It definitely sounds more like a boardgame, which is why I do not like it at all. Maybe I would like the boardgame, but I really do not like thinking like a boardgame when we sit down to roleplay.
I think the book [HoH:TL] is quite clear that prices may vary, although there is a stronger suggestion of dropping prices than increasing them. It is also clear that redcaps rarely carry a lot of vis, up to 10p it says.
Maybe it could balance out with the 2:1 price being the maximum, a obtained by Vim and Corpus, while other forms fluctuate between 1:1 and 2:1. Similarly, Creo has 2:1 among the techniques. Maybe. I struggle to see all those PeAq rituals or MuAu enchantments which balance the market.
Well, maybe PeAq doesn't need a ritual very often, but vis is rarely techform specific except dedicated vis. And Creo Aquam is definitely useful. Creating a water source in a remote location that is difficult to settle in, but has a high magic aura, for example...
Do I think it's likely there's a higher vis demand for Vim than Aquam in the order? Yes. But any magi can extract vim vis. Do I think Terram is more often used for Creo rituals than Aquam, Auram, Ignem? Yes Incidentally, I also think think the Terram vis is easier to get - building a mine is easier than extracting the vis from a cloud or the wind, and I suspect there's a lot of aquam vis uncaught at sea because most magi don't spend their life on ship. So I also think the Terram supply is more abundant, which balances with higher demand. And incidentally, Corpus vis tends to be in predictable places, close to humans, and also easy to find.
As a counter point, Remember that vis is currency. If you can't use it on rituals, you can use it for study, and if you can't use it for study, you can always trade it for labtexts and books, use it to pay fines and salaries, etc. It's bad for the economy if your money supply gets destroyed. If it doesn't pile up somewhere, trade halts. So even if you decide that Aquam gets produced more than it is used - that's fine. You need excess of vis somewhere for covenants to keep paying their bills. Everyone buys stuff at some point. Maybe Durenmar doesn't buy many books, but it still contracts out Verditius and longevity specialists. And it's bad form to ask for a specific type of vis as a payment unless you're spending that vis type on a project. So long as you don't decide most of the order has a surplus such that they don't trade to get some or that there is a massive gap between demand and supply - the price of your currency shouldn't fluctuate that much. And differences in proce should mostly be in hard to get, vis with special properties
This is true, if vis has actually developed into fiat currency, where every art has its full worth on (say) the book market. It is not entirely clear in RAW, but absolutely a plausible interpretation, and maybe the only one that makes the Mercere Bank plausible.
More significantly Vis is currency in a setting where economics are poorly understood and often undermined by antagonistic philosophies- laws against usury, social disapproval for making too much profit- wealth is generally seen as sinful if it is "above your station". This was well before prosperity doctrines. Most currency in use was left over from the Roman Empire (Fredrick II had just started minting his own currency), so the idea of exchanges was unheard of- even the difference in valuation of gold versus silver between East and west drove trade in commodities because nobody exchanged one currency for another. The idea that there is a certain level of fiat value to the market makes sense.
I completely disagree. Silver coins were widely minted in 1220, by many different countries. It is true that gold coins, and silver ones of higher purity, see a boom in the subsequent decades/century. But it is not true that most currency in use in 1220 was left over from the Roman Empire (unless you mean the Byzantine one): one of the main reasons being that the late Roman Empire tended to recall old currency to remint it with lower silver content, and late Roman coins were simply very, very bad coins (in the sense they held little silver) that nobody wanted and indeed caused widespread inflation.
This is true in 1220, but just because at the beginning of 1220 Frederick II has just turned 25, and has been in power for less than decade (in fact, he only gets officially crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1220, after defeating his predecessor Otto IV in 1215).
Not at all. However, one should remember that most of the currency used in Western Europe at the time was silver, and a coin derived most of its value from being a guaranteed quantity of silver. So currency exchanges were not really sophisticated as modern ones: you knew exactly how many "Otto IV" german obols the high quality (denaro) grosso of venice was intrinsically worth - a little over 2 and 2/3. Most of the trouble for moneychangers was that there were a lot of coins in circulation (just check here for a list of just the german coins minted in the previous centuries and still in circulation in 1220). But if you knew the silver fraction of a score or two of coins (as for weight, you'd be better off just weighing them), you could easily capture 90% of all transactions, in particular exchanging at a (sometimes very large) profit foreign coins for local coins that the locals trusted more and thus were more willing to accept.
Now, gold (and the rare and coveted and often centuries-old gold coins, mostly Byzantine and Arab in 1220, but see e.g. the Amalfitan tarì) vs. silver was another matter, and indeed the exchange rate between the two fluctuated widely, just as the exchange rate between silver and the other commodities fluctuated widely. But by and large, Western Europe in 1220 has only one main "currency", namely silver, albeit minted in many forms; whereas the Order of Hermes has 15 (one per Art).
Even there for most locations that were not along a trade route there would have been only one local currency. While there may have been many other currencies in circulation by sheer bulk the Roman coins were still the most prevalent (especially over the whole of Europe), primarily because while the British, for example, minted coins from the silver they got mining lead for church roofs, overall most mining operations had ground to a halt with the fall of he Roman Empire and melting down Roman coins (poor quality but a known quality) to mint your own coins was generally not worthwhile.
Silveroak, I completely disagree with almost all the points you are making
Focusing on Britain, for example, there was a significant expansion of the total currency in circulation between 1158 (between £30,000 and £80,000) and 1205 (£250 000). See for example: Martin Allen, Silver production and the money supply in England and Wales, 1086–c. 1500, The Economic History Review, Vol. 64, No. 1, pp. 122 (here, albeit behind a paywall - message me if you have no access to jstor and want to get the article for yourself).
While there is still some controversy about where the new silver came from (earlier theories about the Pennines being the source of most of it are challenged in the article above) it is still widely accepted that the bulk of the currency circulating in Britain in 1205 had been minted within the previous half-century.
Let me add that I think we are drifting off-topic, so I'll stop posting about silver minting and circulation in this thread about vis value. if you want to continue our discussion, feel free to message me privately, or open a new thread.
Actually, this is canonically true. The Order routinely orders fines to be paid in "vis", without specifying the Art, and similarly measures income (e.g. for Greater Alps minimum requirements) and similar economic quantities in generic pawns. This means that Hermetic law tends to flatten the value of the pawn by fiat.
Personally, I tend to find the 1:2 Forn:Technique value in HoH:TL unrealistic. That's because within any particular application - whether casting a Ritual, boosting spellcasting, or enchanting a device - Form and Technique are by and large interchangeable, with only rare exceptions. Thus, if we assume that the value of vis is determined by its actual application to magical endeavours, if Technique vis had even modestly higher value than Form vis, most magi would strive to use Form vis, decreasing its availability and restoring price balance. The only exception would be if Technique vis were so rare that, even substituting Form vis for it in the vast majority of cases, it would remain scarce for those few situations in which it's the only possible choice. From published sources this seems not to be the case. I wonder if anyone has come up with a reasonable explanation of why the Redcaps seem to then favour Technique vis so much.
It's interesting to note that this "fungibility" of vis of different Arts does not work solely between Techniques and Forms, but in a more indirect way between different Forms and different Techniques too. If Corpus vis is significantly more precious than Ignem vis, for example, and you are a magus focusing on say, combat, then you have an incentive to develop combat magics based on Ignem rather than on Corpus - because e.g. penetration boosting and device enchantment become cheaper to you that way. Maybe this is one reason while Flambeau still favour the school of the Founder: while it's possible to fight with a majority of Forms, Ignem is one with the fewest applications outside of combat, meaning there's little competition for its vis. In other words Flambeau choose Ignem due to the availablity of its "ammunition"!
The controversy was settled by Heirs to Merlin a long time ago, and it is how the Order learnt that magic silver production is undue interference with the mundanes.
I think there are two reasons. In addition to the one you mention of technique vis being scarcer, there is studies from vis that require a specific art.
I would not put much emphasise on the number of vis sources in published sources, as I think authors care more for diversity then representativity. There is a canon mention that technique sources are scarcer.
Hence, this is all down to how scarce you make books and how scarce you make technique vis. You can make both scarce enough to justify 2:1.
While I appreciate taking it out of the thread I want to thank you for bringing more historical research into the discussion (and Ars Magica in general).
