The Garbage Planet

The garbage planet - the "si-fi analogue" of a garbage dump.  A world where people fly in from all over to dispose of waste. 

Star Wars seemed fond of the idea (see for example Lotho Minor ) 

Is this likely? Does it make sense to launch garbage into space?  

To do this analysis, I will use the economy from the rather good Star Wars SAGA system.  Energy costs are cheap in star wars - it costs about 50 credits to launch a small cargo ship in space, a ship that can carry 100 tons.  Compare that to current space launch costs that are in the 10 000$ per kg!  

I did run a campaign with the SAGA system about 15 years ago; where commerce was important.  Based on that experience, I know that hauling goods in a light freighter can be profitable-ish with a 20 credits/ton margin.  Larger ships can do much better (meaning they only need to make a few credits per ton to make a profit).  So shipping garbage makes economic sense in star wars, there is quite likely that there are several garbage disposal ships in operation - we don't hear much about it because I suppose it's very unglamorous - scrapy smuggler or salvager sure, but garbage hauling - not cool enough for the movies.  Heavily populated planet probably have *fleets* of such ships.

That's just half the equation though.  Does this mean the existence of a "garbage planet" is plausible?  Well... the big flaw with the concept is *why* - why bother flying a long distance to a garbage planet instead of just using a nearby gas giant or star?  Star Wars fuel is cheap yes, but it still takes time and effort to go on long journeys. So why have specific "garbage planets"?  There has to be an economic reason for doing so... 

- I think a more likely explanation is that the garbage planets are more... immense salvage yards.  The economics of such a place could be varied, but they (some sort of overseer group) could purchase the salvage, then have low cost labor (droids? jawas? slaves?) extract "value" from this salvage to re-sell to merchants, perhaps in exchange for supplies.  It could be that the control of vital supplies is how the "overseer group" stays in power.  Or it could be a cooperative?  Definitely room for various forms of governance, and possibly adventuring hooks.  There could be planets where there is no more significant inlay of salvage/garbage, but there is so much build up that scavenging operations are ongoing.

It's also possible, even likely, that these large salvage yards are causing significant environmental damage to the planet.  Depending on what the planet was before the garbage dumping started, or who lives there, this could lead to all sorts of conflict.

And I think all this is fertile ground for adventure, more than just a mere garbage planet "existing".  The more one knows about a planet and what makes it "tick", the more avenues for adventure exist!

On the Wealth of Cities - Warhammer edition, and on the impact of low gold on a campaign

In a previous post, I made calculations on how much wealth a city had - it's GDP, based on an "economic yardsick" - the amount a laborer made.

But this was for 5e, a "wealthy" system where gold is plentiful.  What about a system that is a bit more realistic, where finding 10 gold pieces is a bit of a big deal?   Enter Warhammer - more precisely, Warhammer frpg 2nd edition.

By Arthur Rakham

The Warhammer coinage is roughly based on the medieval system, where 1 gold (crown) = 20 silver (shilling) = 240 copper (pence).  This means that one gold piece is worth more, but I also note that this system, in my experience, is about as complex as most players will tolerate - don't get too complex!

So in 5e, our laborer makes 2 silvers a day.   In Warhammer, a laborer would be making 10 pence (10 coppers), or a little less than a silver (since it takes 12 coppers to make a silver).  This means that 5e is a little more than twice as "expensive" as Warhammer - or four time if you consider that it takes *20* silver pieces to make a gold, not 10!

(Re laborer cost:  Interestingly, if you look at the yearly income of a peasant (9-15 gp per year), the unskilled laborer is being paid on the high end of the scale.  I suppose that is why the labor is available - why go work for some guy carrying stuff or digging a ditch, when you could be home peasanting instead? Because it pays more.  For those with the book, compare table 5-1 and 5-18.)

At this point, I thought about doing further calculations but... that's not fun content is it?  So I'm happy with the answer "GDP and rewards should be 1/4 than what they are in 5e" and leave it at that. 

Buuut that isn't the case in Warhammer.  Rewards in Warhammer are *small*.  A mercenary makes 20-50 GP a year... and that's the kind of gold that will motivate a PC to risk their lives.  It's a grim, grubby world.  In the introductory adventure in the main book, the PCs are escorting a small band of villagers - not for money, but because there is strength in numbers and the area is perilous.  If they are lucky, they may find a relic worth 100 gp.  So 25 gp each for a party of 4 - that would be considered a *very* successful venture by Warhammer terms - it's a year's salary!

Now at first level in D&D, (multiply by 4), PCs wouldn't be too upset at gaining 100 gp each... but the difference is that the rewards never really ramps up in Warhammer, unlike D&D where finding 10 000's worth of GPs in an adventure is likely at higher level.   Every new piece of equipment (armor and guns are particularly expensive relative to the rewards) is dearly needed and requires a lot of work to obtain.

And it's not just "I need armor to increase my chance of survival".  The Warhammer system has a "career" system that is roughly analogous to class (2nd career adventurers would be mid-level, and third career is "high levels").  To enter those new careers so you can progress, you need the career's trappings (i.e. its gear).  You can't be a knight without a horse can you?  And it has to be a destrier incidentally , which is worth 500 gp.  Even considering you may have started with a regular horse (80 gp) that you could sell to "upgrade", the costs are high.  Not all advance careers have such onerous requirements, but you get the picture - you probably need gold to "level up".

