Many currencies are available in the Actuality, but most arise from the city of Satyrine. They have different uses and not all are compatible or exchangeable.
The most widely accepted currency is made in Satyrine. These tiny orbs each represent a thought, a secret, or an idea. Most people just call them by their material, so 3 glass orbs are “3 glass,” 6 crystal orbs are “6 crystal,” and 2 gem orbs are “2 gems.” The exception is that sometimes people just say “orbs,” in which case they mean glass orbs.
Glass orbs: More often than not, just called an orb. If someone says the price of a sandwich is 21 orbs, they mean glass orbs. In Shadow, this might be worth about a dime in the United States in the early 21st century. Each glass orb represents a very common thought or idea, like the taste of cheddar cheese or that you should wear a jacket when it’s chilly.
Glass orbs are produced in the Ash Gardens by child laborers who spend their long days conceiving basic ideas and thoughts. This is a slow process, so it is difficult to make much of a profit on the orbs, except through massive quantities. The Deathless Triumvirate attempts to regulate the production of orbs, nevertheless, to ensure that the currency maintains its value.
Glass orbs discorporate in about fifty years, so they are not a good currency for hoarding.
Crystal orbs: A crystal orb is worth 100 glass orbs. In Shadow, the equivalent value of a crystal orb would be about 10 American dollars. Each represents a relatively common or mundane idea, like a recipe for lentil soup or directions to get up Ferrock Mountain.
Crystal orbs do not discorporate, but they are as fragile as they sound.
Gem orbs: Gem orbs are rare. Most transactions involving such large amounts of value are handled by bank cheque. A gem orb is worth 100 crystal orbs. In Shadow, the equivalent value would be about 1,000 American dollars.
They are permanent and nigh-indestructible.
Trueorbs: Last but not least, there are trueorbs, which are the essence of the original concept of orbs from days of old. In other words, these orbs are solidified ideas, thoughts, and secrets. Trueorbs have the same value as gem orbs and look similar, but even a casual glance confirms that they are different. To most people, the distinction is all but meaningless. However, as with magecoins, a vislae or other skilled individual can use the currency for something entirely different than buying goods or services. Vislae can draw the idea or sensation out of a trueorb and put it in their own mind. This adds 1 to the character’s Hidden Knowledge score. The concept is usually fleeting and ephemeral. It also utterly consumes the trueorb.
Orbs are not the only currency in use. Large gold coins covered in mystic symbols come in two varieties, called vim and lumins. These coins are of particular value to vislae (and a limited number of others). They are called magecoins most of the time, but mana coin is the more formal term.
Each of these coins contains a tiny modicum of power that vislae can draw into themselves. This power comes in the form of restoring a given pool. Vim can restore any of the four Certes pools. Lumins can restore any of the four Qualia pools.
There is no easy exchange rate between orbs and magecoins. In Shadow, it’s relatively easy to put a cohesive value relationship on two disparate things—a smartphone and tickets to a play, for example. Although one has little to do with the other, you can break each down into the costs of producing them and the value to the end user. But once you add magic into the mix, it becomes far more difficult to establish meaningful equivalency. Equating a fine meal with a potion that grants life to the dead, for example, borders on the absurd.
That’s why magical things—spells, objects of power, potions, and usually magical services—are paid for with magecoins or sometimes barter (typically using other magical things), but never with orbs or other nonmagical currencies.
Thus, people are rarely willing to trade magecoins for orbs. This means there is no standard exchange rate. Someone wealthy with orbs might not be able to get their hands on many magecoins, because most of the people who have them (vislae, usually) are unwilling to give them up for anything other than magic. When it is possible for someone without magic to get a few magecoins, it’s at a rate of 1 magecoin for 1 or 2 gem orbs. And even then, such an exchange is rarely available for more than 1 or 2 magecoins.
So how does one get magecoins, then? Vislae trade them to other adepts for magical goods and magic-related services. For example, if a 4th-degree Vance needs materials to perform an evocation, they might pay a lesser Vance in magecoins to obtain those materials (even if the lesser Vance uses orbs to buy the items).
Drawing power from a magecoin is an action. A drained magecoin is a piece of metal worth about an orb. Vislae cannot “recharge” drained magecoins. No one knows where new magecoins come from.
Bloodsilver are silver coins that carry a curse. Each is worth about 1 crystal orb, but most people won’t accept them. Using bloodsilver as a currency is an act of bravado. You’ll find people interested in looking powerful or fearless hoarding the coins. It’s said that sometimes assassins are paid only in bloodsilver. Someone too timid to take these coins, it’s thought, has no place killing people for a living.
Possessing one bloodsilver coin is rarely a problem. More than that, though, and the GM can begin to ask for occasional Withstand or Resist actions to hold off the effects of the curse. (The GM probably should ask no more than once a week, but no less than once a month.) The level of the challenge is based on the number of coins possessed:
2–10: level 1
11–20: level 2
21–30: level 3
3 1–40: level 4
And so on.
The exact nature of the curse varies but is probably similar to some of the magical flux. As with most curses, once a character is afflicted, it lasts until it is lifted. The curse on the coins can’t be lifted, but the curse afflicting a character can.
These objects are almost certainly not what their name implies, and some have chosen to call them demondrops for just that reason. However, they might be demonic secretions of some kind. Or they might not. Each looks a little like a blood-red pearl, although few are perfectly round. They are found by explorers who have ventured into the Red. Some demons carry these objects, bringing them into other realms, but are they possessions or creations of the demons? They’re not telling, and no one who cares enough about the answer is in a position to ask.
Demontears work like—and are valued like—magecoins that can restore any pool. Some people fear to use this currency, however, believing that doing so subjects them to some kind of demonic influence.
In all the realms, half-worlds, and mysterious lands in the universe, there are many types of coins or baubles that an explorer might find. Regardless of their local value—scarcity of so-called rare metals, for example, is a concept that does not exist in Indigo—these are all lumped together as “bits and bobs.” Five bits and bobs are worth an orb, making them—from Shadow’s perspective—basically pennies.
For large amounts, people use paper cheques of varying value, backed up by one of the banks in Satyrine. These frequently carry minor enchantments from the bank to assure the holder of their validity. Cheque values are always expressed in orbs. Most established businesses accept cheques.
Because orbs represent a thought, a secret, or an idea, the equivalent value can be transferred through the Noösphere between two entities there. The value can also be transferred by someone with access to the Noösphere, such as through a psychopomp or someone with the right spells.