Wednesday, March 13, 2019

On Currency Exchange


Have you ever been exiting a dungeon, but just had too much money weighing you down? Do you have a lot of copper pieces, and wish you could have a lesser amount of silver pieces that still are worth the same? Well I’ve got a spell for you!

Make Change
R: 10: T: coinage valued up to [sum] gp D: permanent
You magically transform one denomination of coinage into another with equivalent value. For example, you can transform 2gp into 200cp, or 200cp into 1gp, 6sp, and 4cp. You can only perform this exchange within the denominations of one type of currency (you can’t change wampum into gold, or vice-versa, for example). 
That’s for the GLOG, but you can probably convert it to any OSR game with ease.
Here’s a 5e version I made a while ago. Probably needs some cleaning up.

This spell, in its current format, is purely utility. You can turn all the money weighing you down, into smaller denominations that weigh you down less. I’ve limited it to only the omnipresent fantasy coinage, and only within that coinage, because weird stuff might happen exchanging between different types of currencies (Sure, you can exchange cowry shells into gold, that doesn’t seem too far-fetched. But you could also manipulate the exchange rate of the two currencies to just print money). There’s also the question of what counts as money. Could you turn old-school banknotes into gold? How about cattle, if people use them to barter? My version of the spell is limited to avoid this, but if you want to really open the can of worms that is exchange rates, be my guest.

Greed by Izzy

The Stone of Rand appears to be a fist sized, slightly oblong stone, a deep reflective black in color. In reality, it’s the physical form of a demon of greed. Upon touching the stone to an object and speaking the command phrase (Greed is good) it transforms said object into the amount of money the object was worth. It can only convert like, 20’ at a time, so you can’t destroy an entire building with it in one go. But you can punch holes in walls, turning them into coins. You can use the stone on prized works of art, stealing them while cutting out the need for a fence. Soon, this won’t be enough. Tell me, what’s the price of a human soul?
The Stone is cursed, obviously. The wielder is magically compelled to keep it on their person at all times (the bond can be broken with a remove curse, if you’re boring). The demon forced into this form isn’t a big fan of its current predicament, and requires payment to sate its hunger. The first day of having the stone, the demon requires only 1cp. The second day, it requires 2cp. The third day, 4cp. You can probably see where this is going; by day 31, the stone requires over 10 million gp. Failing to pay the dept any day causes the stone to immediately perform its magic on the wielder, turning them into coins and feasting upon them. The demon does this because it wants freedom; after it absorbs 9^99 gp worth of coins, it gets its original form back.

Give this item to villains who are making bank, but with a time limit. Give it to heroes if you want to see them ruin their lives.





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