(Interestingly, once you have entered the new career, you can lose all your stuff and still be in it - it's just to make the jump that they are needed.  No renting a horse doesn't count.)

So what are the consequences of having a low-reward campaign.   Well on the good side, your PCs will almost never become jaded with getting gold (in 5e you can't buy magical items easily, so PCs can accumulate a lot of cash after a while).  Third Career PCs will probably be relatively well off - they already own most of the gear they want, they can afford that fat 5 gp bribe to a guard.  However, if a noble offers them 1 gp a day each(!) to guard them during a month-long trip through a dangerous forest, the party will most probably accept (that would be a noble splurging for the best sell-swords in the city, essentially).   I think that's a great thing...

BUT it comes at a cost.  Say the party is attacked by brigands and defeat them.  Their main treasure will not be coins and gems; it's going to be their gear.  Weapons, armor, even clothes, supplies and utility items... They are precious loot for the PC.  Even considering the loot may have to be sold for a 1/4 value to a fence that won't ask questions; it's worth doing for first-career adventurers. Third career adventurers probably won't bother anymore, but at first career.. you might not have *any* armor at all!  (a full set of leather armor is 25 gp).  Add living costs (roughly half a gold a week for decent living standards), and the PCs will most likely act like scavengers for quite some time.

(I will note that this has historical accuracy.  The word "rob" comes from the French "derober" or "disrobe" - because brigands would literally steal the clothes of traveler's back.)

I'm not speculating about this happening during play, incidentally.  I have, in the past, run a number of Warhammer campaigns, and this is what happened.

So it's a tradeoff.  A low gold campaign has added tension - the PCs are hungry for money to get equipment, or even just to pay costs of living! BUT you may end up with a lot of scrounging and scavenging.  In  the grim perilous world of Warhammer, that's not too bad.  But for some other games... this may not fit the tone you were hoping to get.   Furthermore, figuring out the cost of every salvageable item takes time, and it will be something you'll have to do as a GM.

P.S.  I can't help but note the parallels between some OSR system's XP system, which is based on gold earned, and Warhammer, where gold can (doesn't always) act as a "gate keeper) to the entry to some advanced classes.  While both systems have flaws and benefits, I note that I find the Warhammer system to be superior.  Both systems make the PCs hungry for money, not combat (combat in Warhammer is dangerous!) but it avoid adventures "having" to have money (because otherwise the PC would not advance), which bothers me to be frank.

Star Wars Economics - energy, shipping and labor.

Someone asked in the OSR discord group about sci fi economics, and so I have a few comments.

First we have to narrow our scope - I'm going to stick to Star Wars economics, as expressed in the Star Wars Saga system.  The prices in the system seem vaguely calibrated to 1 credit = 2 dollars.  I suspect the original intent was that 1 credit = 1 dollar, but with inflation that sum shrunk (interesting mental exercise:  if 10 000 credit (Han Solo's fee for transport) was in 1977 dollars, that's about 41 000 dollars today... I wonder if Disney will make those adjustments).

1:  Energy
So anyway, we need our "economic yardstick".  What is the "most true" price that we can use?  I suggest energy, more precisely "starship fuel" (I forget the term) It's worth 50 credits per kg, and 1 kg can power a modest start starship for 1 day.  Other "high energy" operations (taking off a planet, jumping into hyperdrive, fighting) also take 1 kg of fuel.  If a light freighter can carry 100 tons, fuel, even if 90% of it is "packaging"  (containment fields etc, I imagine this is very "volatile" stuff, perhaps an exotic form of matter), i.e. 100 kg of fuel per 1 ton of carrying capacity, that's still a whooping 5000 credit per ton, or half a million credit for a full load.  That's a large sum to be carrying around.

So energy is super valuable right?  Well... no.  The amount of energy to have a spaceship reach orbit is *staggering*.  Modern rockets are what, 90% fuel by weight?  We know that this fact is also reflected in game.  The GNK power droid (the "Gonk droid") carried about 1 kg of fuel and could power a startship for a day... or power a house for an indeterminate period of time - it would eventually run out after a number of years, but it's essentially "day to day" power for a fraction of a credit per day.  So your monthly power bill, for the average citizen living in an ordinary dwelling, would be trivial - a few credits at most, possibly far less.  This means that energy is *very plentiful*.  Only high energy users (spaceship, heavy industry, planetary defences) need worry about its cost.  A light freighter bringing a load of starship fuel to a distant outpost is going to be disappointed, they will probably only need a few tons *at most* for the year.  The main demand is probably the starport, who would resell it to other spaceships.

The fact that a GNK can transform startship fuel into usable energy (electricity I'm assuming), means that the process of using this starship fuel isn't *that* complicated.  You can't burn it in a boiler, but if a semi-smart walking generator only costs a few thousand credits at most, clearly these generators are pretty plentiful too.  This means that energy is "fungible", probably easily converted from one form to another.  You can import all your energy need in starship fuel as a planet, why bother with bulky and dirty things like crude oil?  Let them burn it on their planet and pollute it, you aren't dirtying your own!

