Fantasy Trade Routes and Money (Why GOLD Is 'Standard') | Worldbuilding
2024 ж. 4 Мам.
48 811 Рет қаралды
Episode 25: Trade and Currency
In this video we discuss worldbuilding trade and currency, looking at the evolution of trade over time, as well as why the concept of money is an inevitable invention for every civilization.
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WORLDBUILDING CORNER: www.worldbuildingcorner.com
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Worldbuilding should be a school subject. It's learning literally everything important about the world and civilizations while explaining it in your own words by literally making your own world and history.
Oh heck yes^^! It can teach government politics, trading and commerce, ecology, and all other host of things. Creative thinking and writing is also mixed in there if you include how they describe their respective projects. Sadly, I don't think Magic would be tolerated in our current school systems, but more Sci-Fi angles could maybe be accepted
That’s what history is.
@@YourBlackLocal I would consider it a combination of history and creative writing. Both of which are subjects that are often overlooked/disregarded by students and educators alike. If there was an elective class that merged the two in a more entertaining or challenging way, it might get more people interested in learning their own history or learning to write. It's a pretty niche subject though, so I don't know if it would draw in enough people for any schools to keep it as a class.
A statement has never made me want to be a teacher more than yours, lol
@@YourBlackLocal History class is defined by being boring, no matter how interesting history itself may be, when taught by an institution it always loses its luster.
It seems you forgot to mention the credit system, in which members of the same clan trade via promises and debt. In this system, everyone involved remembers who owes who what, and anybody who doesn't pay up is ostracized. Naturally, it only works in close-knit communities that interact with each other almost constantly.
It doesn't require as closely knit of a system if the promise system becomes more complicated. You can move onto a centralized banking system with letters of credit with the banking system tracking if the person or their clan tends to pay debts.
credit systems eventually evolve into representative ones. Here's a small example: Imagine an apple farmer called Alice with 5 men working for her. If the crops mature late one season, she may tell the men to take some items on credit in her name. While a few sellers might accept this, many more might not. One or two men might have to go back and ask for a written 'tab' from Alice. If the crops mature late again next season, the men might now all ask for these written tabs as payment. If the crops now mature properly, some men might still want to get meat instead of apples. They may ask for written tabs again. Some traders might also start using the tabs they accumulated to exchange for other goods. Over time, Alice's tabs become a form of coinage
The one thing human civilization has no precedent for is a worldbuilding series as great as this. It's a crime that your channel doesn't have more subs!
Haha thank you! It is nice to be growing the channel, but growth aside I am thoroughly enjoying making the content and am very grateful for everyone watching and positive comments like yours :)
@Worldbuilding Corner honestly small can be so great! It can be wonderfully personal for both fans and creators alike! We'll miss these times once this channel gets the attention it deserves!
Imagine building a fantasy world that has its own worldbuilding publication. Worldbuildingception!
A little note on currency, coinage evolved from religious artifacts and even after its development into commerce still bore the images of deities. This meant that its usage was often seen as a form of worship of the deity involved.
Thank you!
heroes, kings, symbols - guess we are the gods now
Really love this series. It's great to see someone actually carry an example through the process.
Thank you! Glad you are enjoying, I am also really enjoying progressively putting it all together and showcasing the world :)
Hey Mathew, one thought I’ve had is that actually different species might tend to have good trade because each specie is specialised for different environments and therefore the resources within and the desire to invade to take those resources would be lower than against same species due to people perfecting taking land they’re adapted to than not.
electrum is an alloy of silver and gold - usually used to make a gold looking metal with silver as a filler, so it took less gold (and thus was cheaper) to produce coinage worth
That's not too different from the sandwich coins in use today: the outside is made of some precious metal such as copper or silver, while the core of the coin is filled with a cheap alloy. (Not quite as elaborate as mixing two metals into one, but still a use of multiple materials to reduce cost.
@InventorZahran it's a bit different in that sandwich coinage is a fiat currency and done simply to lower minting costs, but alloy coins were often done to enact fraud. Precious metal coins were litterally valued by their weight in the material they were made from. Silver is lighter and cheaper than gold, so if you pulled off an electrum coin that looked gold, it basically stretched the gold used into more coins - essentially a form of counterfeiting
Keep in mind that what you describe as value is actually price or exchange value. There is also use value. Opening a bag of chips instantly drops its exchange value to near zero. But it's fine because its use value stays just as high as it was. Rational people only buy things they they expect to go up in value. Either because they'll pay the exchange value for the thing and get higher use value out of it, or because they expect the exchange value to increase. Note that exchange value is not fully defined by the cost to manufacture something and its utility to the end user. It ought to be somewhere between those, but the actual exchange value depends on the relative influence of buyers and sellers over the price and how much each group competes within themselves. If buyers can dictate prices they will be well below the utility value and barely above cost of an production. If sellers can dictate prices they will be close to use value. Thus, exchange value contains additional information besides the inputs that went into the good and how much surplus it will generate for the end user. It is almost always an underestimate of how useful the thing actually is and an overestimate of how much it costs to make.
