"I spit on your jink!" (Coinage in Sigil)

It's nice to see that my idea fell on fertile ground, but hopefully they won't grow so high to take the sight on the most beautiful blossoms. I "inveted" the Dustmoney to fill a hole in the plausibility of the setting where in my eyes the standart dnd rules ultimately fail. In our world central banks, nation states and scarce resources provide the overall stability of the monetary system. In Planescape, none of the above exist (or, only to a certain degree). Also it might be possible to fake money magically, so there'd be need of extensive controlling. The Dustmoney's use is limited to certain areas and functions and is most of the time not exposed to such problems. I didn't intend to expand the concept to other Factions, but now I think in some cases it fits.

The Harmonium is most likely to provide their own money. Heck, they rule over entire prime worlds and have a good grip in Arcadia and the Gatetown to it. The Athar might create something similar in the long run due to their exile.

What is an interesting feature also of real world's money: People have to believe in the worth of it and its meaning. We have to accept (and accepted) that we have to give some piece of paper and receive chewing gum. This makes countertrade superfluous and enables us to store great surpluses. So, on the planes, classic barter (do job X, receive magic item Y) will be pretty common.

No offence Kay, but we'd love to do just that to as many good ideas as we can get out hands on. It's a good idea, an interesting one, and one that definately has the Planescape 'feel' to it. And as for it not being important because you made it up? Never say that something doesn't exist in Planescape. One sentence in the Planewalker PDFs and it's cannon

That is one of those great articles I keep in my Planescape gming folder, to add flavor to my game. If this thread expounds upon that, fantastic.

The comment on believing in money got me wondering, though ... might there not likely be sects which outright refuse the use of money for that very reason? After all, belief empowers a thing and not everyone believes money is a beneficial invention. (dispite the fact that a pure trade economy is nigh impossible once the population base reaches a certain level)

Me, I have had trade serve as the primary form of exchange in the Hive since I started running - coins just don't go as far there ... you can't eat them, you can't wear them and how many people really get out of the Hive to go shopping in the Market?

Favors and information are always a popular trade good, as well.

However, a place as busy as Sigil isn't going to function well if people have to lead their packs of geese through the wards in hopes of getting a good value ... goods get stolen, killed, eaten, etc. Thus coinage is still the most effective means of trade in the large scale ...

Faction coins are fine when dealing with faction business, but many problems will doubtlessly arise if you try to use it freely in the Cage ... primarily from business owners refusing to accept certain faction currency - either do to philosophical differences or pressures from the other factions.

Thus, the Fated and Fraternity of Order will have established means to maintain a fairly reliable exchange system in the city of doors itself. Since the Takers are closely involved with the Planar Trade Consortium, (if I recall) getting the best value for different coins is going to be less of a problem ... though it will require the Faction have a handful of substantial counting houses where jink can be properly sorted and processed. (great hook for would be thieves, or Harmonium)

For those cultures and people who insist on dealing in goods, rather than coin, however, the Takers no doubt have a few chosen planes specifically set up to store material before it is sold and shipped to its ultimate destination ... though in order to deal in material goods you will need to get a Faction approved appraiser to look at your holdings and issue a statement of value, (imprinted with a magical seal to reduce the chance of fraud) which will, itself, come with a cost.

Overall, a semi-reliable coin system with a regulated exchange rate seems least complicated.

I agree, in Sigil money is money from whereever it came. But there was popular (and still is) money exchange scam, wich knights of post pull on green primes: they exchange their money for Sigilian "Jink" at outrageous rates.

BDW: Article on Mimir is great.