If energy is fungible and very plentiful, it probably means that there may not be be that much money selling it; because the margins are probably pretty thin.  So as a light weight freighter captain, unless you are selling to a place with a very high demand (isolated, disaster/war area) or finding a very cheap source of energy (a planet close to a star that specialize in making fuel and sells it for less than 50 credit/kg; or perhaps battlefield loot), it's not that exciting.


2:  Shipping cost
This leads us to a next consideration:  are you, as a freight captain, buying and selling, or are you carrying other people's stuff for a fee?  How big should this fee be?  In other words, what are the shipping costs?

So I'm going to be considering 2 ships - firs the YT-1300, in part because it's famous (Millennium Falcon) but also because it's a good example of a generic light freighter (we'll be using the generic stats, not the souped up millennium falcon).  The second will be a large volume cargo ship, but not something amazing - so the GR-75 medium transport (ie the "rebel transport") will do.

The YT-1300 can carry 100 tons, has 2 crews and a hyperspace speed of 2
The GR-75 can carry a whooping 19 000 tons, has a crew of 5 and a hyperspace speed of 4 (bigger is worse in this system).

Let's first look at trip lenght and fuel cost.  Let's assume that the trip is form the surface of a planet to the surface of another planet in another s

Fuel wise, a YT needs one unit of fuel (1 kg) to take off the planet.  Then it will take a day (another unit) to reach the outside of the system.  Jumping to hyperspace requires one unit of fuel.

The lenght of a trip in hyperspace is (to use the simple Saga rules) 1d6 x hyperspeed rating (we're going to assume 3.5 average, and ignore complications or hyperspace lanes etc).  So 2x3.5 = 7 days in space, or 7 units of fuel.  Then 1 more day to reach the planet, and 1 unit to land.

This means that the YT 1300 will need 12 units of fuel (600 credits) and 9 days to do a delivery.

The GR-75 has a similar calculation, except that its hyperspeed rating is 4, so it's trip in hyperspace will take twice as long - the trip will be 16 days, and require 19 units of fuel.

We'll take a pause here and talk about fuel consumption.  In SAGA, a starship uses 1 kg of fuel as a "unit", but a capital ship (frigate-class) uses 100 kg.  But what about ship that are bigger than a light freighter, but not quite a capital ship (like the GR-75).  It doesn't say.  I changed this in my game - corvette sized capital ships used 50 kg, and I would eyeball (sorry) the GR-75 to use about 30 kg per unit.  This results in 19 X 30 = 570 kg of fuel, or a whooping 28 500 credits worth of fuel!  

But what about other costs?  Consumables (oxygen, water etc) is 10 per person per day, so this means 180 credits for the YT, and 960 for the GR-75.   Docking fees are about 20 for a small freighter and... 200 for a bigger one?

General maintenance is 4 days worth of fuel in cost per 20 trips.  This can be spread over each trip for accounting purpose so 10 credits for the YT, and 300 for the GR-75

3: Labor
Last is the crew cost.  This is... harder to estimate, but we can give it a go.  There is an "upkeep" cost (ie cost of living) given of 1000/month credits for average, and 500 for struggling.  How much is the average spacer paid?  I'm going to say 500, because they also receive benefits - they have a place to live inside the ship and they get "space food".  That leaves 500 credits to buy clothes, drinks at the port etc etc.  Seems reasonable.

So crew salary is 9/30 X 2 X 500 or 300 for the YT, and 1600 for the GR-75.

Back to Shipping cost
Total cost for the trip in a light freighter is 600 (fuel) + 20 (docking) + 10 (maintenance) + 180 (consumable) + 300 (salary) = 1 110 credits, or about 11 credits per ton of cargo.  If you want to run a profit, you probably want to charge at least 20 credits per ton of cargo (or 2000 for a load), much more if there are any risks involved.

The GR-75's total cost is 28 500 (fuel) +200 (docking) + 300 (maintenance) + 960 (consumable) + 1600 (salary) = 31 560 credits, which is enormous.  *However* your cost per ton of cargo is *much much* lower, 1.66 credit per ton.  You could ship at 5 credits per tons of cargo and make way much more money than a light freighter.

This means that as a light freight captain, if you are buying and selling (and not merely transporting for someone else), you need higher margins to operate than a large cargo ship. If you buy 100 tons of Trandoshan beans at 120 credits a tons, you better hope that you can sell them for 140 credits a ton!  Meanwhile, the GR-75 captain would only need to sell them at 125 to be profitable (but needs to find someone willing to buy 19 000 tons of it).

So why are light freighters used at all?  Well, not all shipments are 19 000 tons.  The light freighters tend to be faster and can make more runs per months than a large cargo ship.  They are better at avoiding detection and trouble.  They are more flexible, and can respond to opportunities and emergencies better (oh planet such and such has a famine?  Let's bring them beans, we'll make a fortune!)  They are useful to smuggle illicit goods, or pick up passengers.   The last 2 are probably particularly important.   In fact, I suspect that for many light freighter crews, the "normal" cargo was just a way to cover some costs and, more importantly, provide them with a cover of legitimacy.  "Why are we here?  Why we are delivering Trandoshan beans, that is all sir!  Everything is in order!"