All that is assuming that the buyers and sellers both have accurate knowledge of the use value. Bartering essentially consists of the buyer trying to convince the seller that an item has a lower use value than it really does, and the seller trying to convince the buyer that it has a higher use value than it really does, thus altering the price. Sales negotiations in the modern day are similar, but more one-sided, and marketing is completely one-sided.
Economy and trade has to be one of the most confusing parts of worldbuilding for me, so this is well appreciated.
They haven't even touched macro economics regarding trade. (E.x. mercantileism) Once your economy reaches a certain size, you will find that your gold supply becomes a limiting factor. Heads of state may try to limit imports compared to their exports.
You are counfounding price and value. Supply and demand determine price, the amount you'll pay in a given moment. Value is a way more complicated to define, but a sufficient definition is as such: value is what you reasonably expect in average to need to trade for a thing in order to acquire it in a given society. That's how things can be overpriced, underpriced, scams can happen, etc.
Damn we’re moving closer towards the rise of the first dynasties, looking forward to seeing that
Very close now! Can really start to see them forming on the map too. Dynasties and empires are some of my favourite parts of worldbuilding, glad you are as excited as I am!
I'd also add few pointers: Before the metal ages currency can be beads (gemstones, pearls and such), and shells have been used as currency in many places. Also for coins, you can go different shapes, think of having them in a neclace with punchholes with different shapes and sizes, (of course pointy corners might be uncomfortable). Also some countries might be in a pinch and debasing their currency, like silver coinage by mixing some cheaper metals in it, which causes huge inflation eventually, but can be a thing ruler would do trying to save the economy. I've been worldbuilding lazily a sumer/akkad/egypt inspired setting. Also remember that foodstuffs and beer are really good commodities to give to the working class as payment in those times. Loans and loaning practices might differ from culture to culture and be really significant factor, also.
that setting sounds pretty flippin' awesome gotta say
Shells as money never made sense to me; if anyone can go to the beach and literally pick up money off the ground, wouldn't that cause a major imbalance?
@@InventorZahranthe most beautiful shells are probably quite rare. Even then, as they would be highly valued, many beaches may be empty of them; someone has already picked them up. Lastly, “going to the beach” can take ages depending on your location, and “picking up shells” take time; time is money
Earned a sub mate. Right down my alley, well thought out economics and industry. Metals, coal, timber (for ships), textiles for ropes and sails. It gets extremely complicated. An example is shipbuilding. Looking at early canoes up to the age sail of the colonial empires. Shipbuilding requires specific types of timber, sailcloth, ropes, caulking, tar/pitch, fasteners(copper mostly), etc. An enormous amount of resources and manpower went into shipbuilding by the 15th century. Powerful pirate kingdoms were paid off by tribute of more ships., as well as coin. Colonies were established to ensure supplies of these vital resources, and trade amongst themselves and the mother country was the whole point. It’s incredible to research topics for world building for rpgs, (a hobby I see I share). Learning about real world topics gives one a more believable and well thought out story to tell. This worldbuilding is for us, the GM. The players don’t usually care about this stuff, it is the game DMs/GMs play when we are by ourselves. World building like this is so much fun, and the more we learn about how things work in the real world, the better we describe our fantasy world.
I would love to see the cuisine of your world soon. Keep up the good work, you and your series are amazing!
That's something I might tackle in the future! Unique cuisine really adds to the immersion of a world. Thanks for the positive feedback, glad you are enjoying :)
@@WorldbuildingCorner EEEEEEEEE THANKS FOR RESPONDIIIIINNNG EEEEE! Also, are you considering more biomes for your world? Or a closer look at an ecosystem/food web? I love your creatures.
An excellent basic course in economics, and that other stuff is interesting, too. Great work!
Our roleplaying group is made entirely out of economist and it's crazy how fun making a running economy in the world. And it's even more fun when the adventurers purposely create demand and inflation to sell their items at a higher price while investing in a city at the same time
I'm absolutely loving your series, this has been amazing to follow and helped so much with my current worldbuilding project! I was wondering, will you ever cover things such as domestication of animals? I never really see anyone talk about that and I feel like given the fascinating creatures of your current world that would be such an interesting thing to delve into. Especially looking at the relationship between different sapient species vs the animals they choose to domesticate and why. I'm currently looking mostly at mounts and especially horses but also exploring livestock, animals like cats and dogs, why certain species are domesticated and how would be so cool to deep dive into and worldbuild. If anyone knows of any resources for that I'd love to hear about them too!
Domestication is something I have planned for the near future! Thank you for the positive feedback, I am glad you are enjoying the series and that it is helpful! Good luck with your own project :)
I would point out that it's not a tragedy that people fought over resources. After all if history hadn't turned out the exact same way it had none of us would be here.
And I subscribed. Where was this when I was heavily researching currencies last year. Alas, this still helps, and gives me a lot more options. As someone who also grew up with tabletop games and videogames, I'm used to metal money. With a world without metals, that's obviously not an option. Came up with things like stone fiat money and even specific foods, but never saw the forest the trees were in so to speak. Food, Spices, and Textiles are great categories to work from. I'll also add other materials like non-rubber plastics, gemstones, and containers of mana too.
