Considering most food items cost about 1 gold, I think the 5 gold line may have been an attempt at hyperbole in the related quest.

While, as previously stated, there have been no in-game details on multi-septim coins, it only makes sense. For instance, the english Pistole had a x10 variant called the Demipistole.

I know, not contributing much. What I really jumped into this thread for was to offer Tazgrent his much-needed http://www.boomspeed.com/matban/website_port_pics/fishystick/fishystick.jpg

Ah ha, thank you!

As for local currencies, I can imagine that the hlaalu are probably responsible for the pervasiveness of the septim in Morrowind. (your one of the main merchant and trader groups, changing the currency you accept, and then also facilitating the exchange of the local currency to septims could be profitable)

Plus, major settlement on Vvardenfell is fairly recent, long after the occupation of Morrowind, thus, the Septim has probably seen wider use throughout Morrowind as a whole.

Some of the beggars must be millionaires by Cyrodil's standards

That was just the devs not thinking things through properly when they wrote the dialogue. If a piece of bread or an apple from the local shop costs 2 septims, how can anyone possibly survive on less than 5 gold a year? Unless by 'gold' they mean coins of a higher denomination, as people mentioned earlier.

Let's examine beggars. Put on your math goggles kids.


I takes 30 seconds for him to ask a person for a coin.
That means he gets 1 gold every 5 minutes. (Assuming 1 out of 10 gives him a coin)
After 50 minutes he has 10 gold.
After about four hours he has 50 gold.
Assuming he begs twelve hours a day, he gets 150 gold per day.
A house in the water front costs 2000 gold.
In two weeks the beggar could have a house.

Edit: Spelling
Edit Again: Clarification

The beggars are laughing it up in their mansions.

It also seems most prices in Cyrodiil are either dirt cheap or prohibitively expensive.

The beggars have to eat too.

Lets assume they need to eat three items of food per meal and they have three meals per day.
That substracts 9 gold per day and..
Wait...
Thats nothing.

The beggars lives like kings!
I bet they have a secret hoard somewhere in the sewers. I have to go look.

That also explains the mysterious change in voice they have sometimes.
And of course, that's assuming they only get 1 in 10 people to contribute; it could be a third, or even half. Making the beggars even more filthy rich.

Maybe it DOES get counterfeited, it isn't specified that it happens, but it's never said that Septims are counterfeit proof either. The game rarely tells you where all that gold you see comes from. It isn't explicitly said that any of it is forged, but it wouldn't strike me as unbelievable if in a later game you came upon some counterfeit Septim operation.



I suspect this is more of a case of gameplay not accurately reflecting the story. When Bethesda decided to give a piece of bread a price of two gold or whatever it is, they were probably not thinking of "What would make more sense in the lore?" but "What would work well in gameplay?"

I'd expect that they do have some form of larger units though, even though the game doesn't reflect it, since realistically speaking, it would be quite inconvenient to have to count Septims one by one, the games don't go into too much detail on this, though.

As to the beggars getting rich, for that to happen, they would need to actually save their money, maybe whenever they get gold they spend it on drinking, it's not like they seem to do much besides beg for gold so they need something to pass the time, it may also be that corrupt watchmen routinely go around the less fortunate citizens of Tamriel and shake them down for every coin they have, sounds like the sort of thing the watch might do.

They're only that size for gameplay reasons (picking them up).

In reality, I'd say they are about the size of a dime or a nickel.

I could understand there being minor discrepancies between the gameplay value and lore value of septims, but not to the extent where an amount that buys a single meal for the player is a year's wages to NPCs. Why not just change the amount of the fine to something more sensible, such as five hundred septims? Frankly I suspect they weren't thinking about it at all.


Agreeing with this, and the 'letter of credit' idea makes sense too.

Heres a thought...
Will they even be called Septims anymore?

There is an office of commerce

DUDE! YOU JUST CAME UP WITH THE NEXT VISA COMMERCIAL! joke


A dude walks in a store in the ES world, "I want those enchanted pants for 1,500!"

"I am done counting" the line get longer, the next dude rolls up with a visa card!

They're still called Ben Franklins.

If you go by what the beggars say "I could eat for a day with a single coin!" then it's less than 9 gold per day unless they get rich and pig out.

Fair play

Actually in Morrowind the coins are called Drakes. (Aren't they?)

Die-Hard Imperials in Morrowind call them septims, like people in our day call them "Dollars" religiously.
Some people call them Drakes, probably referring to the dragon imagery inherent in the Empire.
Most people call it Gold, like most people call dollars "bucks".

In response to this and your first post, this is what I have to say.

This is based on historical precedent on this planet, take it as you may when applying it to Tamriel.

The septim is not a measure of currency like the dollar is, but rather it is a gold coin of a set weight. Let's say a septim weighs 1 point. See where I am going with this. The english monetary unit is the pound, that's because once upon a time this was a coin that was 1 pound of silver (I think it was silver anyway) You see all over the place balances. That's because when you buy something, you don't count out your coins, you weigh them out (like the stories of crooked merchants putting their thumb on the balance so that the buyer would have to add more coins)

When basing a currency off of weight, counterfeit is impossible (they don't have the ability to give a fine coating of gold, and even if they did, that's the assayer's job to check) This also allows the currency to adapt over a very large and diverse economic landscape. It's like if we bought things with gold bars. An economy like the empire doesn't use money established by a federal bank or anything like that. They just have their coins minted as a sign of their power and wealth (if the coin has the empire's symbol on it, then obviously it really belongs to the empire) ala Mat 22:19-21 Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.
And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.
Note, this is posted here ONLY to show that historically, if the emperor's image was on the coin than that meant he claimed that as his money, at least in theory. This is not an attempt to discuss religion as such is against forum rules.

So I guess when you have 2000 gold, you don't have 2000 pieces, just 2000... ounces? Points? Whatever they are.

yup, just mete out 2000 pounds of gold! I doubt it's pounds, but ounces or something similar. Still, that's a lot of weight to be carrying around!