Conclusions:

1:  I am satisfied with using the kg of fuel as an economic yardstick.  Always think of energy when designing planets.   I imagine some rickety outposts have power generating stations consisting of little more than a few dozen Gonk droids standing in a room, wired to the ceiling and gonking away.  Even though it is plentiful, energy still remains fundamentally important.  Wars will be fought over it, just like today.  Shipping is the lifeblood of the economy, and to do that, you need starship fuel.

2:  Time is money.   The easiest way to cut costs for a starship is to get a better hyperdrive.  If the GR-75 had a hyperdrive rating of 2, its cost would almost drop by half.

3:  There is a need for light freighters, especially on the fringe - and for GMs, that's good because that is where the interesting stuff happens!

4:  Labor costs explain droids, economically speaking.  Another way for a ship to cut costs it to replace a few crew members (who costs 6000 per year) with droids.  Droids costs a few thousand credits each, but would pay themselves off in less than a year  (there must be a "job stealing droid" sentiment...).  I'll also note that "adventuring ships" (ie light freighters with the party on board) will cost more than the standard light freighter because of all those extra people, not to mention all the extra guns and shields the adventurers probably want to have on board...

5:  When Han Solo asked for 10 000 credits to give Luke and Obi-wan a lift, considering the circumstances, wasn't completely outrageous

6:  In the Mandalorian, when Mando says "5000, that barely cover fuel costs these days" … either his ship is *very* fuel inefficient, fuel costs have gone up drastically, or bounty hunting involves several jumps.

7:  Piracy is interesting because of logistics.  If a band of pirates convert three YT-1300 into gunboats and capture a GR-75, there is no way that they can steal its entire cargo, they don't have the hold!  So either they collect valuables and steal fuel *or* they steal the entire ship, but now selling the cargo is difficult...

8:  There is more to say about this - economies are complex, even more so galactic one.  But a full simulation is impossible AND not necessary.  How to use this in a game will have to be another blog post...

Slugman-onomics

So, your PCs have grown in power and influence, and they want to start their own Slugman house, or they have taken control of one etc.  They wonder about the budget.  How do the numbers look?

Pretty big.  So big in fact that we need a new unit of currency to make the numbers manageable.  For Yoon Suin, I propose the gold talent, which corresponds to 26 kg (!) of gold.

(Because I'm a stickler for details in my game a  talent is worth 6771 gp.  I recommend a more manageable number if you want to do this yourself, but I'm doing the work for you so you don't have to suffer)

The 5e PHB tells us that the aristocratic lifestyle costs 10gp+ per day - this includes fancy dwelling, fine foods and clothing, servants, guards etc... so essentially, you can multiply 10 X # slugmen X 365 to get the yearly cost of running a slugman house - this isn't even any "special projects", this is just keeping your slugmen fed, housed, and served upon.  A medium sized (100 members) house has therefore the *alarming* expenses of about 54 talent a year (ie 365 000 gp)! If we round this up a bit, we end up with 0.5 gold talents/year/slugman, which is a huge value *but* facilitates calculations.  So the House of Leaves, with 56 members, requires at least 28 gold talents a year to break even.

The easiest income source for slugmen is rent collection, as they own all buildings in the Yellow City. - in fact, rent is the main form of "taxation".  Using a modification of these numbers (185 gp yearly income for non-slugmen citizens), an average size of 4500 people in an average wealth district, 40% rent (but only 30% collected - the missing 10% is for expenses, maintenance of buildings etc), you get about 37 gold talents a year.  This is fine if you are a small house, but what if you're the house of White and Black with 200 members?  You need other business ventures.

Here are a few examples.

Pottery smuggling ring:
1 ship carrying 200 tons dropped off on an island, 4 shipment a year.  1 item of pottery = 1 gp.  1 item = 1 pound but packaging etc, so 1 ton = 500 items = 500 gp.  Duty is 30%, you avoid it but you have expenses so your profit on the smuggling is 15%.  Total about 9 talents a year.  

Tea importation.   
100 river boat loads a year.  Based on my research, that's about 500 tons a year (this is a realistic number.  I figure that the Yellow city consumes at least a ton a day, so add slugmen excess, exports to Xian etc...).  1 tea brick =4 rupees and slightly over a pound, or about 112 talents.  Slap your monopolistic 30% duty on it, and that's 34 talents.  This is why the Council House are so wealthy. 

Quicksilver mine.
For that we can thank Pliny the Elder.  If expenses are included already in that price, we are at about 3 gold talents a year, not that great (edit: previous calculations were wrong), but this is in net profit, and if you slap a few duties on export, you can probably squeeze a few more talents.  The main weakness in using Pliny is the lack of knowledge about how well his prices line up up with Yoon-Suin prices.  The scale is interesting here.  3 talents a year is a lot of money, and yet it's barely sufficient to sustain 6 slugmen!  

Hair transplant services.
You laugh, but my players *actually did this*.  At its peak, the business was pulling about 3 talents a year, which is really good for a small shop offering slugmen of discerning taste the unique experience of having hair.  This is not sustainable (fads end) and relied on having a unique artefact, but it shows how a clever adventurer can get *much more* out of a quirky item than by simply auctioning it off... 

Lastly, I will note that the GDP of the Yellow City would be about 10 000 talents a year *were it a city of average wealth* - as we know it's a wealthy place due to its position as a the sole port of entry for the entirety of Yoon-Suin, it could be triple that.  The slugmen, at 3% of the total population, consume 1/6 of the resources... 