I think one interesting thing if there are interspecies wars is that it will likely result in interspecies empires. Only, there's no way to actually merge two species as different as the ones on your world. Or, there is, but only for the Na'quihl. Consequently I expect a lot of rather unstable interspecies empires to exist. The impossibility of interbreeding may also have implications.
They don't need to be able to breed for two species to live together. Empathy is a hell of a drug, and can allow different species to bridge all sorts of barriers. Ancient humans let wolves live in their troupes, and wolves aren't anywhere near us in terms of intelligence. There's even a good reason to try and accomodate and assimilate intelligent outsiders into one's community - the extra manpower is useful. In many societies with low population densities, like the American Indian tribes and Eurasian steppe nomads, it was common for communities to integrate refugees and war captives into their societies, simply because people were a rare commodity. Having an extra pair of hands was greatly valued, so being able to turn outsiders into insiders was a valuable custom. This was also a major reason why the Roman Empire was so successful, both in its conquests and its longevity. The Romans extended Roman citizenship to the peoples they conquered, giving those people various rights under Roman law. This was unusual for the period - ancient citizenship was generally extremely restricted, limited only to people who were descended from people who had lived in a community for a long time. And even then, only specific family lines would be considered "local" enough to deserve citizenship. But the Romans were so generous with citizenship because they wanted loyal subjects. And they wanted loyal subjects, because loyal subjects = willing fighters, whom they could use to conquer even more land and people. Indeed, the Romans were very permissive of diversity among their peoples, because such respect just garnered more loyalty from their subjects. The Roman Empire respected diversity because it was extremely practical to do so. One of the great problems of statebuilding is that you end up with a lot of people who do not want to be under the thumb of the government. These people will wait, patiently or otherwise, for any sign of weakness in the state. And when they sense it, they will rise up to fight for their independence. The way around that is to make concessions to one's subject peoples - show loyalty to one's subjects, and they will be loyal in turn. Part of the Romans' longevity was how good they were at fostering loyalty in their subject peoples. When Hannibal Barca marched into the Italian Peninsula, he expected the Socii (Rome's subject peoples in the region) to welcome him, and support him in crushing Rome. Instead, the Socii sided with Rome, because they were Roman citizens *and saw themselves as Romans.* That lack of local support was a major reason why Hannibal's campaign in Italy ultimately failed. I posit that, far from being rare and unstable, the first cultures to bridge the gap between different intelligent species would end up out-competing all others that didn't. Both because they would have access to more loyal military manpower, but also because that respect for diversity would serve their rulers well in general.
I mentioned this before but the octopi would establish themselves very early on in the stone age as traders by leveraging their mastery of agriculture. The humans need food and the octopi require better transport, both are highly valued and required by the other, thus is the basis of their alliance, relationship, and trade and forming the foundation for an incredibly powerful stone age empire. Conflict between groups rarely have anything to do with trade. There is usually other factors involved including powerful bad actors. Logistically there wasn't a need or really a desire for the lizard people to take over the human settlement as their own spice transfer was not being interfered with and the added city just made the trek even longer and pissed off another group.
It's incredible how little I actually know of fundamental things such as this. I was never taught anything economy related in the UK and I have a masters degree lmao
In my world building, gold, silver, and copper are the standard currency. The pressed and stamped coin only represents the nation it comes from. It keeps it simple since the world I am building is a pre industrial revolution type of world with a steam punk/high magic aesthetic. There are other trade materials with differing values based on the availability geographically. There value, rarity, and usage geographically in crafting specific magical commodities like charms, jewelry, and other items as well as alchemical items of some significant value including herbs and spices. One area is still agrarian and fairly isolated so barter and trade is still highly important with some outside trade and coin usage beginning to become more common, but I have other places in the world that are more cosmopolitan with some gems and semi precious stones have differing values based on availability and cultural significance. The use of gems and semi-precious stones as currency is limited to specific circumstances in trade because of the differing values. It’s an interesting process developing the economy even though certain aspects of it are less significant most of the time.
Great channel. Subscribed.
Very nice.
Base 10 is actually supremely unhelpful in early exchanges simply because it has only two divisors: 2 and 5. A much more useful system would have a large number of divisors to facilitate quantification of goods. The two most commonly used in history are base 12 and base 60 (which is just 12 x 5).
Exactly. This is why older currency like pound sterling was base 240 divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 30, 40, 48, 60, 80, 120 and 240. It is very easy to make change in that system. On of the world building blunders of Mistborn is using a base 10 when base 16 fits so much better.
I wonder if the Silarin would have trouble holding Redmark/ Sahakuth. If they continue their traditional burial practices, they might have an unexpected zombie apocalypse on their hands. Many of them might even believe that they've reached Gudizho. It wouldn't surprise me if the humans were particularly intolerant of Silarins. Imagine you lived in an environment where the undead are a constant existential threat, and you found out that the people living in the desert to the north were pro-zombie.
Awesome!
Thank you :)
"Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals."
Nice video
There are papers that have proven the barter did not work in history and dept was what people worked with. If you have a horse but want to eat lunch you would not triad your horse for a meal. But you would offer a dept for a meal and someone else would offer to accept a dept for a meal if you where trustworthy for that dept. Even long after metals where commonly used as money dept was still quite common as many people did not have easy access to coins all of the time. As for what metals where used silver was a lot more common to be used for coins than gold was as silver was far more common than gold was to be made into coins. Now within a game system using dept could create a lot of problems for the players and DM trying to keep things straight so having more coins available would make game play more easy. Now for the sake of a story using dept for the story characters could make the story more interesting to the reader.
