So i saw a few threads like this but most tried to compare septim to US dollar or something similar, which i think is impossible, what i am theorizing about is how much is a septim worth in universe, what prompted me to think about this was that i found "dead lovers camp" recently, and read the diary, the woman says her lover has been putting money away for some time to pay for them to elope, he stashed it in the hollowed out log in the back of the camp, all 30 septims. The general trend seems to follow this, gold ingot for example is worth 100 septims, silver one is 50. Food items rarely exceed 3-4 septims, and while this may seem overpriced following this logic one has to remember that food it middle ages was a valuable commodity, it was hard to grow it and even harder to transport it, especially in a climate such as Skyrim. Another thing, books, in middle ages books were fairly valuable, since they were written by hand, Skyrim books range from 3-5 septims up to about 100. And most houses in Skyrim are relatively cheap in comparison to real houses, who ever heard of buying a house or a flat for 8000 $, yet you buy one in Skyrim for 8000 septims. And then there are various treasure troves, both tied to missions and those not tied to missions, i recently finished "Lights Out" quest, my reward, about 150 septims worth of gold and Ebony ingot, that all form a big galley. Now of course one may well dismiss this all as game mechanic but it seems as though septim is in fact rather valuable coin, its just that a player often deals with high value items such as Ebony gear and such.

This subject confuses me. Klimmek gives me over 700 septims for delivering food. Proventus gives me 25 for Adrianne's sword delivery. Farmer's ask for 5 septims (max) and that does not even get them one night at an Inn. Some Imperial Soldier gives me 5 septims for a drink, when most cost more than that.

The value seems really strange and flexible to me...

Sure enough some things are inconsistent, although some of it may be explained, Kilmmek delivers this supplies as a sort of pilgrimage, and a tribute to Graybeards because it is obvious not a few of Iverstead inhabitants are afraid of them, so maybe he payed you for braving the dangerous path to the top of the tallest mountain in Tamriel (which remember, is supposed to have 1000 steps, even though it only has about 200 IIRC) to deliver a tribute to appease a mighty group of hermits powerful enough to level entire village with a single word. Proventus does give you 25 but he is Jarls right hand, it sure isn't a lot to him, IDK what farmer you are referring to, and i am not aware of the Imperial soldier you mentioned either although i would like to point out that 10 gold will get you entire bottle of wine, it's just a game limitation that you down it all in one go but in reality one bottle would be enough for an entire group to have a drink, most people order a glass of wine in a tavern, not a whole bottle.

I find that explanation somewhat hard to believe since Klimmek, a fisherman living in a small backwater that does not even have a general merchant, should not even have that much coin to give. If we are to believe that fishermen and the like can easily part with 700 Septims, then the prices of food, drink and beds at the inn should be much higher. The whole economy in Skyrim is pretty darned inconsistent. But that is nothing new to the series. Having a believable economy has never been Beth's strong suit.

True true, i thought about that too, there is a possibility that he did not part easy with it, rather he payed trough the nose for your service, though it does seem many people have way too much coin to hire the most competent adventurer in Tamriel to do there bidding, but then again Klimmek did make that journey every week IIRC, there are things like trolls, ice wraiths, bears and giant spiders on that path so maybe Klimmek is more then meets the eye, maybe.

Maybe. The path is pretty tough, you can run past the troll, but the ice wraiths and ice wolves are pretty tough to deal with, unless you can fight. So, maybe he is a retired adventurer sitting on a secret dragon's horde like Bilbo Baggins, but he sure does not act like it in the Mara questline, where you have to boost his confidence enough for him to talk to a woman. He acts more like a backwoods fisherman than a hardened adventurer.

The economy in Skyrim is no better than almost every other computer game I have ever played. Next to useless. Examples litter the genre. I had thought by Skyrim things would be better. Wrong.

Treasure trove of legendary unique mighty Dragonis Maximus is x thousand gold coins. But the shop in town is littered with items that cost more!

You want to charge me how much for a +3 Longsword? I just saved your life and your entire family. "Discount" my [censored].....

And so on and so forth.

The farmers are the ones (husband and wife) you see on the road who lost their homes and warn of Dragon attacks. You have the option of giving them 1 or 5 septims, which they are thankful for.

The Imperial Soldier... I hope I am remembering this correctly, but it seems that I did "something" for an Imperial Captain (the one in Solitude, maybe?) and afterwards he gives us 5 septims and says, "Go have a drink on me." I think it may be finding out about the Solitude Alchemist's daughter?

