Coinage

Coins are abundant in Sildair, and following the rise of the Dunorian Empire during the Golden Epoch the use of coins has been somewhat standardized around the world, including in the east. In the empire's early days it was common practice for merchants to carry spools of metal wire, which they would wrap around their fingers to measure out values of different kinds. For example, four loops of gold wire around a finger might buy you a stay at in inn for the night, and so forth. It didn't take long for merchants to simply squeeze a little coil of wire together and use such bundles as "One finger of copper" or "10 loops of gold". However hard this could be to verify, it made bigger transactions much easier, as it sometimes required thousands of loops, but it made it so easy to skimp and cheat, that the practice was only viable between merchants who trusted eachother, and it soon became necessary for a system that could be applied more broadly.

The merchant guild of Caratanolopis became the first to mint coins, by melting together bundled coils. This gave rise to the "Velo", which means a "Covering" in Dunorian: a pinky finger wrapped in silver thread until it was completely covered. The Dunorian coin system was based around the velo, and in the silver epoch a lower case "v" is often used to denote the amount of velos an item is worth. Sarkaran gold crowns and Duurian platinium barrels are based on the value of a velo (10v and 100v respectively), as are many other coins in western Sildair. Many other nations now make copper, silver, gold, and platinium coins, such as silver ears from Gorlmark or copper chits from Fiorheim, but they are often made to fit the value of a velo, and ledgers will still often denote value with the lower case v, even when the coins are not Dunorian. A good rule of thumb is that a velo can buy you a filling, if unremarkable, meal at most inns, taverns and food markets.

The velo is a small silver coin, which traditionally holds a depiction of Arathion on the head, and a five-pointed sun on the tail, the symbol of the Caratanopolian Merchants' Guild.

The casks of the breweries of Duurheim were built to hold 100 flagons of ale, which led to the creation of platinium barrels, big coins that could buy one barrel of ale each. Since the flagons cost one velo each, this led to the standard of platinium coins being worth 100v.