All of the talk about supply and demand reminded me of the toilet paper crisis of 2022. :D Although the demand went up and the supply couldn't satisfy it, but the price remains approx the same as far as I can recall.
You have a great video here. I really enjoyed watching it thank you. I sent your KZhead email a pdf copy of a book I wrote that fits the feel of this subject.
David Graeber, an anthropologist and author of the book "Debt: The First 5,000 Years," critiques the widely accepted story that money developed from the barter system. Graeber argues that the barter system, as popularly imagined, never existed in the way it is often portrayed. Graeber's main points of critique are: 1. Lack of historical evidence: Graeber points out that there is little to no historical or archaeological evidence supporting the notion that societies relied solely on bartering before the invention of money. He argues that the barter system, as commonly understood, is largely a theoretical construct created by economists like Adam Smith to help explain the origins of money. 2. Credit systems and social relations: According to Graeber, most pre-monetary societies relied on intricate systems of credit and debt that were based on trust and social relationships. People would often keep track of who owed what to whom, and these obligations would be settled over time, sometimes through the exchange of goods and services, and sometimes through other means like labor, feasting, or rituals. 3. The role of the state: Graeber highlights the crucial role that states and political institutions have played in the development of money. He contends that the creation of coinage and standardized currencies was often driven by the needs of governments, particularly for taxation and military purposes, rather than a natural progression from a barter economy. 4. The moral aspects of debt: Graeber emphasizes that debt has always had moral and social implications, with debtors often being seen as morally inferior to creditors. He argues that these moral aspects of debt have played a significant role in shaping the development of money and continue to influence our modern economic systems. In summary, David Graeber's critique challenges the widely accepted story of money evolving from a barter system by pointing out the lack of historical evidence, the existence of credit systems in pre-monetary societies, the role of states in creating money, and the moral implications of debt. He suggests that the origins and development of money are more complex and nuanced than the barter narrative suggests.
Electrum: Gold-based alloy with around 20% silver content used to make early coinage.
I personally prefer coinage that can be split into smaller segments or strung together. The Exulted RPG had a great currency system that followed that style. And Chinese coinage had the tradition of being strung together if I'm not mistaken. Makes more sense to me for creating change rather than carrying around 3 different types of metal, some of which are purely decorative.
Spanish pieces of eight are fun as fractional currency. Carry around those wedges. : )
Catching up on the serie, but there is one kind of economy missing at least that existed: service economy. Mostly prevalent in the Incan civilization but could be argued to be part of the feodal system too, where you pay not with money, but mandatory work directly
Amazing Video, could you maybe make an explanation about why some metals like gold gain the value they have because it does not have an important use outside of jewlery? thnaks
Absolutely, gold is not only one of the first used metals historically speaking due to its relative softness, but also does not tarnish, retaining it's luster and therefore it's perceived worth, compared with other metals. In simpler terms, it was a decorative good that was culturally important (high demand) that was rare (low supply) that does not lose perceived value due to age or weathering.
@@WorldbuildingCorner very interesting thanks for the quick response
It was value outside jewelry too, gold is an important resource to the production of electronics too, it has some qualities related to the capacity in conduct energy, for example
Simple explanation is that gold is pretty to look at and it’s also rare. That’s enough to make it valuable!
Am I correct to assume that representative currencies would evolve only after the adoption of writing? After all, how else would one determine what those items should represent... I would also think that representative and fiat currencies are almost the same thing - after all there is not much of a difference in concept between a clay tablet saying "I gave John this tablet in exchange for goods worth 5 gold pieces; if you give him 5 gold pieces for this tablet, I´ll pay 5 gold pieces back to you when you return this tablet to me" and a bank note saying "The Bank of England will redeem this note for the sum of 1 Pound Sterling" (that´s what the notes actually used to say when I was in England back in the 90s).
I imagine yes, writing on at least a logogram level would be required for representative money. And depending on definition, fiat money is actually a type of representative money! I believe the distinction is that fiat money doesn't require an actual commodity to be tied to, whereas representative money needs an actual commodity to exist that it represents. It's simply 'in place of' because it's easier to handle. But essentially, yes you are correct :)
Those bank notes represented an actual amount of sterling silver, or in some places like the US, it used to represent an actual amount of gold. Fiat money that we now use is not connected to anything, it only has value because we all agree to treat it like it does.
Btw we had it figured out I mean. A lot of stuff happened fast. Like magic wolves getting new currency And 1/2 cents a thing because of the wolf to selca cent ratio. 1cent= 1/2 wo-
What software are you using to place and manage all the points on your map?
I have a couple of questions. The first is when do you think that this information will be available as something other than video links on the website. The second is have you used this beautifully realized world for fiction? If not, would you consider doing so?
Interesting video. What I want to tell you is that it’s natural and basically unavoidable for intelligent life like humans to engage in a war against other of the same kind. It happens all the time so it should be no surprise that it is the case.
