I was thinking of a homebrew city where there was lots of trade and fishing. In order to extricate the most money from the visitors, the government decided to convince merchants that they should deal in pearls and 'crystals' rather than metal coins. Visitors would need to convert their coins into pearls before they could do business with most merchants. The government even minted small brass coins in the shape of hexagons with a sailing ship on one side and the rulers face on the other side. This coin would be used only for 'copper pieces'. The pearls would be carried in small silk pouches. The smallest pearls were 'sold' by weight so the merchants would have authorized calibrated scales to weigh the pearls in the smallest pouch. The units of weight would be in "grains" and this would be the weight of a calibrated weight of grains of sand, or grains of wheat or whatever. You would have to calibrate it for yourself based on your setting. Larger pearls would have a value in grains, but not necessarily weigh as much as that many grains. So maybe a 5mm pearl would be the smallest 'big pearl' with an assigned value of 300 grains or something even though such a pearl would only weigh say 250 grains.
The point is that all prices, when accounting for the exchange rate for gold into pearls, would be higher that the regular price listed in the PHB for the goods. The players may take a moment or two to figure it out, and they will likely have the expected outrage reaction, but it then points to other plot elements.
The first plot element is that the players may be surprised to learn about the scam, but the regular visitors to the town are not. Regular visitors will likely bring large pearls that they will wish to convert into local currency when they arrive. The top government officials quite enjoy decorating their garments with large pearls to show off their wealth and status so they don't mind this arrangement. The smaller pearls are generally not worth much outside this town so they are generally in good supply and the brass coins are not accepted in most other cities so they don't float away either.
The second plot element is that regular shippers try to avoid converting their goods into money and then buying goods to take back, because this will cause them to lose value. So there is an underground element in the docks that attempt to facilitate bartering among the ship captains. The city government doesn't like this so they are trying to break it up, or are they?
Are they dealing with these underworld elements to get their profits through the 'back door' and/or possibly hide their profit from the scam from their higher-ups in the government. If they can conceal the profit from their Conversion Scam from the Marquis or Duke, then they can keep more of it in the city among the nobles. To what lengths are they willing to keep this secret?
How would this city react to a serious threat? Would they pull out all the stops to rid themselves of the dragon? Would they throw open the doors to the treasury to the party and offer them gold and platinum for their troubles? And is the dragon threatening the city because he can sense the wealth of gold hidden away somewhere in the vaults within the keep?
Are there magic users or otherworldly creatures drawn to the gold as well?
And then there are the 'crystals', which is just another word for gems here. What sort of gems are found in abundance here, or are scarce?
What other sorts of unofficial currency do the locals use to support their own illegal barter system they undoubtedly use to avoid the scam?
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I was thinking of a homebrew city where there was lots of trade and fishing. In order to extricate the most money from the visitors, the government decided to convince merchants that they should deal in pearls and 'crystals' rather than metal coins. Visitors would need to convert their coins into pearls before they could do business with most merchants. The government even minted small brass coins in the shape of hexagons with a sailing ship on one side and the rulers face on the other side. This coin would be used only for 'copper pieces'. The pearls would be carried in small silk pouches. The smallest pearls were 'sold' by weight so the merchants would have authorized calibrated scales to weigh the pearls in the smallest pouch. The units of weight would be in "grains" and this would be the weight of a calibrated weight of grains of sand, or grains of wheat or whatever. You would have to calibrate it for yourself based on your setting. Larger pearls would have a value in grains, but not necessarily weigh as much as that many grains. So maybe a 5mm pearl would be the smallest 'big pearl' with an assigned value of 300 grains or something even though such a pearl would only weigh say 250 grains.
The point is that all prices, when accounting for the exchange rate for gold into pearls, would be higher that the regular price listed in the PHB for the goods. The players may take a moment or two to figure it out, and they will likely have the expected outrage reaction, but it then points to other plot elements.
The first plot element is that the players may be surprised to learn about the scam, but the regular visitors to the town are not. Regular visitors will likely bring large pearls that they will wish to convert into local currency when they arrive. The top government officials quite enjoy decorating their garments with large pearls to show off their wealth and status so they don't mind this arrangement. The smaller pearls are generally not worth much outside this town so they are generally in good supply and the brass coins are not accepted in most other cities so they don't float away either.
The second plot element is that regular shippers try to avoid converting their goods into money and then buying goods to take back, because this will cause them to lose value. So there is an underground element in the docks that attempt to facilitate bartering among the ship captains. The city government doesn't like this so they are trying to break it up, or are they?
Are they dealing with these underworld elements to get their profits through the 'back door' and/or possibly hide their profit from the scam from their higher-ups in the government. If they can conceal the profit from their Conversion Scam from the Marquis or Duke, then they can keep more of it in the city among the nobles. To what lengths are they willing to keep this secret?
How would this city react to a serious threat? Would they pull out all the stops to rid themselves of the dragon? Would they throw open the doors to the treasury to the party and offer them gold and platinum for their troubles? And is the dragon threatening the city because he can sense the wealth of gold hidden away somewhere in the vaults within the keep?
Are there magic users or otherworldly creatures drawn to the gold as well?
And then there are the 'crystals', which is just another word for gems here. What sort of gems are found in abundance here, or are scarce?
What other sorts of unofficial currency do the locals use to support their own illegal barter system they undoubtedly use to avoid the scam?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt