World-Building Workshop ~ Economy, Trade & Money

AUTHORS:

This is the third installment of the World-Building Workshop.  To read previous installments, click:

Naming Your World and Choosing a Heirarcy

Terrain & Maps

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ECONOMY, TRADE, & MONEY

Once you have your world's name, your government, your terrain, and map all planned out, its time to think of your economy. I'm not necessarily talking about stocks and all the good stuff going on at Wall Street, although you are certainly welcome to implement that idea if you want to.

I'm simply talking about where does your country get it's goods? Do the local farmers supply fruits and grain? Do your spices come from overseas? How do goods travel from town to town? Are there trains in your world? Magical portals? Advanced "Star Trek" technology such as "beaming" and whatnot?

What kind of money system do you have in your world? Paper dollars or just coins? While this might not enter into your story too much, it's still a good idea to think about this, as you can add it in for extra "flavor" to bring a "unique-ness" to your story, or you can make mention of it.

In my world, they only have coins. Copper, silver, and gold. Ten copper = one silver. Ten silver = one gold.

These coins are known as "ladies", a term I *coined* (pun intended haha) after I thought that the face of Lyndaria's first queen was embossed on them. So they are copper ladies, silver ladies, and gold ladies. But think of money in our world. We have dollars, pounds, pesos, Euros... So to make your money system unique and believable, try to think of something similar. You could even do something akin to credit cards, which would make sense in a Sci-fi.

Once your trade routes and money are established, then we're going to move on to fleshing out your world a bit. So tell us all what your thoughts are for money in your world and we'll move on in a little while! :)

~~Becka