If Vis has a fiat value then that means by definition that market forces. "If we assume that the value of vis is determined by its actual application" is irrelevant because the value is determined by fiat then those forces have no role in determining the value. Many if not most theories of economics of the time held that things had an intrinsic value (differing largely on what determined that value) so if "vis has a 2:1 ratio of value" because all magi accept the claim to be true then there may wind up being a stockpiling of less useful vis but it will not alter the relative value because that value is not being determined by market forces.
You need beds of healing, perpetual lights, magically reinforced armor, and expeditions to far off lands with Redcap aid. This will tend to deplete your vis treasury and increase your desire for vis.
I am not sure about stockpiling. What's likely to happen is that the less useful arts turn into fiat currency, being used a lot for Hermetic trade and comparatively rarely for actual magic. It circulates rather than piling up. The more useful arts, like Corpus, never serve as currency, but is bought frequently at the 2:1 rate.
Of course, it is not black and white, and we should refrain from trying to state universal rules.
Thank you for the many insightful answers. I'd like to address some in other posts. But first let me defend our current Vis harvest. Some of you seem to find it somewhat outlandish:
So, as I said in the original post, thanks to our location, when I identified Hooks for our covenant (several completed scenario's in) I had about 12 points worth without breaking a sweat. We are situated right on the border between the Normandy and the Rhine Tribunals (Tribunal Border Cp22), near the capital city of one of the most powerful duchies in Europe (Seat of Power Cp24), and within a day's travel from both the Calebaïs covenant (which we ran) (Ruined Covenant Cp24), and two different Fairie realms (Faerie Court Cp24), not to mention next to a busy road to said capital city, and with plenty of hangouts about.
To temper our advantages, we only used 7 out of the allowed 10 points worth of Boons, to not overreach our benefits. And one of those was the Hidden Resources boon (Cp18) for which there is literally a story element found in the Calebaïs scenario. Those extra 250 BPs we used to 'buy' our 50 yearly Vis.
Please note that Hidden Resources is only a Minor Boon, which we could have taken multiple times. We didn't.
This is interesting. Do you know where that is discussed? Or do you know the reasons for this wide range?
Vis rarity and the expectations of how much vis a covenant is expected to have is discussed in individual Tribunal books.
In the Greater Alps, vis is easy to get and covenants are expected to support their magi with all the vis they need. So the Peripheral Code there requires that, to add a wizard to your covenant, you must prove you can provide that wizard with 10 pawns of vis a year.
In contrast, vis is very hard to get in the Normandy Tribunal. So much so that the covenants gather every seven years to fight over it in a tournament. The tribunal has strict rules for founding new covenants, including that any new covenant must prove that it has vis sources enough to provide at least 1 pawn a year to every wizard. This is designed to prevent new covenants from being formed.
Other tribunals have different notes about the rarity of vis, but don’t get into numbers. Vis is so common in Thebes that it’s no longer treated as currency and is more like food; magi give vis as gifts to visitors and bring it as a gift when they visit other covenants. In Hibernia, vis is plentiful but custom dictates that it not be harvested and stored, that magi who need vis go to the source and collect it when they need it. And so on.
Normandy is very Vis poor, the poorest with a 5th book and possibly the poorest overall depending on how you convert Rome to 5th.
Vis is quite scarce in the Normandy Tribunal, and despite the great age and cultured traditions of many of the covenants, the lack of resources is leading to increased disputes over vis rights. (TLatL, p.17)
On TLatL, p.22 it breaks down the requirements and limits for a new Covenant. Required is Vis sources which produce 1p per Magus. However some or all of that Vis might be required as the feudal obligation of the Covenant to its liege (you don't pay for it and don't get to keep it). It also recommends a limit of 3~5 BP per Magus be spend on Vis (Source and Stock).
As for the Greater Alps, they are the most restrictive Tribunal. New Covenants are forbidden and current Covenants are "required to live within their means". To meet that requirement, a Covenant must have ownership of permanent Vis sources providing at least 10p per Magus. If permanent Vis sources are lost that makes them unable to meat that 10p per Magus, then any who are not covered are classified as "Vagrants" which is a crime and also lose their vote at Tribunal.