Continual light/flame - how common are they?

So I was prepping this adventure in a castle where I figured that several rooms would be dark - the servants have been prevented by mayhem (why the PCs are called in) from lighting or replacing candles, torches etc. Then I realized - silly me, this castle is owned by a powerful wizard, there should be continual flame spells everywhere.

(In several editions of D&D, there is a "continual light" spell - a light that lasts forever.  There is usually a cost (in 5e, it's 50 gp's worth of ruby dust), so you can't do it willy nilly.)

But then I started thinking about it... Continual flame spells are expensive and should be rare... or *are they*?

Let us consider not a mage or a rich noble, who of course can afford it, but a modest artisan. He's doing ok for himself, living a lifestyle of 1.5 gp a day (halfway between modest and comfortable by 5e standards). He needs light every evening in a single room, for 3 hours on average. Nothing extravagant. This, however, has a cost. If he uses a lantern or lamp, this is about 5 cp/night. Candles would cost him 3 cp/night (and shed less light). Torches are as cheap and shed more light, but the smoke... so let's stick with an oil lamp - he's has a little bit of money, after all.

At 5 cp a night, this adds up to about 18.25 gp a year. So in other words, a continual flame spell would pay for itself in less than 3 years! People in the middle ages were capable of long term planning - they did long term projects for great gains - building a fence, planting an orchard, or building a cathedral. Our artisan could, for example, limit himself to candles and in less than a decade, take the spare 2cp/night to buy the continual light, and save that 5 cp a night for other things.  The spell is safer (no fire risk) and sheds no smoke. And his light can be passed on to his children etc.  

I do have to note that this is just for the material cost, not the fee to the caster.  But even if the cost is doubled, it's still a good deal.

Given that continual light spells can be cast by low-level casters, I can see this as a common, harmless way to raise funds. Want to fund your magical research but low on funds?  Make some magical lamps and tell them to the local baron!  Temples could sell them too to the faithful, those cathedrals need maintenance - they might be hesitant to give magic to the masses, but (same as a potion of healing), what harm could *light* do? Even very humble peasants may have one - the "family continual flame", passed down from generation to generation - it was given to great grandfather Jeb by the bishop as a reward for his help in fighting off the goblins - or some other colorful story. 

Having continual flames everywhere may be too "magical" for the setting you want to create. But the economics tell us that, unless casters are *incredibly* rare, they should be all over the place.  

Another quick bit of number crunching.  In the kingdom of Notsomagicland, there are 10 million people, but only, at any given time, 100 casters (on average) capable of casting continual flame.  They only deign cast the spell once a year, and the spell has a duration of 1000 years (it's permanent, but accidents/loss happen).  So... with this limited number of casters, who rarely use their magic, there are 100 000 magical lights around at any given time... Now imagine if there are 1000 casters.  And they cast it 1/month... 

Given that in Yoon Suin, the ruling class are almost *all* spellcasters and it is a very large city... you're going to have a lot more than 100 casters.  But I think that in Yoon-Suin, continual flame would be seen as *boring*.  Oh sure your room is lit by continual flame.  I use candles... made with yakmen tallow.  You can smell their anger!

Interestingly, in Veins of the earth, light is incredibly precious underground, and 1 gp = 1 hour of light.  So a continual flame would be priceless.  I imagine for that game the spell would have to be modified, otherwise the economy doesn't make sense.  And that's ok!  Change away, it's your game.  

On the value of Mercury

In my Yoon-Suin game, the party came in posession of a few pounds of quicksilver (aka mercury}, and wanted to know how much it was worth.   I think we can all agree that quicksilver would be considered to have significant value... but that's vague. Is it as valuable as copper? As gold? More than gold? etc etc.

Now, I could have just made something up, but what's the fun in that?  Surely there must be some ancient value we can look at?  I tried again and again to find information on the price of mercury in the middle ages, but to no avail. However, I have just found a quote from Pliny the Elder on the value of cinnabar - a pigment in its own right, but also a mercury-based mineral:

"Nothing is more carefully guarded. It is forbidden to break up or refine the cinnabar on the spot. They send it to Rome in its natural condition, under seal, to the extent of some ten thousand pounds a year. The sales price is fixed by law to keep it from becoming impossibly expensive, and the price fixed is seventy sesterces a pound."

Ok, so the price of cinnabar - which has the chemical formula of HgS, is 70 sesterces a pound. 

First, some roman unit conversions. 1 roman pound = 328.9 grams, so cinnabar is 96.6 sesterces an imperial pound.

The value of the sesterce varies, but I believe that around the time of Pliny it was worth 1/4 of a denarius, which is a common silver coin (3.9 grams/coin). So 1 imperial pound of cinnabar = 24.2 silver pieces.

All right! but what about quicksilver... Well here we have to do some fiddling.

1: Purity: I'm going to assume that this ore isn't completely pure since it's in natural condition, but that also it's not garbage, so 75% pure

2: Processing efficiency. This is is a *wild* guess, but I'm going to assume that the process is 50% efficient - there are some losses due to evaporation of mercury and other errors.

3: Processing cost: this is a reflection of the cost of refining the cinnabar into mercury. Alchemists and retorts aren't cheap (see this wikipedia file for a neat illustration). I'm going to say this doubles the cost.

