The naming of coin throughout Therasya is deeply rooted in the Thergen custom. Their earliest pieces were once named for kings, dynasties or the metals from which they were struck. In time, this custom changed, and their coins took the names of those things upon which the Thergen believed civilization itself had been founded. Thus came the Nail which binds what is built, the Rune by which metal is taught to bear magic, the Hammer that shapes what Mother Thera yields and the Anvil upon which raw matter is given purpose and made useful.
What the Darknesses Carried
During the great Darknesses, when whole nations abandoned their lands and passed years within the refuge-cities and deep sanctuaries of the Thergen, this manner of naming travelled with them along with other habits. When the survivors returned home, many kingdoms began to name their own coins in like fashion. In the current Spire, such names are more often drawn from a tool, creature, place or great event that speaks of the nature and history of the people who mint them. For this reason, the coins of Therasya now bear names as varied as the realms themselves, yet beneath them remains something of the old Thergen belief that a coin represents more than the metal weighed by the merchant.
The Craft of the Mint
Coin naming was not the only Thergen custom carried home by those nations once sheltered beneath their mountains. Much of the craft of their mints was learned there as well. The cutting of dies, the weighing of metal, the tempering of alloys and the striking of clear and lasting images all owe something to Thergen teaching. With every passing Spire these arts have been refined, until the finer coins of Therasya bear not only signs of worth, but small histories wrought in metal. Thus, there are pieces now prized almost as much for the craftsmanship that fashioned them as for the metal from which they were struck.
The worth of coin, however, is another matter. Gold, iron and platinum pass readily enough between trusted hands, while silver has become too precious to be spent freely upon common coinage. The Alliance consumes great quantities of it in the making of Cold Iron, wards and protective works and, more importantly, in the difficult Thergen craft by which Erevium is harnessed and bound to mortal purpose. Silver that might once have passed from mint to purse is now guarded for forge and war. New silver pieces are therefore seldom struck, save to mark an occasion judged worthy of remembrance: the crowning of a ruler, the ending of a great war, or some victory upon which the survival of the Alliance depended. Such pieces as the silver issue struck in 290 A.S. in Andor City, in remembrance of the Heroes of the Seed, are now prized far beyond the worth of the silver they contain.
For dealings between kingdoms, the great Counting Houses serve as the appointed changers, keeping carefully copied tables of metal weight and purity and recording the customary worth of the better-known issues. Among the Alliance, accepted reckonings have grown through long use, so that at the recognized houses of exchange a Thergen Hammer, an Andorian Pentar or a Feyan Sun may pass according to an agreed measure, without every bargain beginning anew with scales, knives and suspicion. Yet no decree has banished misers from Therasya, nor has coin ceased to command the desires of men. These reckonings are covenants of trust sanctioned by the Alliance Council, rather than commands of any single crown, and a doubtful coin is still judged by the metal that remains within it.
The Vault of the Alliance
There is, however, one treasury whose purpose stands above the concerns of ordinary trade. Within the guarded halls of the Thergen Empire lies the Vault of the Alliance, founded after the nations learned what gold is worth when enemies cross the borders and roads, harvests and markets are threatened or cut away entirely. Each allied realm places within it trusted coin, precious metal, gems and other stores of lasting value, to be drawn upon for grain, arms, transport, refuge and the keeping of armies before and during the first weeks of another great Darkness. For once it fully covers Therasya, coin matters no more.
The Vault is entrusted to five appointed Custodians, chosen in rotation from among the members of the Alliance. Each holds an enchanted key and is sworn and charged to open the Vault only when common need outweighs the claim of any single realm. No king may command its wealth by his word alone, not even the Thergen Emperor beneath whose protection the Vault rests.
Some nations that contribute to the common cause strike no coin of their own, while others use materials unlike those familiar to the mints of the south. The Makinkas, who have little desire to burden themselves with metal while crossing the skies, are the clearest example, while in other lands service, barter or foreign coin answer well enough. In Sin-Ba, the only native coin is wrought from an ironwood alloy, while in Atoles, obsidian pieces bear oaths of debt rather than promises of metal alone. In the far reaches of Othmog and the demon lands surrounding it, looted coin is gathered less for trade than as a measure of power, a trophy of conquest and, when opportunity permits, yet another means by which mortal greed may be turned toward corruption.
