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(TFT) How much gold in a "big" treasure?
The oldest and most prestigious event of the ancient Olympics was the
Stadion running race.
Participants were apparently younger men as there are records of disputes
over athletes appearing overly mature, but all contestants participated in
an opening ceremony where 100 oxen were sacrificed to Zeus (used for a feast
after the games concluded) and each man swore before the statue of Zeus that
he had been in training for ten months.
If wars weren't stopped during the games the athletes serving in the army
were released to compete.
Winners from the larger city states received prizes and money amounting to a
practical fortune.
Athens awarded her champions 500 drachma as well as an assortment of goods.
This was a pretty big deal.
Sculptors used champions as worthy subject matter; a bard earned a goodly
portion of their income in singing the tales of past races on demand.
8 chalkoi = 1 obolus
6 oboloi = 1 drachma
100 drachmas = 1 mina (or mna)
60 minae = 1 Athenian Talent (Athenian standard equaling 26kg or about 57.32
lbs.)
A trireme crew of 200 rowers was paid a talent for a month's worth of work,
about 4.4 grams of silver per rower per day, i.e. a drachma a man a day.
At her ancient height Athens had around 25,000 male citizens of the hoplite
class or higher with slightly more non-citizen freemen of the metic class
paid a hoplite wage of a drachma a day.
The labor class (Thetes) numbered less than 20,000 and earned a half a
drachma a day.
So to go about her daily business ancient Athens needed something like
60,000 drachmas in coin, or about 10 talents "in the mix".
An Athenian champion of the Stadion stood to win a cash prize roughly equal
to 1/120 of the force of a days labour of the city-state of Athens.
Silver is ~655 pounds per cubic foot.
I can fit a cubic foot in my 1 foot by 1.5 foot by 9 inch GM's chest; the
main component of my travel rig as opened out it serves as a screen.
Would but that I possessed the actual silver, I could fit the silver needed
to run the daily business of ancient Athens into my glorified GM's "screen".
that would fall apart if I tried to lift it.
The players just got HOW much gold off that dragon?
And the organs/dung/etc.?
AH! That's just coin. a days wage. an annoyance to the powers that be
(Illuminati players) if you use that prize to liquor up a goodly portion of
their workforce for a day or so.
Higher level "business" will always of necessity be more like a barter
system.
It's not tied to the coinage system strongly, it's much more related to the
political system.
But then there's this.
I've done some stuff on the Thuggies.
Uhhhhh
http://tft.brainiac.com/archive/0903/msg00143.html
So before the Brit's arrived, the Nilgiri hills had four major tribes.
The Badaga were the farmers.
The Kota were craftsmen.
The Toda were herdsmen.
Also there were the Kurumba.
The primary producers in this setup were the Badaga and the Toda.
The Kota provided secondary production like tool making.
The Kurumba provided tertiary service, they were the "priest" class.
The Kurumba protected people from illness and death and so "sold" were folks
on this arrangement that when a relative died the Kurumba shaman received
pity rather than blame for the death they were paid to prevent because they
had to grapple with such a powerful deamon.
Interesting if that's the way death works, but the point of this is that a
very large chunk of the Kota's disposable income went to the Kurumba and the
Kota were the only group with any practical disposable income in the region.
Easier to drain the Kota, who traded for meat and grain with their pots and
tools, than to constantly deal with three separate groups.
As it turned out one of the most important aspects of that economy after
survival revolved around "witchdoctoring".
In other words, an economy can be largely based on fantasy.
That the concepts that drive the daily exchanges of life are or are not
based in reality does not change the nature of those daily exchanges in what's
required to execute them.
If the players, based in Athens, gain a dragons horde of 100 talents of
sliver then what does that mean in Athens?
Are the players fav merchents suddenly ultra wealty w/o any push back?
Can the players just show up in town and expect to spend such a sum?
Inflation?
An emergency meeting of the town counsel that establishes a retroactive
adventuring tax?
A "meeting" with the don of the thieves guild?
Millions are easialy as much of a pain as the lack.
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