4: Amount of mercury in cinnabar: ah well this one we have exact numbers based on atomic weight and the HgS formulae: 200.6/232.6, or 86% This is *not* the same as #1, that was for pieces of rocks and other impurities.

So the cost of a pound of quicksilver is: (24.2 X 2)/(0.86 X 0.5 X 0.75) = 150.1 silver pieces (for pieces of silver of 3.9 grams), or 585 grams of silver.

This means that quicksilver is almost 1.5 times as valuable as silver by weight, which makes it fairly precious, but not insanely so.  I'm not sure if this is the correct number, but at least we know it's a plausible one.

Lastly, I note that is we look at Pliny the Elder's quote again, we can conclude that the cinnabar business was worth over 175 000 sp a year- not a bad gig.

The Treasure Trove and Inflation

I've seen, occasionally, the notion floated that heroes discovering a large amount of gold (say, the traditional dragon horde) would cause massive inflation and would send the prices rising.

I think... that's a dubious proposition. 

Let's say that in a typical fantasy D&D world (and we'll use the 5e price list), and your party defeats some large dragon.  You come back into town with a quarter million gold pieces, along with a lot of gems and magical items.   What would happen?

First of all, a part of the treasure isn't going to be injected in the local economy.  The gems will probably be kept for emergency/easily portable treasure. The magical items will be kept/used or traded (probably for other items). Only the gold/silver will be injected in the local economy.

Second, although it *sounds* like a lot, a quarter of a million gp is not that much wealth in D&D. I've done math calculating the average GDP per inhabitant (see my previous post). The average income is about 220 gp/citizen. So a small town of 2000 people will have a yearly income of 440 000 gp.  A kingdom of 5 million people has a GDP of over a billion gp! The extra gold will be good for the local economy yes, but it will not lead to ridiculous inflation. 

(I'll note that this doesn't really seem to jive with historical data, but that's because a single gold piece is worth less in D&D than in the medieval era.  Why?  I don't know, all those dwarves mining gold?)

Lastly, it probably won't all be spent at once anyway. The PCs will probably be more generous and free wheeling with their money (and some villagers will take advantage of this) but... 

so.... the notion that adventurers and their gold lead to massive inflation is misleading. It should be noted it will be good for the local economy as there often was a shortage of currency. Could this lead to light inflation? Sure. A spike in the price of one or two items because the party suddenly bought all the supply (say, healing potions?)? Sure.  The villagers charging the heroes more since they are flush with cash and probably feeling a bit generous?  Quite possibly.

Overall inflation that the GM should bother about (for "realism" reasons), or use as a tool to reign in the extreme wealth? No.

(And if I didn't manage to convince you... what happens in the real world? You live in a small village. You win the lottery, an immense amount (say 100 million dollars). Is there an inflation boom in the village? No.)

How to reign in extreme wealth?  Well that's an entirely different blog post isn't it :D

Reasonable rewards

So, a town of 3000 people has a trouble with brigands.  They offer a reward... how much should it be?  What is reasonable?  Can we "figure it out"?  It turns out, we can!

I will explain the math to arrive to this number in the second half of this post (I know it's not everyone's cup of tea) and I'll just skip ahead to the result for the moment 

So: The bigger the city/town/barony/village/community etc, the bigger the reward it can afford to offer. Of course, two communities could have the exact same number of citizens but have different level of wealth, but this is a baseline. You also have to consider the danger/importance of the task. If a goblin is stealing sheep, you don't offer 10 000 gp. Low importance/danger/priority tasks are "copper" level. Serious issues are silver. Dire ones are gold. 

So take the number of people in the town, multiply by 2, then give that amount of coins in reward of the suitable level. Here are a few examples:

The road leading to a village of 400 people has been afflicted by a band of brigands, severely impeding trade. Task level serious (silver): 400 X 2 = 800 sp = 80 gp to take on the brigands.  This isn't a lot of money, but the village *doesn't* have a lot of money, and the brigands haven't been attacking the village directly.

A town of 3000 people, poorly fortified. An aggressive tribe of orc is in the area and scouts indicate that it will probably raid the town, killing several people and inflicting major damage. at best (they could burn it to the ground...) Task level: dire (gold) so 3000 X 2 = 6000 gp to deal with the orcish threat.  The mayor is opening the city coffers to save his town.

A city of 50 000 people. Groups of convics are responsible to maintain the sewers, but some have disappeared. City guards have been unable to find anything. Divination magic indicates that the prisoners have not escaped but have been slain. City officials want to keep this quiet before panic follows. Task level low: 50 000 x 2 = 100 000 cp = 1000 gp 

You will note that this means that the reward for a low threat is quite large for a large city. This doesn't meant they are throwing their money around. Rather, smaller threats are simply dealt by the people the city have on permanent employ. The city would simply send a company of horsemen to sweep the road clear of brigands for example. It's only when their own resources are insufficient/inadequate that they need to hire "specialists" - the PCs.

I'll note that these reward represent a ceiling for rewards, and that a town may offer *less* money for a task to be accomplished.  But it also means that a hamlet of 100 people can't offer 5000 gp for the return of a kidnapped child - they just can't afford to.

I also note that these numbers are for 5e.  In older editions of D&D I believe that the laborer's salary was 1 sp/day, not two, so half the numbers.  For warhammer or the GLOG... I hadn't done the math yet, but using the above principles it shouldn't be too hard. 

