Shea­mus kicked and wrig­gled through the water, squint­ing his red eyes against sting­ing brine. A pouch trailed from his neck on long straps, float­ing beside his scaly tail.

The mouse pushed through cur­tains of slick, rub­bery stalks. Tiny, flut­ter­ing crea­tures flew beside him, pro­pelled by writhing fla­gel­la. A red­dish fish of con­sid­er­able size emerged from the sway­ing weeds, crossed his path. It viewed the mouse with a cloudy, steady eye, as if decid­ing whether he would fit past its thick, gulp­ing gums. The fish kicked its tail, swam on.

Shea­mus pulled aside a wad of weeds, sur­veyed the val­ley before him. A brown and moldy hulk sagged in the soft sand of the crevasse. Shafts of light fell from the glit­ter­ing ceil­ing of the sea, dap­pled the algae-crust­ed bulk with dots of white. From a crooked mast head, a Firl­ish flag flut­tered in the cur­rent. Shea­mus lift­ed his paw in wry salute. 

With a few swift kicks, Shea­mus crossed to the hulk. He hur­ried through the open void, lest he be spot­ted by some­thing hun­gry. Shea­mus pulled him­self through a gap in the bro­ken hull. The molder­ing wood was soft and crumbly beneath his paws. Inside, all was cloudy and dim, save for a pil­lar of light which lit the sunken hold’s cen­ter. 

In that light, lit­tle red fish flashed above a chest. Some­thing shiny drib­bled from the cask’s split side like thick blood from a wound. Shea­mus wrig­gled clos­er, plucked a shin­ing dot from the pile spilling from the chest, slipped it into his pouch.

In a flash, the lit­tle red fish scat­tered into dark­ness. Shea­mus froze, saw a long and mus­cled shape shift in the hazy dark. Bronze, cor­us­cat­ing scales slipped lithe­ly through the water. Bright white teeth twitched beneath hun­gry, wall­eye orbs. 

Shea­mus gave an inaudi­ble squeak. Bub­bles slipped from his snout. He turned and bolt­ed through the gap in the hold. The mouse did­n’t stop kick­ing till he reached the sur­face.

“Well” said Cae­mus, peer­ing from the dock at his broth­er. “Any­thing?”

Shea­mus wrin­kled his snout, showed his blocky incisors in a grin. “Aye” he said, rum­mag­ing in his float­ing pouch. He pro­duced the trea­sure he’d snagged: A disk of gold, bound in iron, wide as his padded palm. A heart wreathed by a twelve point­ed crown showed on the coin’s face.

“Gold, broth­er. Hun­dreds of old pounds.”

The yel­low met­al float­ed, a liq­uid reflec­tion, in the mouse broth­ers’ red eyes.

The Golden Pound

For a thou­sand years, the economies of the North have been dri­ven by the gold­en pound. The coin’s val­ue is asso­ci­at­ed with its glit­ter­ing com­po­si­tion; a true gold stan­dard.

Since 2.481, the pound has swayed lit­tle from its orig­i­nal design. It con­tains 7 grams of gold. Its cir­cum­fer­ence is bound in iron, often rust­ed, which serves to pro­tect coins from debase­ment, and to dis­suades thiev­ing fairies. The coin’s obverse face shows a shield bear­ing the lay­ered scutes of a fir cone. Around the shield is graven the Firl­ish mot­to: “Fast is the shield against night.” The reverse face varies by print­ing year, but often dis­plays a styl­ized heart nes­tled in a twelve-point­ed crown.

Oth­er coins, mint­ed from bronze or sil­ver cut with cupron­ick­el, cir­cu­late along­side the pound. Though their val­ue is not intrin­sic, it is also set in the val­ue of the gold­en coin itself. 

Below, the pound’s val­ue is list­ed in rela­tion to its sis­ter coins. For ease of com­pre­hen­sion, val­ues are giv­en in sil­ver pence.

