anachronauts by stefan gagne - witchipedia

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The Fae Encyclopedia
(For Curious Humans)

Money

I'm not an economist and I won't pretend to be. I'm here to give you the basic facts you need to keep yourself alive and well, so we'll talk about money in a practical sense.

There's three standards of currency out there.

Eastusa favors the dollar. These are roughly printed bits of money on paperlike cloth. Inflation and recession and other wacky economy terms mean that the value of a dollar can vary quite a bit from year to year, but generally the idea is that the more dollars you have, the better. Of course, if you have too many dollars you can't carry it all around with you -- that's where credit cards and banks and checks come into play, but honestly I don't deal with that stuff since you need to be a legal resident of Eastusa to use them.

In the Fringe, the dollar also comes into play -- even independent settlements will use Eastusa dollars rather than invent their own economy, given the choice. However, electronic money forms like credit cards and checks are rarely used. Independent cities like Twin Cities or Chicago have their own banks and card systems to go with them, even if the Eastusa dollar is the base they build on. For rural areas, it's either paper dollars, or bartering.

Bartering is a simple concept. "Give me something of value that's about the same as the thing I'm giving you," or "Do a service for me that's as good as the thing I'm giving you or the service I'm giving you." It's very informal and there are no standards. Bartering is an on the spot exchange, as people want to get on with their business and then get moving when they wander the Fringe. A witch loaded up on simple utility spells, particularly Mending which works well on ordinary injuries and broken simple machines, can do well using barter provided she isn't wandering into settlements that are prejudiced against magic. Always scout the territory before you start offering up spells for food!

In the lands of the Faerie Court, by and large people or communities have to be self-sufficient. They'll bond together to raise their own crops, to mend their own clothes, to get by on a day to day basis. This is important because the only unit of currency outside of mutual cooperation is "favors."

Faeries are always eager to put someone in their debt, to gather favors to be cashed in later, usually for tasks the poor bastard doesn't want to do or items they don't want to give up. Indentured servitude is astoundingly easy to fall into among the Fae, as favors can pile up until your life is no longer your own. Those in power always have favors to trade, but lower members of the court in desperate need may find they have nothing to give except themselves... or perhaps their children. Bammo, legalized "voluntary" slavery. I find it utterly repulsive.

What's more, Faerie tradition says even accepting a "gift" without carefully, specifically declaring it free of favor could plant you firmly in debt. Keep that in mind next time a Faerie invites you in for tea and cookies. One time I slipped and plucked a roadside flower to put in my hat, and was stuck planting crops for a day before I could leave.

If you dare to steal from a Faerie, your debt will be heavy indeed. That's the sort of favor that will definitely get you smacked with the painful irony stick once it's called in. And don't bother trying to weasel out of it; welshing on a debt is tantamount to a mortal sin in the Faerie Court, and the wronged party will have every justification in hunting you down and exacting the price by any means they prefer, including taking your life.

Not all Faeries are evil minded bastards when it comes to favors, of course. But do yourself a favor and be careful, just to be safe. No matter how wide the smile, no matter how generous and caring a Fae may seem, you never know what you could be getting yourself into.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I guess it's just baked into our culture, but I'm used to the favor system, and I've got no problems with it. You have to pay your way in this world, and sometimes that means dirty business, but so what? It's how things get done.

I have favors owed to a few higher-ups in the court myself, but generally I stick with my own kind, a young elf community in the panhandle of Florida. We get by just fine on our own, and only have to trade with outsiders (Fae or human) for a few things. If anything, I prefer trading with Fae; I know that territory and there's no coin to mint. With humans, you need dollars, and modern dollars are hard to come by for an elf.