so they want to find out how to reduce fear. Or whatever else as long as it is a reason for the fear obsession that wouldn't also be a reason for a completely different obsession.

But until you write it up in a way where the logic makes an obsession with fear the logical thing to have, the reason to support the faction doesn't make a whole lot of sense since they do random things that have little to do with their aims.

[Grek]

I think a better train of thought for the Sign of Tetra would be

1. The world is a bad and scary place, requiring some sort of special effort for it not to be overrun by horrible monsters.
2. Despite #1, many people either do not realize or refuse to believe this to be so, leading them to be wildly reckless.
3. Therefore the Sign of Tetra goes around spooking the sheeple so they will realize how bad things really are.
4. As a side effect, people who like being horrible and scary join up to be horrible and scary regardless of philosophical motivations.

[virgil]

Laws of Hospitality

The laws of hospitality are an ancient tradition throughout the Core Worlds and those influenced by the movement of their afterlife worlds, upheld by the many heroes throughout the ages so as to ensure protection when they kill their guests. This has ended up working both ways, as the traditions detail obligations of both host and guest to each other, and violation of one's obligation can be punished as the injured party sees fit (and able).

Over such vast distances of distance, time, or even species, variations are inevitable. Each community has their own nuances in protocol, such as the quality of gifts provided to the host, the level of hospitality for any particular guest, or even the expected length of stay.

Certain elements remain consistent though. Once a guest is invited, no matter their rank, the host is obligated to protect them from all harm, no matter where it might come from. In addition, the host should go to great ends to ensure that the guest's stay is at least pleasant, if not luxurious.

In counterpoint, guests are under similar obligation to take no action which might bring scorn upon their host. Should a host ask something of them, they must oblige unless it would put them at risk. As an example, should a host request the traveling adventurers to safely escort her son to Finality, they should feel obliged to perform the request. If the host neglects to mention that their son has recently scorned a spiteful sorceress, then there is no trouble, as that does not necessarily lead to risk.

Finality is crowded, the size of many nations in the Core Worlds, and with a greater diversity than any of them. In the face of such complexity, the Traditions of Hospitality take a pragmatic approach. Only in the estates of the upper class are there expected codes of conduct, gifts are discouraged from being burdensome, and if the obligation of protection is invoked, it is commonly tied to an obligation of departure on the part of the guest.

[fectin]

One of the things about hospitality is that it nearly always comes with some time limit. In the middle east, I think that's usually a set time (something like "until the morning after next," but I can't recall what the actual tradition is). In the antebellum south it was indefinite, but your host would politely indicate when it was time for you to move on by serving plantains with breakfast; at which point you could announce later on that you had to go soon.

There are also some neat traditions around signalling hospitality. The Bedouin, for example, drink coffee in the evening. Part of preparing that coffee is thoroughly smashing it in a large mortar. That mortar is metal and makes a very distinctive sound which carries for miles. So if you're travelling through wasteland (e.g. on the Hajj), and need a place to stay for the night, every Bedouin camp is advertising where they are, and will provide shelter.

[virgil]

As we currently do not have any merchant rules, this is open ponderings.

My party is just now starting to discover the potential value in trade, having slain a 44-tonne crocodile. The question is whether they can cast gentle repose and then cut it into pieces for transport, or if it's sufficient destruction to dispel its effects on the piece removed; as well as the logistics of transporting the equivalent of a beached whale.

I have no idea how much to charge for tariff of a wagon train carrying either a carcass or an entire meat market. I'm thinking they might equate meat for flour in trade goods and charge 2% from that.

This does bring up the debate for the value of meat in the Finality markets. At an inn, it's about 3sp per half pound for generic meat; and I'm sure you could get double that value with a merchant from a world where crocodile meat is an exotic delicacy (and wants 11 tonnes of it), followed by the usual 50% cut for selling. Making that estimate, with the fact that crocodiles are about 25% meat, that gargantuan beast should be worth about 13,000 gold...assuming they can get it to Finality (where they'll be charged 9gp in tariff).