Definitely. Our lineage were aggressive towards each other even before we reached homo sapiens. There are other primates that are quite pacifist though, which is really cool! I do wonder how successful they would be at developing civilisations, as our aggression is in no small part responsible for our success as a species.
@@WorldbuildingCorner I don’t believe in Humans evolving from apes. I believe that God created earth. But I do believe in adaptation and that creatures are related to each other.
@@Texan_christian1132 Well, unfortunately, your belief is incorrect. Humans are evolved from the same stock as apes. We have plenty of fossil evidence for it.
@@smergthedargon8974 no. That’s false and stupid. The big bang is scientifically impossible and humans did not evolve from apes. The scientists just don’t want to believe in god And follow his rules so they make up their own crap.
@@Texan_christian1132 I'll take the word of modern experts and evidence over a man who believes whole-heartedly in a book written by a bunch of randos in the Middle East 2 millennia ago.
Compare how much you can transport by ship to train, truck or plain and you see even today it is the prefered way to transport most goods over long distances. From the giant container frighters of today over steamers, the spanish galleon, the hanseatic holk to the trireme of ancient times ships were quite dominant in trade. Even in ancient times, think of Carthago, the Greeks or the Phonicians. Even if we go to the very beginning, the bronze age was only possible by trading tin and copper. Rivers and coastlines were the traditional trade routes. Without (good) roads even more. While I'd disagree with your land trade routes the reason for trade itself was very well reasoned. For example I don't see a reason why there would be a land trade route between redmark and balthorpe when you can ship more easier along the coastline. There could be a line connecting balthrope to the north east, ending in the river system. Especially as the mountains there seem to be less steep to the west of Nordfolk, a path for traders to the interior makes sense, just like the city where you can unload from your 5 trade carts to 1 river boat. Something akint the path between the two blue cities to the north makes sense too - along the bottom of a mountain, with no deep enough river as the easiest path to travel with your cumbersome transport. I'd expect a city where all those tributaries meet, to the east of the two blue cities. Travel between continents, well that would be out of the question at least for most of the time, but if you can hop coast to coast there could be trading like between the greek city states. Anyway, could be lots of reasons the trade routes are like you show them ...sea monsters/angry gods making sea travel hard... rivers changing path unpredictable making any attempted difficult ... just wanted to stress the sea travel aspect of trade routes. Most trade untill (and including) modern times happens along shipping lanes.
electrum is a natural mix of gold and silver (I know that was probably for a bit but still)
Where I live in the US there was only one tribe that used currency and their neighbors didn’t like them.
electrum is an alloy between gold and silver and it can occur naturally.
So, one question I have towards that is how civilisations would emerge and funktion using no money at all. Anarchists have set precedent in recent history, and archeology showes early civilistations astonishingly old and complex using no currency at all. How could we expand on that and how could one struckture a story/world around that.
before currency, cultures traded goods that were universally considered valuable, like fabrics, spices, livestock, and metal. People would collect these items (in particular, items that don't spoil or rot), and hoard them specifically to use in trading.
This was mentioned in the video when he discussed bartering, as well as the section on items that were used in place of currencies like spices, textiles, and metals.
You should make a Patreon. Would love to support
Bear fur traders... Makes sense. :) Wouldn't trading their own kind's hide with outsiders be somewhat taboo though?
Weirdly for a decent chunk of history Electrum was actually more valuable than pure gold as our metallurgy wasn't advanced enough to create by mixing it from it's constituent parts.
Electrum is a alloy of Silver and gold.
Your content is fantastic, however, it is extremely difficult to binge watch as the same short loop of music plays over and over. Its a shame, because the actual spoken content is fantastic.
Ok so I watched the whole video someone explain to me what the difference is between representative currency and fiat currency because from where I'm sitting they both seem worthless technically speaking.
I seperate currency from goods and services as it is not really a good. You can't use it for anything thing functional. Not is it a service. It is a place marker to be exchanged for either.
something I notests is that only one contanet is talked about
I have decided to apply this to my world as is: The human populations of the Earth's continents in the Marine and continental climate zones place great symbolic meaning to the meat of scavengers, with the flesh of choughs, crows, ravens, crabs, crayfish and even the occasional dog being used in necromantic rituals. The marginalized descendent of these elite necromancers where reduced to a nomadic life style, constantly fleeing persecution. In their culture, they have a cultural taboo against eating scavengers they didn't kill themselves due to the highly magical association of those animals. As the surrounding culture developed a system of shame and infamy, the consumption of scavenger meat have become associated with marginality, famine, war and poverty. With the advent of agriculture, birch leaves also lost a lot of their perceived value, since the birch tree becoming increasingly associated with corporal punishment. Thus, the idea of eating a by-product of a torture instrument became increasingly less appealing in any places but the coldest or in close proximity to the forest elves. Again, ideas do influence market value. Said forest elves called themselves the "birch people", due to being obligate symbiotes of said trees, which allow them to grow their food (mostly fungi, but also the raising of bees). As the birch tree become more valuable for wood than for food, they kind of got in the way of humans, especially the newly arrived Romans progressing northward. The cultural interactions between the newly arrived Romans, the local humans and an expending human population made birch leaves less and less valuable, but arable land increasingly necessary to feed grain to an increasing population. Elves, by their biology cannot digest starch, and thus are less than happy to have their forests turned into grain fields. Unable to trade (because crafted goods against food one cannot digests is not an appealing market) soon turned into war, and war into extermination. Of the elven hunts only survived the Drow and the Ice Elves. Also, Humans in my world use metal coins, while elves and dwarfs prefer to use gem stones.
