Coins of the Forgotten Realms

by Rick Underwood

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Kree Firemane, leader of the Company of the Boar, came out of wizard's tower, holding a small sack and shaking her head. Her three companions, Brun the dwarven warrior, Aleena the druid, and William the Scout waited anxiously, sheltering from the hot sun in the shade of a building.
"Did you get all the money?" asked William, interrupting Brun who was about to ask the same thing.
"I think so," replied Kree. "He said our payment is in this sack."
"Well, didn't you look?" said Brun, interrupting William this time. For all their differences, William and Brun thought along the same lines when it came to cold, hard treasure.
"Of course I looked," replied Kree, a little angrily. "There's plenty of coins in there."
"He wasn't too angry about the frogs?" asked William. "Did you tell him we couldn't tell the difference?"
"Yes I explained about that," said Kree wearily. "After all, being sent to find a polymorphed friend in a swamp, armed with a bunch of detect magic spells, I don't wonder at his amazement when we turned up with two frogs instead of one."
"And one of them being a baby slaad, he wasn't upset by that?" persisted William.
"No, he could handle that. He was a little more perturbed when the slaad mother from the swamp turned up to whisk her child away. Apparently there is a enclave of slaads living in the swamp here, having been transported here somehow from their home plane. Anyway the mother slaad didn't cause too much damage."
"I guess its obvious now," said Aleena, thoughtfully. "I mean it didn't really look much like the other frogs, and it radiated magic quite strongly. But we couldn't take the chance it wasn't the one we were looking for. Luckily we found them both at the same time. If we had found the slaadling first we would have stopped looking."
"Enough of that," broke in Brun taking the sack from Kree. "Let's look at what we have here." The dwarf reached in and pulled out a gnarly fistful of coins. "Hmmm, a mixed bag all right. A couple of Kronna from Scornubel, a Double eagle from Baldur's Gate, a florin from Sembia, uh oh!" The dwarf plunged his hand back into the back and drew out another handful of metal coins.
"What!" cried three voices in unison. "There's quite a few coins from Tethyr here," said the dwarf, scowling. "In fact more than a bloody few!"
"So?" said Aleena. "Gold is gold isn't it?"
"Yes, but coins ain't coins," said William, shaking his head. "By that I mean what a gold coin is worth in one place, doesn't mean it is worth the same elsewhere."
"These Tethyr coins," continued Brun. "Some are worth nearly half the value. See these coins here, why they're from a city called Saradush, where there is a lot of political unrest. In fact the whole damn country is in political unrest, but Saradush is experiencing the worst right now. This makes their coins of less value to others. On top of that it is suspected that the minting of the coins is not as pure as other places."
"All gold coins have other metals mixed in," said William. "Otherwise, gold being so soft, the coins would last no time at all. But our short and ugly friend is quite right in saying that the word is coins from Tethyr contain more other metals than gold. This might not be true of course, but it devalues the coins nevertheless."
"You mean most of the money is valueless?" cried Kree.
"No," answered Brun, glaring at William. "But it does mean we didn't get as much as we hoped, not if we spend it here, anyway."
"Well then," said William cheerily. "How 'bout a trip to Tethyr? I quite fancy a trip in the country, and we've got lots of spending money!" The responses to Max's suggestion were short and unprintable in a family homepage such as this.

Coins of the Forgotten Realms

Coins in D&D are often called simply gold pieces or silver pieces, etc. Realistically each city or country would call their coins something different. In a treasure trove of the Forgotten Realms you could find Sembian florins, grouts from Silverymoon and nobs minted in Zhentil Keep. This gives the game more flavour and reality. However it has been my experience that if the DM varies too far from the traditional AD&D decimal value system (using the English imperial system for example) your players may not be willing to make the jump with you. I recommend that just changing the names of the coins in different areas will be enough of a challenge for your players to keep track of.

Following is a suggested list of names for coins minted in different parts of the Forgotten Realms. Where a coin type is not listed (such as platinum pieces in Hillsfar) that location does not mint that particular coin.

Coins usually have the profile of the current ruler, the name of the territory or city, and a date on one side, and another icon/picture on the reverse. The names of the coins (Cormyran silver falcon, for example) often originate from the picture on the reverse of the coin.

Unless otherwise noted, all coins are accepted (perhaps with some grumbling) at face value anywhere in the Realms. Values separated by a slash indicate the value of the coin anywhere in the Realms (before the slash) and value within that city or territory (after the slash).

