Book of Coin

“The Ledger” has sturdy teak covers, completely wrapped in leather. It is a physically durable tome written on heavy paper and protected by high-quality binding. The cover shows a highly stylized image of two men, one handing a bag of coins to the other.

The chapters are called Journals, and they number 13, one for each month. They are further divided into Entries, each originally representing one day of sales. This division of pages broke down some time ago, however, as multiple writers failed to follow the established format.

The majority of the Journals discuss the best business practices, negotiating techniques and strategies, sophisticated accounting principles, marketing techniques and other commerce-related topics. One Journal discusses various types of money (from barter to representative symbols to hard coin and minting). The tenth Journal, Harvest, discusses the value of greed. It teaches that without greed and the desire to accumulate more and more wealth, one can never attain perfection. Greed and the desire for material wealth hone one’s desire and abilities. The competition of commerce raises all participants by providing harsh lessons of loss to the weak and rewarding the clever and stalwart.

The Ledger assigns numerical values to sins and good deeds. It urges worshipers to keep minutes of their deeds and attempt to strike a balance. Adhering too closely to good or evil earns distrust from the other ethos. Grievous sins against the faith include short-changing good customers, defaulting on a loan, counterfeiting and lying on paperwork to avoid paying taxes (although avoiding taxes by legal manipulation, including lobbying to change laws in one’s favor, is encouraged as a sign of cleverness).

The Ledger is widely available, especially in Ahznomahn, Zoa and other major ports. It costs 25 gp.