What a sad story for the elves, but also a realistic one. The history of trade is filled with (obviously less magical) examples like this, and your short piece here is a great example of how when a culture can no longer provide something valuable to their neighbours, relations can turn hostile. Great worldbuilding!
@@WorldbuildingCorner Yeah...As a Canadian, I am quite familiar with that piece of history. Your videos are always amazing. The Elven Hunts where a slow process (with calm during times of plague, when large expanses of agriculture become less necessary when there are less mouths to feed, and elven magic and medicine being more valuable. To add to that, Birch Elves did grow nettle they occasionally traded with humans and dwarves, just that this nettle is less valuable than oat fields.) that would have started in the "Dark Ages". Also, the conflicts where already there, but it took new religions and ideas so that any "magical creatures" would be linked to as evil, incubi-like demons to really kick off what where territorial wars into genocide. However, the brewing fear and rivalry was already bubbling at the surface for a long times. The Ice Elves where untouched because, even if they couldn't really trade much of value to other cultures, they don't get in the way. No one in a pre-industrialized society would risk their lives to conquer polar deserts and tundra, and these elves as fungivores have little incentive to visit taiga forest, covered in trees that provide them with next to nothing. The Drow are less lucky, but still made it. Elves in general form powerful civilizational and emotional bonds with their symbiotes (always producers of the ecosystem), and would build a civilisation built on the preserving of their own specific symbiotes. It's not even domestication, because they don't really select any individual characteristics, and usually don't kill organisms to make space for their symbiotes if they can avoid it.
Originally I was going to try and have the economics be based on a service system (helping others out), but I think I need to go back and work on the economics instead. Come up with a system of currency I should probably also figure out what resources they'd have for trade You came up with some cool names for textiles. Clothes made of sari in your world must be a pain for someone playing hide-and-seek. I do like the idea of banu being cold and water resistant.
Service in terms of what you are referring to (helping others without compensation, I think?) is definitely a very interesting system, and not completely alien either! As a concept this is present in many human cultures. For worldbuilding, I especially like drawing from many east Asian concepts of service. I like to know the general resources in an area, but unless I'm 'zooming in', won't go into any more detail than that. Haha I imagine garments made of sari to be worn ostentatiously, by figures of importance who are trying to draw more attention to themselves. An Urakan attempting to be stealthy (to begin with, is hilarious, a stealthy 200kg+ bipedal bear haha) would likely wear garments made of topfa or banu, or possibly even something more familiar to us like linen traded from the humans. I hadn't thought about that, thank you for the thought prompt!
@@WorldbuildingCorner yeah that’s what I was going for Gotcha. What world building idea?
@Worldbuilding Corner bears In the wild are quite stealthy in order to get in range of their prey that they can run them down and/or swipe at them.
@@Ratchet4647 Absolutely! I don't question their ability to be stealthy, just that I think of it as humorous haha
@Worldbuilding Corner I agree!😆 It's hard to imagine such giants sneaking around all stealthy like!
electrum is an alloy of gold an silver.
Electrum is just a combination of gold and silver
I like your introduction method "My name is Matthew, at least according to {thematically relevant reason}"
I like this series and I am hesitant to nik pit but I don't understand why you are not including platinum considering all the other efforts to realism? The only reason there wasn't eney in the ancient world wasn't because of technology but because of shear dum luck that in that part of the world there wasn't eney.
nit-pick* any* sheer*
Good question! Platinum has a melting point of 1,768°C, far higher than the ~1,000°C required for gold/silver/copper, meaning that an ancient culture would be unable to work platinum, in fact even an iron age culture is not guaranteed to have the tech required, with iron having a melting point of ~1,500°C. Very simply, at the stage Locus is at in the bronze age, platinum can't be worked at all, let alone be made into copper coins. This is consistent with real-world cultures, and platinum was used exceptionally rarely as currency, as by the time tech had reached a point where it could be worked, other currency was already well established.
Because gold is rare enough to generally be a stable currency but not actually useful for anything so storing it or plating a palace with it doesn't negatively impact the economy. By contrast, nobody would plate their palace with tin, it's far too valuable.
Tin was used for roofing. Does that count?
Gold might not have had much practical use historically besides jewelry, but it does now, since it’s used in electronics due to its conductivity and because it doesn’t tarnish, and has other uses as well.
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Trade reducing conflict is the most important point that Ayn's detractors and wokesters have to ignore in order to maintain their position.
Silarin supremacists where you at
Stay tuned for Silarin empires!