Lastly, these rewards could mess up game systems where the XP reward is based on gold found/awarded, or games where magical items are easily purchased, so gold = power (I'm looking at you pathfinder), so it's something you should keep in mind.  

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So how are those numbers derived? Well, how does a town make money? Taxes! How much money is there to tax? The 5e PHB on page 157 gives us a good idea of people's income. So first we have to divide the people into income slices. Here are the numbers I came up with. They are based on the assumption that many people were simple peasants/laborers and thus poor.  This is also linked to my "economic yardstick" concept -  in other words, what the PCs can be paid is based on what the standards of living are.

20% non tax payers: this include people too poor to pay taxes, criminals, children etc

50% poor: their income is 2 sp/day

20% modest: income is 1 gp/day

8% comfortable: 2 gp/day

1% wealthy: 4 gp/day

1% aristocratic: 10 gp/day. 

Using a spreadsheet you can easily calculate the population's total income per year, and then figure out the average income per citizen. I did this and calculated that it is about 220 gp/citizen year. 

So how much of this income can be taxed by the city? Well... not as much as you may think. The people are also paying religious tax *and* taxes going to the king/emperor/duchess whatever. So the mayor/baroness/city council can't take too much. I've estimated this to be 10%. 

So this mean that the city yearly budget is 22 gp/citizen. A city of 10 000 people therefore has 22 000 gp to run the city per year. I decided to round the numbers a bit to get 20 gp/citizen

A low threat would warrant a response representing 0.1% of the yearly budget. A wise mayor has probably money set aside for such events, which happen semi-regularly. that means 2 copper piece per citizen

A serious threat warrants a serious response, and 1% of the budget get devoted to this grave problem. That means 2 sp/citizen.

A dire threat is near catastrophic, and the town opens the coffers in the hope to lure powerful hero to save them! 10% of the budget - all that can be spared really - is devoted to this problem. Ie 2 gp/citizen.

There are threat levels which are quite frankly catastrophic, and deserve an even bigger response. However, at this point the sheer scope of the threat becomes more important than any rewards. The PCs will either go "The demon Shlub Megawrath from beyond the star is melting the bones of your children?!? This evil shall not stand!!!" .... or they will go "So you managed to anger 50 dragons eh? Thanks for letting us know. We have an urgent... appointment... in that other kingdom we have to go to... good luck!"

(this post is based on an old EN World post)

Your economic yardstick - the laborer

I once read this story about a tailor who had a client who was in a great hurry.  The tailor measured the man's thumb circumference, and told the client he could go.

The client protested - surely that wasn't enough.  The tailor answered that if he had the man's thumb circumference, he could multiply to get the wrist circumference.  If he had the wrist, then he could deduce the neck, and from the neck the waist etc etc. 

What does this have to do with a fantasy economy?  Well everything is interconnected.  The price of a simple sword is based on the cost of iron, but also on the labor cost for the smith who made it, and perhaps also of the merchant who brought it to you.  The smith's labor cost are in part based on the cost of food and fuel, and those also have labor costs.   Meanwhile the merchant has to do run a profit and he has staff to pay, taxes and bribes to deal with and all sorts of complication.

Because of this, and because our historical records of prices in the middle ages are not great (and vary a lot depending on the era and the location), it's *really hard* to have a price list in gaming that doesn't collapse upon close scrutiny.  Usually related items make sense - if a short sword is 10 gp, the long sword might be 15 gp for example.  But is the price of that sword reasonable when compared to an ox?  A cart?  A lantern?  A meal?  Maaaaybe?   

I'm not suggesting to redo entire price lists so they are all "correct".  To do so would be a herculean task and not the best use of your time as a GM.  But sometimes you *do* want to verify if a price is "reasonable".  And for that, you need a yardstick.  You need a value that you have decided "of all the prices in the book, *this* one is correct".  This yardstick should be something pretty fundamental.  

I propose the cost of living - specifically, the cost to hire a general laborer.  The laborer is a poor person - but they won't work for an amount that won't somewhat meet basic living needs.  So this value is tied to a lot of things.

In older editions of D&D, this was 1 sp/day.  In 5e, the "poor" costs of living is 2 sp/day, or, in Yoon-Suin terms, 1 rupee a day (1 sp/day is considered "miserable").  This is a doubling, but it's still in the same ballpark.  We aren't after an *exact* value here, but rather a nice round number that is plausible and we can use that number to figure out other things.

Is this value plausible?  Well in ancient Greece, half a drachma (a 4.3 gram silver coin) could provide for a poor citizen so we are certainly in the right ballpark.

Warhammer also has charts of yearly income for various types of hireling.  A skilled mercenary (ie, a PC...) can expect a yearly rate of  25-50 gp a year, ie roughly 0.5-1 gp a week (in this system 1 gp = 20 sp) or a few sp a day.  Meanwhile, a peasant will make about 12-15 gp a year.  Clearly in this system 1 sp is worth more... but we are still in the right ballpark.  

So this is what I propose - Whatever the game system you are using, look at the cost of living as your fundamental economic unit, whenever you need to figure out if the value of something is plausible.  Both D&D and warhammer frpg have laid those out pretty clearly.   

