I made a bank for a homebrew world to give my players more reason to do certain quests, a way to keep their money safe, etc.
But I... don't know how a bank would work in a fantasy setting. Google doesn't help much and I can't find any official examples for DnD.
I know there needs to be a loan system for some quests to work but other than that I genuinely don't know what else it would do, how it would work, etc. So, I'm asking my fellow Dungeon/Game Masters for some help me with fleshing this idea out.
Banks should work like they do in the real world, with the added security against magical theft. Candlekeep has wards to prevent people from flying or teleporting in. There's no reason that the banks would be any different. They'd also probably be protected against Scrying and automatically dispel illusions and identify impersonators like dopplegangers or polymorphed creatures. And the bank would have branches in every major city.
If you want to get fancy, you could have the banks offer a Safety Deposit Box feature where the character is "attuned" to it and can once a day remotely summon it to make deposits or withdrawals.
But I... don't know how a bank would work in a fantasy setting. Google doesn't help much and I can't find any official examples for DnD.
Honestly, it can work in a lot of ways, and in a typical campaign most of the details don't matter. Broadly speaking, there are a couple of things a bank does
It can accept items or cash for safe storage. This will have a non-zero cost, though how much will depend on the quality of defenses (essentially, the deposits are paying for the vault, and the PCs are paying rental on some percentage of the vault).
It can accept cash that will be lent out (with the money used for bank profit, and to offset other fees). This is how a modern bank works; it's not a typical model for fantasy banks.
If can offer loans; how much this costs depends on the duration of the loan and the estimated risk that the recipient will fail to repay the loan. PCs being what they are, they probably can't get loans without collateral, and given likely PC collateral, treating a lender like a modern pawn shop would be pretty accurate. Loans to NPCs may work in other ways.
It can handle money transfers, via letter of credit or similar. This means a PC can deposit their cash in a bank in one city and withdraw it from another branch of the same bank (or an associated bank) in another city. This will have some service cost.
Other than establishing the rates for each service, and how distributed the branches of the bank are, there's not a lot of detail that will actually matter to PCs unless someone (possibly the PCs) decides to get into the business of bank robbery or fraud.
Do you really need to know how it'll work? Serious question, because I doubt your players will care. As suggested you could read up on the Medici family or the fact the Knights Templars (yes, those Knights Templar) operated the first international banking system but does any of that matter beyond your players wanting to borrow an amount of money and you asking them to pay it back plus interest?
You're probably best just copying the rather artificial Vivaldi banking system in Witcher 3 and have someone in a large city willing to loan money at a set interest rate with no real time scale to pay it back. Throw in a willingness to swap gems and treasure for cash in the same way Vivaldi swaps other coin denominations for crowns and I suspect that's all your players will ever ask for
I made a bank for a homebrew world to give my players more reason to do certain quests, a way to keep their money safe, etc.
But I... don't know how a bank would work in a fantasy setting. Google doesn't help much and I can't find any official examples for DnD.
I know there needs to be a loan system for some quests to work but other than that I genuinely don't know what else it would do, how it would work, etc. So, I'm asking my fellow Dungeon/Game Masters for some help me with fleshing this idea out.
It might be interesting to read up about the banking families of the Italian Renaissance, like the Medicis.
The Sword Coast Trader's Bank is an "official" Forgotten Realms example.
Banks should work like they do in the real world, with the added security against magical theft. Candlekeep has wards to prevent people from flying or teleporting in. There's no reason that the banks would be any different. They'd also probably be protected against Scrying and automatically dispel illusions and identify impersonators like dopplegangers or polymorphed creatures. And the bank would have branches in every major city.
If you want to get fancy, you could have the banks offer a Safety Deposit Box feature where the character is "attuned" to it and can once a day remotely summon it to make deposits or withdrawals.
I honestly didn't know this was a thing! Thank you!!
They can be far more like modern banks than historical due to magical communication and long-distance travel. Though that assumes common magic.
You'll probably find it useful to look into letters of credit as a concept.
Honestly, it can work in a lot of ways, and in a typical campaign most of the details don't matter. Broadly speaking, there are a couple of things a bank does
Other than establishing the rates for each service, and how distributed the branches of the bank are, there's not a lot of detail that will actually matter to PCs unless someone (possibly the PCs) decides to get into the business of bank robbery or fraud.
Do you really need to know how it'll work? Serious question, because I doubt your players will care. As suggested you could read up on the Medici family or the fact the Knights Templars (yes, those Knights Templar) operated the first international banking system but does any of that matter beyond your players wanting to borrow an amount of money and you asking them to pay it back plus interest?
You're probably best just copying the rather artificial Vivaldi banking system in Witcher 3 and have someone in a large city willing to loan money at a set interest rate with no real time scale to pay it back. Throw in a willingness to swap gems and treasure for cash in the same way Vivaldi swaps other coin denominations for crowns and I suspect that's all your players will ever ask for