6:25 Invasion of a polity's territory by another polity doesn't lead to a halt in trade. Where on Earth did you get that idea from? Real-life trade does not operate like a 4X game. Polities do not trade with each other directly - *traders* move goods around, and polities influence those traders through political policy. In the pre-modern era, the vast majority of trade was conducted by independent merchants, either operating out of land-based caravans or seaborne vessels. These merchants would buy up quantities of goods in one location, and transport them to other locations where they believed they could be sold for a profit. These merchants were generally not aligned with any polity - they moved around as they wished, and bought and sold for their own profit. And by extension, their business tended to live and die at the whims of the political actors around them. So if a merchant was moving goods from Polity A to Polity B, but then Polity A conquered Polity B, so then there was only Polity A, what would that matter to the merchant? The territory of both polities would still be producing goods, and there would still be people in both regions who were willing to buy those goods. So trade would continue regardless of the political conquests going on in the background. This has largely continued all the way into the modern era. Only now instead of thousands or even millions of independent traders, we have corporations that organise fleets of trucks, trains and ships, moving goods from producers to customers all over the world. And just as in pre-modern times, those corporations don't really care who owns what territory. All that matters is that the people in that territory are still buying and selling goods, that need moving around. And of course, corporations live and die at the whims of the political forces around them. This isn't to say that corporations can't be political actors themselves. They're owned by people after all, who will absolutely try to wield the profits of their business, or even the business' assets themselves, towards political ends. But their power stems from their material wealth, and what that wealth enables them to do. Whereas traditional political power stems from cultural legitimacy, judicial authority and military might. Even pre-modern traders tried to influence politics, but most lacked sufficient wealth to achieve much. You also fixate on inter-polity trade, treating polities as monolithic market actors. You describe polities "conquering land to seize resources for themselves", as though the instant a polity achieves access to a resource, it just gets dumped into a pocket dimension where anyone living in the polity can access it from anywhere else, at any time. Except that's plainly nonsense. Traders operate *inside* the territory of a polity too, because any polity will usually have hundreds or even thousands of micro-markets within its borders. Cottages trade with villages trade with towns trade with cities. And those micro-markets will clump together into macro-markets, united by highways like roads, rivers and seas, and seperated by natural barriers like mountains and deserts. You also phrase such conquests in a very modern, 4X-like manner. You talk about polities "conquering land for its resources", like a wargamer who looked at their videogame resource pool and saw they were running low. Or like a modern military trying to seize access to resources like petrol to fuel their war machines. But that's not how pre-modern peoples concieved of a land's resources. If a land was full of gold mines, a warlord wouldn't conquer it because their country "needed" gold. They conquered it so that they (or a loyal ally whom they wanted to reward) could then control the profits of digging up and selling that gold to merchants. Sure, that gold may have gone off and been used to make all kinds of jewellery and whatnot, and advanced the artistic sophistication of their culture. But the warlords fighting over land didn't give a shit about that. They saw land as a source of wealth only, and the specific resources only mattered insofar as their market value differed. They didn't care who the resources flowed to in the end, or what effect that might have on their "civilization". All they cared about was that they got to profit from selling said resources (or taxing the people who did).
The incremental values of 10's are innate. It's how many civilizations structured their laws, armies, and counts of livestock.
Absolutely, with our base 10 number system it makes the most sense. There are other base number systems though! Honestly however, they kind of make my head spin a bit haha.
@@WorldbuildingCorner - How many fingers do Urrakan and Silarin have? One big reason we use base 10 so often is that we have 10 fingers, so with a different number of fingers, base 8 or 12 could come more naturally. I like using different systems, as they bring a more historical feeling to the world. A strict base 10 system just feels too modern to me. Besides, Britain was still using non-decimal currency until the 1970s, so it´s not like it we all dropped it the moment we had a better idea. Personally, I think the adoption of base 10 currency systems were influenced by the spread of the metric system, which popularized base 10 for measurements.
@@christianschwietzke8959 Urakan have 5 digits like humans, no doubt assisting in their integration into the same system. Silarin have 4 digits, so Silarin may adopt a base 8 system!
@Worldbuilding Corner what's crazy(as evidenced by humans in our world) as within a species we use multiple bases, not just one equal to our number of digits, and that those cultures may not use that base to count monies in, Ala UK predecimalization, and that this may also happen with our weighs and means, e.g. imperial system of weight and length and volume, and also our measures of time, which are in base 60 for our seconds and minutes and base 12 for our hours! Like jeeze, there's so much variation when just looking at the old British system, not to mention the counts and measures of the globe, and that's just one species! You could do so much for all of the above for each of the major settlements of the various species in your world! Sorry for the huge text wall of a comment!
@@WorldbuildingCorner Ah, bad idea. Base 8 is terrible for math due to only having 2 for its prime factors. How about base 6 (they don't count the thumb), or base 12 (counting knuckles, the largest intermediate joint, and fingertips)? I believe that latter is actually documented in at least one ancient IRL civilization, simply excluding the thumb.
