Monday 10 August 2020

Random Coinage Generator

I am currently reading Flaubert's Salammbo, a chief candidate for what I will in future refer to as the Appendix N of Appendix N - that primordial stew of fin de siecle proto-pulp from which the Appendix N books sprang.

There will be much more to say about this bizarre and wonderful book in a future post or two, but for now, here's a passage from it:

Then when they had come to the far end of the corridor Abdalonim took one of the keys hanging at his belt and opened up a large square chamber, divided in the middle by cedar wood columns. Coins of gold, silver, and bronze, laid out on tables or put away in recesses, piled along all four walls up to the roofbeams. Huge trunks of hippopotamus hide carried, at their corners, whole row of smaller sacks; heaps of bullion lay in mounds on the floor; and here and there a pile had grown too high and had collapsed, to look like a ruined column. Large Carthaginian pieces, representing Tanit with a horse under a palm-tree, mingled with those from the colonies, marked with a bull, a star, a globe, or a crescent. Then could be seen laid out, in unequal sums, coins of all values, sizes, and periods - from old Assyrian coins, thin as a finger nail, to old ones from Latium, thicker than a hand, with buttons from Aegina, tablets from Bactria, short rods from ancient Sparta; many were covered in rust, or dirt, green from water or black from fire, having been picked up in nets or in the ruins of some besieged town.

The idea of all of these different coins bearing the marks of war and disaster is so evocative I just had to think up a random table for generating more interesting treasure:

Dice

Shape

Thickness

Motif

Condition

1

Circle

Fingernail (weigh 0.1cn, 10% of normal value)

Blank

As though newly minted

2

Wafer (weigh 0.2cn, 20% of normal value)

Symbol (key, crossed swords, skull, etc.)

Well-used but otherwise clean

3

Regular (weigh 1cn, normal value)

Snake

4

Dragon

5

Fish

6

Oval

Tree

Scorched (-2% value)

7

Triangle

Flower

8

Hexagon

Scorpion

Rusted (-5% value)

9

Square

Double regular (weigh 2cn, twice normal value

Head of local ruler of recent vintage

10

Rod

One finger (weigh 5cn, five times normal value)

Head of local ruler of ancient vintage

Bloodstained

11

Pentagon/

Octagon/

Decagon

Two fingers (weigh 10cn, 10 times normal value)

Head of distant ruler of recent vintage

Defaced 

12

Irregular

Irregular (average weight of 1cn, average value)

Head of distant ruler of ancient vintage

Melted (divide total amount of hoard by 3d6; this is how many individual chunks of metal there are - each is worth its weight in the respective metal)

18 comments:

  1. Just when I needed to determine some exotic foreign coins in my game, M&M swoops in to the rescue. Love it.

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  2. Great table!

    And yes, Salammbo does offer a sort of ur-sword and sorcery. Herodias has something of the same feel - and The Legend of St Julian the Hospitalier is a textbook of murderhoboism. Flaubert gave the manticore's literary life a boost, too, in The Temptation of Saint Anthony.

    I have a dim recollection of there being a fairly spectacular French graphic novel of Salammbo.

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    Replies
    1. Wikipedia says so as well. I might see what I can dig up.

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  3. Without a mathematical background you don't understand what randomness is and how it can be applied, and like everyone who doesn't understand something and doesn't WANT to understand that thing you will never ask. Look up dependence and independence as any 18 yr old would have to grasp.

    This post is a case where random effects are ok. Randomisation of decoration is ok. Randomisation of physical processes like woodlands, rivers, mountains requires a huge amount of understanding. Randomisation of human character is beyond intelligent people and the province of astrologists, Myers Briggs Salesmen and J Peterson's Big Five - all gibberish.

    Imagine throwing paint on the ground - but draw up a random table to describe how it will land beforehand.

    Very simple things like: direction, size, weight, brightness are subject to randomness because only very simple things can be *measured*. And only what can be be measured can be randomised.

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  4. Appendix N *of* Appendix N?!!? Awesome, I can't wait to see it! And the coinage creator is wonderful.

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    Replies
    1. I bet it has been done before but we'll see.

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  5. Most excellent. I often wonder how the coins scrabbled from under some barrow differ from the coinage of the current realm...

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  6. A nearby museum has been displaying quite a collection of its coinage in the last few years. There's a lot of variety, even from the modern era. You see scrip for use in Prisoner of War camps, commemorative coins, emergency currencies for occupied territories, trade dollars stamped over with a local power's mark and notes for immense sums issued in time of dramatic inflation.

    I understand that the works of Sir Walter Scott and Rafael Sabatini are particularly apt for the Appendix N of Appendix N (N Squared?). I've read a little Scott, and know of Sabatini only by repute.

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    Replies
    1. I tried reading Ivanhoe once but gave up. But I think you're right. Never really heard much about Sabatini but will investigate. I think Verne, Conan Doyle and Wells are the really big names on Appendix N squared.

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  7. I love how Kent couldn't find anything in the post to complain about, but still used the post as inspiration to complain about something AND managed to imply that you are still incompetent and were only correct by accident. I have to grudgingly respect that kind of commitment to misanthropy.

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    Replies
    1. I know. "I'll let you off this time but here's why you're still an arsehole anyway."

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    2. I believe ten years of misanthropy o'the'web might be represented by an hour's public house didactive.

      There are simple questions to ask (i) Is Wis independent of Int (ii) Is Str independent of Con (iii) Is Cha independent of level.

      At it's most simple. What problems might someone encounter trying to create a random table for river flow? How to ensure using random tables a river does not cross itself because of a weak understanding of the constraints on random variables.

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    3. Is Wis independent of Int?

      I think so, because even very intelligent people can ensnare themselves in conspiracy theories.

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  8. I'm going to use this for every "electrum" coin hoard found in my AD&D games going forward. The assumption being that ep coins are left overs from now-defunct civilizations. This is perfect! Thanks David!

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    Replies
    1. I love electrum pieces as left overs from ancient civilisations. I always do that too.

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    2. I also can't wait to use the "just one more coin? it's wahhfer thin..."

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