peppercorns were used as curancy during the middle ages,any house rules that fiture this?
Um, where do I begin?
Um....
I like peppercorn!
No.
Um....
Well if I were going to use peppercorns as currency, then I'd likely use the Scoville Scale as a means to assess a value.
So I'd say 500 peppercorn equals 1 Mexican Pepper
500 Mexican Peppers equals 1 Habanero Pepper
500 Habanero Pepper equals 1 pawn of Ignem Vis.
So all you have to do is find Mexico to get this ball rolling.
I bet some of our resident scholars can shed insight into how they had monetary value, but until then I'm sticking to my story!
peppercorns were used as curancy because they were fairly rare in medeavial society.
I know that, I just can never tell with you Abe. So many of your items are silly it's hard to tell when your serious. It's unlikely that Hermetics use peppercorn as a means of trade, but perhaps covenants have traded them as they are a valuable commodity.
thanks(by the way I usually being serious with my questions)
I've seriously wondered if peppercorns would still be that valuable. CrHe rituals and all that. I guess you can call spices "noble", like gemstones, and enforce the fact that they come as tiny individuals, rather than general plant mass like wood.
I would definitely argue that they are individuals as a Target, but that doesn't solve the problem. Creating a peppercorn bush or a cinnamon tree, cardmom tree, or pretty much any spice bearing plant is trivial to a Herbam magus, and any senior magus.
This is one way our covenant got around the rule against creating piles of silver or gold. In general the rarer the item, the has more value it has. Creating and maintaining a fruit grove in cold climates, spice plants, silk producing critters, etc...is fairly easy with the correct magic.
Silly as many of Abe's posts are, this does bring up an interesting point regarding Covenants, simply that very few folks used coin. Neither nobles or scholars (the people magi most closely resemble) used coin. Peasants didn't either. It just wasn't a cash economy. That would happen a bit later. So why this sudden emphasis on coin and trade and such in a game about wizards?
I thought 1220 was into the "using more coin" period. When were the silver mines opened?
Also, it can be a unit of account, even if actual silver isn't on the ground. What were fines expressed in? And what did people buy with at fairs, or in towns? What did they buy books with, or stained glass?
Eldragil,
you are talking of a complex issue in a summary way which can only fail to address it.
Already the laws of William the Conqueror assumed a working money economy.
Markets and trade fairs also required present and generally trusted coinage, usually provided by the noble protector.
Universities could in no way be run without it - as the students had to pay for their professors and their own sustenance, and certainly did not bring pigs and eggs from their far away homes to do so.
It is an altogether different issue how much the majority of peasants and serfs were affected by this economy, and how exchanges within one village were organized - and that is probably what you wished to express.
Kind regards,
Berengar
Hm, so let's say a Tytalus mage pays a group of bandits to kill his apprentice as part of his Gauntlet.
What would these bandits have been paid in, in the Rhine in 1221, for example.
This happened last game, and I didn't even think that coin would be a problem.
V
Well if they took the coin, then it's not a problem. A lot of this involves the color of personal games and how accurate you want them to be. Covenants introduced the Mythic Penny, which clearly is a game mechanic so there is a standarized unit of money to discuss.
Can one have Mythic Europe run on Mythic Penny's? Sure. Or we can trade peppercorn, saffron, or those moving cards from Harry Potter. Sure. I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but simply pointing out I don't think you should worry that paying the bandits with coin was 'wrong'.
I'm curious why the Rhine Tytalus sent out a group of bandits to kill his apprentice. Was that the gaunlet or apart of the gaunlet?
I ask because I play a Rhine Tytalus who's apprentice is about to start a gauntlet where he's expected to kill an Ifrit. Makes me wonder how many Tytalus gauntlets involve apprentices killing or trying to be killed.
LOL. I love the Tytalus. You know what they say,
"That which doesn't kill you was suppose to!"
Hmmm, that reminds me...
Tytalus (that, too)
Tremere (an improvement over this, don't you think?)
Flambeau (or maybe)
Criamon (or this)?
Bonisagus? Trianoma? Diedne? Guernicus? Merinita?
More here.
E. g. in silver pennies minted by the archbishop of Cologne. These archbishops held the privilege of minting - Münzregal - since 1027, and their coins - Kölner Pfennige - were esteemed and used far beyond the archbishopric.
Kind regards,
Berengar
thanks for the input!