Money

Money in Rifts Earth is a much less dependable thing than it was the past age. There is virtually no economy on the planet strong enough and ubiquitous enough that its currency is accepted everywhere. This holds true even in North America where although the value of goods and services is frequently expressed in ‘credits’ as a handy shorthand, the actual currency used to procure them if any varies widely.

As a rule of thumb trade is conducted these days either with barter or hard currency. Scrip and specie are both incredibly uncommon and tend to be very localized when they are encountered. Gemstones are a favored form of currency among those who move about a lot since their value is widely acknowledged, they’re very handy in several forms of magic and most importantly for many travelers they’re small and relatively light. Many larger communities in Rifts Earth also mint their own coinage in precious metals. Platinum, Gold, Silver and Copper are the most common metals used. Generally speaking these can be spent in most places too, regardless of where they were minted. Gold is gold after all no matter whose picture is on it.

Vesper and Dogwood both mint their own local forms of currency. Vesper uses small coins with square holes in the middle designed to be carried on strings for easy counting called ‘cash’ much like their Chinese antecedents of antiquity. In Dogwood, small rectangular coins designed to be easily segmented for change are used. These are commonly called ‘crowns’ and are minted with the image of the current king on them. Saren’s Rest has no local currency of its own though a couple enterprising metalworkers are presently attempting to popularize round golden ‘dragons’ in homage to Sarenthon. They haven’t taken off quite yet.

Communities in the wilderness may not have access to any of this, though, and trading one good or service for another is commonplace in the wilder places of the world. One can’t eat silver, after all, no matter how pretty it may be.