Friday, September 6, 2019

D20x5 Comely Coinage

If you know another language’s equivalent of “cha-ching” or a similar monetary onomatopoeia, please post it in the comments. I’m curious.



Generator automator here: http://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2018/10/automatic-list-to-html-translator-v2.html

D20 These coins are made of
1 gold.
2 silver.
3 copper.
4 electrum.
5 black amber.
6 rose gold.
7 platinum.
8 orichalcum.
9 lapis lazuli.
10 solidified starlight.
11 pearl-cut discs of exacting shape and lustre.
12 galls cut from the world-tree.
13 purple-veined porcelain.
14 the iridescent elytra of a sort of flat, round beetle.
15 a sort of magnetized iron that rings quietly and constantly with a harmony proportional to its purity.
16 artificial adamant.
17 compressed ambrosia.
18 shibuichi.
19 the Platonic form of value, reified and stamped.
20 nephilim ivory.
D20 One side of these coins
1 has the stern face of a dead emperor in profile.
2 has the (inaccurate and abstracted) map of the kingdom it was minted in.
3 displays a jolly fat face.
4 holds a stern-faced sun.
5 displays a fish swimming up a waterfall.
6 bears the emblem of a noble house now fallen.
7 has been rubbed so much that the image it once held can’t be made out.
8 bears the silhouette of the tyrant who ordered it minted.
9 holds the skyline of a long-ruined city.
10 holds a monkey brandishing a blade.
11 displays an ambiguous figure reclining on a throne.
12 holds a staring owl.
13 holds a barge towed by lion-headed men.
14 displays a king in resplendent garb riding a chariot pulled by stags.
15 shows ants marching in a meandering line.
16 has a skull with yet more coins filling its empty eye sockets.
17 shows a pick striking the earth.
18 bears the image of two men exchanging gifts.
19 bears the image of a woman in a robe saluting.
20 holds a date for a calendar nobody uses anymore.
D20 The other side of these coins
1 has been scratched away entirely.
2 bears an unrecognizable numeral.
3 is decorated by a labyrinth.
4 has a prayer to a god of fair trades in calligraphic print.
5 leers with seven staring eyes.
6 has a crook and a crown.
7 has a horse rampant.
8 is inscribed with a curse on all thieves and currency debasers.
9 bears sheaves of grain.
10 displays an oak tree being split by a bolt of lightning.
11 has radiating spokes like a wheel.
12 bears a hand held open in supplication.
13 has a bundle of arrows tied together.
14 bears the image of opened gates.
15 displays a spear piercing a heart.
16 bears a burning torch.
17 holds an abstract shape like a complex knot.
18 shows a striding tortoise.
19 shows a rooster mid-crow.
20 shows a serpent twisted around a pillar.
D20 These coins are shaped
1 like fractal gears, with teeth within teeth within teeth.
2 like flattened eggs.
3 as squares.
4 like a star.
5 like a heart.
6 somewhat like a dog’s pawprint.
7 as a rectangle.
8 as a trapezoid.
9 as a triangle.
10 with a scalloped edge.
11 as a pentagon.
12 as a hexagon.
13 as a heptagon.
14 as an octagon.
15 like a spread fan.
16 as a circle.
17 like a leaf.
18 like a bottlecap.
19 like an open flower.
20 as a cross.
D20 These coins might be found
1 in a coinpurse made from a bull’s scrotum.
2 wrapped up in a bloodstained silk handkerchief.
3 under the tongue and eyelids of a corpse.
4 rolled up in a thick cheroot.
5 with holes punched through their centers, strung on a twine necklace.
6 baked into a holiday pastry.
7 trampled into a patch of dirt.
8 pinched between roots gnarled like arthritic knuckles.
9 laid out in neat stacks on a table.
10 clipped in a counterfeiter’s den.
11 in the pocket of some soiled trousers caught dangling from a branch.
12 along with assorted filth as the pot of some goblins’ gambling game.
13 at the bottom of a clear, still pool.
14 rolling towards you from under a closed door.
15 in a teak box packed with old felt to prevent them from clinking.
16 in the throat of a bug-eyed lizard that choked to death on them.
17 in a cast-aside mendicant’s bowl.
18 sewn like scales on an improvised suit of armour.
19 in a wax-sealed love letter held by a severed hand.
20 among shiny stones and trinkets in a wyvern’s paltry imitation-hoard.

4 comments:

  1. Or you could just use tea-bricks as currency - which actually occurred ;)

    Cool stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In the comic book series Orc Stain, the all-orc civilization uses round slices of orc penis as currency...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The mind boggles. Presumably claimed from the conquered?

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    2. Ya, there's a whole cultural thing around it. Sometimes it's just about personal grudges and surprise dick-cutting-off attacks.

      Delete