Two points at the start: 1. Money is not currency. Money is commodities, roughy equivalent to goods and services. Currency is the token used to buy money. “The rich work for money, the poor work for currency.” The conflation of currency with money started as propaganda by bankers for the purpose of stealing your wealth. Let’s say you make seven dollars an hour, and bread costs one dollar per loaf. Thirty years later, you are making ten dollars an hour, but bread is now three dollars per loaf. You now need to work twice as many hours to enjoy the same lifestyle you did thirty years ago. What seems like a pay raise (in currency) is actually a pay cut (in money). 2. There is no evidence that barter preceded currency. This is based on a thought experiment by Adam Smith, who projected this myth onto the “ primitive “ natives of North America. Well, the natives didn’t use barter. They either traded money directly (such as furs and buckskins) or used currency (such as wampum). Now trading in money can look to the untrained eye like barter, but it’s not. Barter is when people trade money for immediate needs-jewelry for food, for example. Money trading is where people exchange trade goods for other trade goods, which will be sold or traded again further along the line. An example is trading gold bars for land. Barter is found occasionally-but only in formerly currency-using modern societies whose currencies have recently collapsed, such as Russia in the early nineties or Venezuela today. There is no record, anywhere, despite two hundred forty-seven years of looking for one, of primitive peoples using barter for trade. Even within Stone Age hunter-gatherer tribes, a system of credits and debits-usually tracked by the grandmothers, who have long memories, lots of friends to visit, and little else to do-is used. Never barter.
Now that I heard you mention sex as a service that can be exchanged. It makes me think that interspecies sexual relations between Humans and Urakans would've been possible in Norford and Senanatgru. Perhaps you might mention this if you were to make a video about half-races.
Guy just destroyed all communist fanatics saying that money are inevitable.
You make so much effort on many details, so I find it a little disappointed that you simply take the horrible currency system that D&D has.
I have used it in this series for familiarity, simplicity, and for the convenience that all other currency on Locus, like the Urakani textile currency, is therefore easier to understand and convert to. But it is certainly not the most realistic! And I encourage others to explore other currency values :)
Is this the EE guy?
Hello Future Me, Artifexian, and Bibladarion Channels that do series like this that are more thorough - its where this channel gets most of its ideas. Also they dont pretend socialism doesnt exist.
barter was never proven to be something that historically happened in human economics, that's just something you read in economics books, but all historians disagree with these ridiculous theories. Economics didn't evolve like barter > money but more like you give me X for free and then I owe you a fovour > money and that's how economy has been for the majority of all human evolution.... barter just wasn't a thing.
Wouldn't "I give you a number of X and you give me a number of Y based on our agreed value of each be a form of barter? Do that on a tribal / clan scale, on a regular basis and you have economy, no? Add the accumulation of goods with no intent of using them, but as a medium of exchange with a third group and it looks suspiciously like a trade route.
As a worldbuilder, I will say this in the kindest of words. Sleep with one eye open. Your D&D choice of currency is bad :P
I have to correct this because you said something egregiously wrong: Money does NOT need to be part of a civilization. That is ahistorical nonsense. Barter didn’t actually exist as a large-scale system before money. This is a myth perpetuated by economists like John Smith to justify money. Barter only came about historically between enemy/unknown groups and in civilizations which had money but lost it (such as after the fall of the Roman Empire where money became scarce). Mutual aid and a gift economy were the true predecessor of money. Social debt was the way society was run, with people working together in an understanding that others would help others and would be eventually helped in return. There are also modern economic theories which suggest returning to a modern, larger-scale form of this mutual aid system in a more horizontal society. You should really read Debt by David Graeber. He was one of the greatest anthropologists of our era and I’m really only repeating his points. Read Graeber, barter is a lie, money is not a certainty.
How did you talk about trade but not slave trade? Lost my respect. Rsrsrsrs
Slavery (and other similar concepts) I felt deserved its own video which will come in the future, but you are definitely correct, slaves are a likely trade good, and were definitely traded throughout much of human history.
Here is why Gold having value in a fantasy setting makes no sense. First of all. It had no real value in our world either until recently. It's conducive properties give it value only in today's world. In prehistory, antiquities and the middle ages gold was revered and considered the metal of the gods. Its the only reason it ever had any value. The gods wanted it. People of power emulated our "gods" for many reasons and so long after those beings we thought were gods left us, gold was still valuable but for no real reason. There are no practical uses for it except for brittle jewelry. It makes no sense that it would be something we still valued. There are many other metals that are more useful. Now as we've gone through the technological boom and into the computer age, we now know the uses gold has. It's funny how it's being used in A LOT of advanced computer tech and space program tech... now we know why "gods" excavated this planet. And the gold is unaccounted for. The majority gold that is accounted for has been mined in recent decades. Where is all of that gold rush bullion? What happened to all of that spanish, British and French royal coffer gold. What happened to the gold of the mezoamericans? Gold coins only make sense in our world... and it doesn't even make sense here. Gems make much more sense. Steel, gems and seeds.
Gold isn't brittle. It's soft enough to work easily, while hard enough not to be easily damaged. It also doesn't rust or tarnish. And it can be hammered out to incredibly thin leaves. That's why it's been so popular for so long for uses like jewelry and other decorative uses. And it can be melted down and purified to a given standard, and formed into coins of set weight or size, which makes it much more useful as currency that gems would be.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum
Hey Mathew, one thought I’ve had is that actually different species might tend to have good trade because each specie is specialised for different environments and therefore the resources within and the desire to invade to take those resources would be lower than against same species due to people preferring taking land they’re adapted to than not.