The other night while my critique group was talking about my upcoming novella The Witch of the Sands, I got called to task about the underlying economic system for my Hounds of the North series.

Admittedly, economics and relative values of currencies are not my strong suit.

After all I was an English major.

In fact, it’s probably the last thing I really think about when I put together a story since I’d rather focus on character, plot and setting than gold and silver and copper.

But when two beta readers questioned how much my band of mercenaries were getting paid to kill a warlock, I knew I had to take a step back and figure out the economic system.

So looking at the relative value of other economic systems and researching the prices of goods and wages in the Roman times and Medieval times I’ve put together a list of how my economic system will work in terms of the value of money in relation to goods and wages.

Including the price for the head of warlock.

What do you think? Am I close to the mark? Any suggestions?

Relative values of coins

	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Copper
Gold	1	20	100	1000	40 gold coins to a pound of gold
Silver	1/20	1	5	500	80 silver coins to a pound of silver
Bronze	1/100	1/5	1	10
Copper	1/1000	1/500	1/10	1

 

Wages (assume 300 days)

	Coppers/day	Coppers/Year	Gold/year	Notes
Manual Laborer	25	7,500	7.5
Carpenter/Stone Mason	50	15,000	15
Common Soldier	(50)	15,000	15	*includes 2,500 copper bonus paid quarterly and grain allowance
Elite Soldier	(60)	18,000	18	*includes 2,500 copper bonus paid quarterly and grain allowance

 

Bounty price

-for a slave: 5,000 coppers

-for a warlock: 12,500 coppers

 

Costs

Food

Chicken    30 coppers

Egg    1 copper

Beer    4 coppers per pint

Wine    8-24 coppers per pint

Wheat    100 coppers per 8 quarts

Rice    200 coppers per 8 quarts

Barley/Rye    60 coppers per 8 quarts

Beans    60-100 coppers per 8 quarts

Ham    20 coppers per pound

Beef/Mutton/Goat    8 coppers per pound

Fish    10 coppers per pound

Sea Fish    20 coppers per pound

Fruit    1 copper

 

Clothing

Boots    100 coppers

Shoes    75 coppers

Winter Tunic    75 coppers

Sandals    80 coppers

 

Armor and Weapons

Sword    3,000 coppers (3 gold)

Helmet    3,000 coppers (3 gold)

Mail    10,000 coppers (10 gold)

Shield    1,000 (1 gold)

Axe    1,000 coppers (1 gold)

Spear    600 coppers (6 bronze)

Horse    4,000-10,000 copper (4-100 gold)

Saddle    500 coppers (5 bronze)