Turija and ShinsFortress, have a great point about Bethesda (and other video game companies) and their games' economies

The real problem is that TES games only use Septims. Considering how rare gold is both in and out of universe, there should be smaller denominations in other materials, such as copper and silver. This is generally an acceptable break from reality in games, though, because most players don't really want to remember how many coppers to a silver or how many silvers to a gold. Imagine needing to make sense of the old British money system after growing up exclusively with the US dollar, the modern pound, or the Euro just to figure out if you can afford a new sword. It's much easier to compare gold to gold. Silver might make more sense as a singular currency, but medieval money = gold is pretty well ingrained in popular consciousness.

They could still do with some better consistency, though. At least nobody in Skyrim gives you five Septims for giving them one of the game's best artifacts.

money and objects have a value in our society because we as a society agree it has value.. that $5 between your couch cushions, its not worth that because of some cosmic importance, its worth that because we as as society say its worth that.. same with property, the land your house is on isn't worth money because some deity looked at it and said "hey thats important, its worth money!", its worth that because society says that the land is valuable (once upon a time you didn't even need to own land.. you could just go "hey, thats a nice view.. I guess i'll build my house here!")..


this is my issue with people trying to come up with the value of a Septim (or any video game currency) by comparing it to prices of objects within our world.. as this is a fictional setting, its very possible their society just agrees that an objects value is different compared to what we say it would be..

In the game Spellforce there were copper, silver and gold coins, silver was worth 100 copper and gold was worth 100 silver IIRC, and the engine transfered seamlessly from one currency to the other, if you wanted to pay for something it first took from copper as much as you had, if you did not have enough it would take from silver and return the change in copper and so on.

Carriage travel prices make me howl. Go halfway across the map for just 20 gold, but another city only half the Distance costs 50.

It seems that whoever in the Dev team who was tasked with the economy (on top of many other tasks) just threw something together in a hurry.....but why would the Team Leader (Todd) pass such a mess as being ok. Unless....it was all added in the games closing stages and there simply wasn't another 'Man-day' left in the budget to give it any thought. Gotta admit though....that's sloppy Dev. Fingers crossed for TES VI economy!

I always thought the 50 gold places were places without a carriage there all the time, e.g. Falkreath, Winterhold. I've assumed the extra cost was for going 'off-route' as it were.

Answer:Bethesda svcks at making a belivable economy and level scaled rewards make it impossible to really make one since the poor farmer still needs to reward a high level player with 10000+gold.....

Are you playing the game as an adventurer, or as an accountant? If I can get enough gold by playing normally, I don't care what the number is. It's just a mechanic for telling me I can't have that yet, because I haven't done enough.

It does, however, get used too much as a developer convenience that avoids them devising a proper non-monetary reward for each quest. It would be much better for the poor farmer to reward you with the neat weapon he dug up in his field, rather than gold. Then you get to choose whether to sell it or use it.

Arkady Hlaalu, Dunmer Adventuring Accountant at your service!

Ha! Yeah. Like entering old crypts to audit Draugr and helping them with their deductables and offsets......I mean they got a lot of coin down there and the government wants its cut y'know.

"Do you have any hidden assets? Like... in maybe... urns and such?"

"And you have to think about your retirement. If you're going to be undead, that's quite a long time..."

Kill a bandit chief and get 100-130 septims. Loot a chest and get anywhere between 3 septims to 224(the most I've found).

Well there is a mod that fixes that, you can find anywhere up to 2000 gold in master chest, as well as up to 20 gems, be warned though that it is way OP, i decided to install it because of immersion, as well as because i really don't care about money all that much anymore, i have all the houses fully furnished (including Heartfire ones) and at least about 10 sets of best gear money can buy so there is really not much i can spend my money on and either way with both Smithing and Speech at 100 i can easily grind that kind of money in a few minutes by forging and improving a peace of Nordic Carved armor (till now i found no other more cost effective peace of armor, though there is always enchanted daggers).

Nah, I don't want to find more. My point is, septims are easily obtainable just about everywhere.

Silver was the the common currency, gold was extremely rare like it is today, and extremely valuable.

For you, i have been rocking a hunter past few days, no armor, only clothes and unsmithed weapons, at first only longbow and iron dagger i took off a dead mage i found in the wild, and let me tell you, an encounter with 3 bandits near dragonbridge was scarier then facing a dozen draugr deathlords when i was fully kitted out, and i had all skills maxed out, a lone farmer without any noticable combat skill would be curbstomped by that bandit chief, hell he would be curbstomped by a common bandit, and in my experiment i was able to survive for about a week on a few hundred septims i found on the bodies of those bandits (with realistic needs and diseases mod) paying for a room in a tavern every day, buying water and some food and a few extra sets of clothes including a set of fine clothes and boots, and i had about 300 septims leftover when i tired of it all (there is not really a lot to do in the city, read some books, letting one hour pass for each 2 pages, got drunk a couple of times, tried to climb the roofs, that sort of thing) i reckon an average person could live a solid month on about 200 septims, if s/he did not buy any new sets of clothing or spend in excess in some other way.