Gold­en crown = 100 pence

Gold­en pound = 20 pence

Elec­trum half­pound (rare) = 10 pence

Sil­ver shilling = 5 pence/a quar­ter pound

Sil­ver tup­pen­ny = 2 pence

Sil­ver pen­ny = pen­ny

Cop­per haypen­ny = half a pen­ny

Cop­per far­thing = quar­ter pen­ny

Superstition

The Firl­ish, though large­ly athe­is­tic as a cul­ture, are incred­i­bly super­sti­tious. They hold a deal of tra­di­tions regard­ing the cur­ren­cy of their realm.

Those with a bit of gold to spare will leave coins on their win­dowsills. Doing so is thought to enhance the like­li­hood of more gold enter­ing the home. Whether this prac­tice works or not is debat­able. “Sill pence,” are, how­ev­er, a sign to thieves that some degree of sur­plus cash resides with­in a home. Oth­er tra­di­tions sug­gest the iron bind­ing on pounds pre­vents ælves from enter­ing a home via its win­dows.

Pounds found in ship­wrecks, like those raid­ed from Tombs, are regard­ed as free for the tak­ing. The dead, North­ern­ers believe, have no use for mon­ey. 

Coins are always mint­ed on full, white moons dur­ing the spring. Doing so is thought to lim­it the influ­ence of the Oth­er­world on new objects of wealth.

Historical Variants and Significance

Every line of mint­ed pounds car­ries with it a slight vari­a­tion. New­er pounds car­ry the year of their man­u­fac­ture embossed beneath the heart on their reverse face. Old­er pounds car­ry sub­tler his­tor­i­cal mark­ers. 

Coins mint­ed before the estab­lish­ment of the Ward Rangers † dis­play a fir cone on their obverse face with no shield out­line or mot­to. These coins are aus­pi­cious items, and are thought to pro­tect their bear­er from the Oth­er.   

Pounds mint­ed more than 200 years ago bear the faces of kings and queens, but these are deemed unlucky, for Firls ener­get­i­cal­ly detest their monar­chy of old. Coins mint­ed in monar­chi­cal inter­reg­num peri­ods, dur­ing which a monarch was absent the throne, dis­play mere­ly a crown with­out its wear­er. These, before the change to the Roy­al Weal †† dis­play a crooked, ancient crown instead of the mod­ern twelve-point­ed ver­sion. These are lucky, said to bestow the bear­er with enhanced skills of rea­son.

For a brief time, pounds were mint­ed in Lothrheim while it was a vas­sal state to the Crown. These coins bear a rose pix­ie instead of a fir cone or shield. They are said to bring affec­tion upon the bear­er. When wrapped with cop­per wire and worn on a chain, they are an overt indi­ca­tion that the wear­er is sex­u­al­ly avail­able. 

Many North­ern­ers will car­ry a sec­ond purse or pouch (worn about the neck) filled with lucky coins and oth­er items of super­sti­tion. Rare coins, like those above, are car­ried in “hex pouch­es” along­side iron fil­ings, griso­date grains, and wort leaves for luck and pro­tec­tion from ælves.

Note

A Firl­ish pound is twice the val­ue of a 1902 US dol­lar, or approx­i­mate­ly 40 USD in 2023 mon­ey. As such, 1 Firl­ish pen­ny is worth 2 mod­ern dol­lars.

Mechan­i­cal­ly, hex pouch­es could be quite fun. Allow­ing spe­cial coins (very rare, mind) to actu­al­ly con­vey a (non numer­ic) ben­e­fit upon a char­ac­ter could be rather inter­est­ing. This could lead to com­pet­i­tive coin col­lect­ing among play­ers (or steal­ing hex pouch­es from the dead.) Either way, fun.

This arti­cle was made pos­si­ble by Incunab­u­li’s gen­er­ous sup­port­ers on Patre­on. To join them and read arti­cles avail­able only to sup­port­ers, sup­port Incunab­u­li on Patre­on.