The following is a mixture of material published by TSR and my own creation.

Amn * Balder's Gate Cormyr Eltural
Fandar = 1 cp Head = 1 cp Copper thumb = 1 cp Square = 1 cp (square coin)
Taran = 1 sp Sword = 1 sp Silver falcon = 1 sp Moon = 1sp (round coin)
Centaur = 1 ep Double Eagle = 1 gp Blue eyes = 1 ep Corner = 1 gp (triangular coins)
Danter = 1 gp Golden lion = 1 gp
Roldon = 1 pp Tricrown = 1 pp
Hillsfar Iriaebor Impiltur Mirabar #
Copper weight = 1 cp Cord = 1 cp Copper mark = 1 cp Tanner = 1 cp
Shill = 1 sp Torch = 1 sp Silver mark = 1 sp Dena = 1 sp
Half-crown = 1 ep Scroll = 1 gp Electrum mark = 1 ep Orb =  1 gp
Crown = 1 gp Gold mark = 1 gp
Platinum mark = 1 pp

* Amn also uses trade bars of silver or electrum valued at 500 or 1000 gold pieces.

# Mirabar also uses black iron trade bars with the following values:

Moonshaes Mulmaster Neverwinter Procampur
Penny = 1 cp Knarr = 1 cp Miner = 1 cp Sestus = 1 cp
Shilling = 1 sp Cog = 1 sp Smith = 1 sp Drachma = 1 sp
Half-crown = 1 ep Drakkar = 1 gp Lord = 1 gp Pyron = 1 gp
Crown = 1 gp
Coat of Arms 1 = pp
Raven's Bluff Sembia Silverymoon Thay
Denari = 1 cp Groat = 1 cp Farthing = 1 cp Shek = half cp
Hyper = 1 sp Dollar = 1 sp Grout = 1 sp Fen = 1 cp
Ducat = 1 gp Laurel = 1 ep Electrum Moon = 2.5 sp Drama = 1 sp
Florin = 1 gp Talent = 1 gp Nomisma = 1 gp
Eagle = 1 pp Talon = 1 gp
Regal = 1 pp

and finally, two great enemies;

Waterdeep Zhentil Keep
Copper bit = 1 cp Con = 1 cp
Gross = 1 sp Nob = 1 sp
Cup = 1 ep Aura = 1 gp
Dragon = 1 gp
Shield = 1 pp
Toal 0/2 gp
Harbour Moon 10/50 gp

Tethyr

Due to the current political state in Tethyr individual cities have started minting their own gold coins. They are worth one gold piece in the city of issue only, elsewhere in the Realms their value is as follows.

Note this is only approximately the value as given in "Empire of the Sands" sourcebook which has an even more complicated system.

City Coin Name Value elsewhere
Zazesspur Gulder 9 sp
Ithmong Molean 8 sp
Myratma Myrat 7 sp
Saradush Zoth 6 sp

Calimshan

Individual city-states of Calimshan mint their own coins but all can be found anywhere in the country, and often elsewhere in the Forgotten Realms.

These coins (including thier weird names) are from the Empire of the Sands sourcebook. Where there is a space the city does not mint coins of that type.

City Platinum Gold Electrum Silver Copper
Calimport Kilarche Bicenta Centarche Decarche Unarche
Almraiven Tazo Rada
Teshburi Pulon Niften
Manshaka Djendjen Djendive Spanner
Keltar Redoline Messine
Memnon Great worm Zonth Red worm
Volothamp Mandrille Rekatik Espedrille

Merchants in the Forgotten Realms commonly use small trade bars of electrum or silver in 10, 25 and 50 gp denominations. They will be stamped with the denomination, the trading company's trail mark or merchant's symbol, and sometimes a date (30% chance). The merchant nation of Amn mints large trade bars valued at 500 and 1000 gp.

The nation of Damara at its height exported chalcedony (bloodstone) bars in 25 gp denominations. After its fall these bloodstone bars were deemed worthless. However the country is now struggling to get back on its feet, and the bars may once again become valuable.

Note that I wrote this up in about May 1995.  There may have been some changes since then, as official products get released. As I no longer buy FR material (prefering my home made world of Haven) I have not kept up with the names of coins.  If you have a comment or wish to advise of an official coinage system for any city, please email me.

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