I'll be writing more about fantasy economies, but this is the foundation upon everything else will be built. 

The House of Beetles

Here is one of many noble slugmen house in the Yellow City, in the Yoon Suin setting.

The house of beetles  (Waa Bu) used to be a small scholarly house specializing in the study of insects.  Their studies allowed them to breed and control Messenger Beetles, which when released will instinctively return to the location they associate with their nests - perhaps carrying as mall message with them.

This discovery has become a lucrative messenger beetle service connecting the slugpeople Houses as well as many other institutions, as the beetles are able to cross the Yellow City much faster than a courier.   This has allowed the house to rise in importance, and although they have nowhere the influence of one of the 17 houses on the Council, they are much more powerful than the average house of scholars. 

Ironically, this large concentration of messenger beetles attracted predators, and the house had to employ archers to protect incoming/leaving messengers.  Over time the house thus developed a reputation for crack archery.   To succeed like a beetle archer means to get very good at something despite it never being your goal.

The House of beetle is located in the Old Quarters.  The house has almost 150 members, along with numerous servants who look after the messenger beetles and the archers.  Their compound features many tall towers.

Notable members include Qa Fol, who deals in commercial matters and is a holyman of the Lord of Bread (level 4) and who bemoans the quantities of bread he has to eat.  An ex-member is Fo Kulo (mage level 9), who was now exiled for intercepting and selling Council messages.

Coinage - it's complicated

D&D coinage tends to be very simple.  1gp = 10 sp = 100 cp, with sometimes platinum and electrum thrown into the mix.

However, this is not very historically accurate.  Things were often much more muddled than that, and some games have attempted to emulate this.  Warhammer frpg for example uses a 1 crown = 20 shillings = 240 pennies, which does have some historical basis.

In my experience over the years, I've discovered that while a more accurate and complex coin system can be satisfying for the GM to research, design and use... unfortunately in actual gameplay, it's kind of a pain  (the above Warhammer example is about as complex as you want to get).  Your players probably won't like the bewildering array of coins and strange ratios, and it slows the game down.  

So what to do if you do want a complex coinage system anyway?  You use "a unit of account".   This is a unit of currency that is widely used to measure value, even though actual coins of that value may be rare, or non-existent even.  The actual specific coins used for this are not important, but the PCs know instantly what the value is.   This level of abstraction speeds up the game, and the various coinage can fade in the background *until* they becomes important because of a plot or logistical issue.

For example, a specific coin is being forged.  The PCs are investigating.  Or the PC found a fortune... in Oxide Ingot , the fortune weight tons, what to do?  

In my Yoon Suin campaign, the unit of account is the Rupee - a big fat silver coin that has a fair amount of prestige associated with it, but is rarely seen in circulation.   So if the party is offered a 10 000 rupee reward to undertake a dangerous mission, they will probably paid in a mixture of gold and silver pieces.

All the players need to know is 1 gp = 5 rupee = 10 sp = 320 cp 

The actual values:

1 mohur = 3 gp = 15 rupee

1 gp = 5 rupee = 10 sp

1 rupee = 2 silver pieces = 16 anna = 64 paise = 192 pie

1 sp = 8 anna = 32 paise = 96 pie

1 anna = 4 paise = 12 pie

1 paise = 3 pie

The coins

The Mohur is a large, rare gold coin minted in the Yellow city.  Being paid in actual Mohur is a privilege, and people prefer hoarding them than spending them, keeping them out of circulation

The "standard" gold piece is a small piece of gold, used by merchants and the wealthy, mostly minted in the oligarchies and the hundred kingdoms.  (3.84 g)

The rupee is a large silver coin, as noted above, and being paid in actual rupee has some prestige.  Like the Mohur, it is frequently hoarded.  A rupee/day is the "minimum wage" - what a free laborer can expect to get, although they probably will be paid in a mixture of silver pieces, annas and paises.  

The "standard" silver piece covers a large array of mediumish silver coins that have over the centuries being somewhat standardized to be worth half a rupee.  The half-rupee coin itself is uncommon but isn't seen as special.  A lot come from the hundred kingdoms, the oligarchies and the Mountains of the Moon.  These coins are in large circulations   5.4 g on average

The Anna is a very small silver piece, minted mostly in the Yellow City.  It's frequently debased and forged, and as such the anna is not accepted for large sums and is seen as suspicious.  "Being paid in annas" is a euphemism for doing unsavory deeds for money.  However there are many in circulation. (0.675 g)

The Paise is a large copper coin with a hole in the middle.  In the Yellow City, the majority (easily recognized due to the square hole) are imported by merchants from far away Xian.  This is a coin frequently used by the poor but unlike the Anna it is seen as "honest money" and is in very large circulation.

The Pie is a hardened lead coin of little value, seen as fit for children and beggars, and is minted in the Yellow city.  However it is rarely counterfeited (why bother?) and can still buy you a cup of tea, so it's worth something :)

Another form of "currency" is the tea brick.  A tea brick of "the third quality" (the most common) is worth 4 rupee and weights slightly over a pound.

Lastly, there are the is the silver and gold talents, an enormous mass of precious metal (26 kg!) that only the ultra wealthy deal with...  (1 gold talent = 6771 gp)    1 silver talent = 2 407 rupee, about 2 476 cm3)