Have a setting with a divine bureaucracy that manages most aspects of the world

>Of course, the main reason we historically used gold for money is that it's fucking useless for anything else...
No, the main reasons are that it's very easy to work with (as far as metals go) and it's very resistant to corrosion.
For the same reasons we used silver and copper (the latter not being very resistant to corrosion but very malleable and easy to obtain). Nowadays we don't use gold anymore because with modern metallurgy we can make alloys with similar characteristics at a much lower price.

And gold isn't/wasn't useless. Even ignoring modern day applications that weren't used in the past, gold could be made in very thin sheets to cover other metals to protect them from corrosion (it only works with certain metals though, others incur galvanic corrosion) and could be used to make tools and objects that needed to be very thin without needing to withstand a high stress.

>porcelain would make just utterly terrible coins.

Dude, porcelain coins were a real thing.

Historically, we did not use gold.

we used silver for about 99% of transactions.

Silver currency was then backed up by the largest denominations, in gold.

Saying we used gold for money is a bit like saying we use $1,000 bearer bonds for shopping, today.

Definitely too on the nose. Why not just "yuan"?

>enchanted
It's made by Heaven. It has what properties the mint wants it to have. Calling that enchantment is like saying that children are enchanted to grow into adults.

Halos or Wings?

You know, "an angel gets its wings" and all that

Honestly I kind of like blessings.

Call them Clouds and have there be nine categories of them

Heaven cents

Damnations, damn, damned, or damnit for short

Money, after all, is the root of all evil.

I like blessings.
I also like Mana
I like this concept in general.

>using money
>in heaven
What the fuck is wrong with people today? I see threads every day where it's taken for absolute certainty that all societies past and present revolve around money and the consumer economy, in spite of near-ubiquitous mechanisms for eliminating material scarcity. Like, in a high fantasy world, you can magic whatever you want into existence.

For instance, peasants, an already historically unproductive class, serve literally no purpose in a world where a spellcaster can conjure meals, and manage an entire farm with 10 minutes of "work." There is no need for any class of people to exist at all outside of mages and the intellectual/cultural elite.

In a setting with interstellar travel, there's literally just a copy-pasted 21st century market with space dollars. This, in spite of the fact that an interstellar civilization has access to infinite resources, and should most certainly have the technology necessary to take full advantage of those resources (nanofabrication), which eliminates productive labor altogether and collapses capitalism completely. Not to mention the option of simply hosting private utopias in VR.

"The poor" are, unlike in historical societies where unskilled labor was necessary to survival, completely pointless and actively toxic in either high fantasy or space opera settings. Furthermore, outside of a very small number of occasions where demand outstrips locally-available production, money is just stupid.

And in your example, OP, where there's literally a fucking 'divine bureaucracy', only the most malevolent of deities would be so ignorant as to permit, let alone condone, this kind of brain-stunted foolishness.

>They aren't the watered down pop-art modern interpretation of what an angel is
>Therefore you cannot use the word "angel" to describe it, even though many words have more than one meaning

Dark Sun uses ceramic coins.

Seconded. Or even just tokens.

>"only the most malevolent of deities would be so ignorant as to permit, let alone condone, this kind of brain-stunted foolishness."

Well, they ARE bureaucrats

You imply so fucking much with your post. Did I ever say my setting has magic common enough or strong enough to make everything post scarcity? No you faggot, I didn't.

Money is a part of life, and heaven is just your life after. People in heaven pay taxes and they vote on things to happen in the real world, and some of them want to be able to give money to their siblings and children on earth, and sometimes people on earth want to honor their ancestors by giving them money in heaven. So heaven created the Blessing, a universal currency, so such things could occur.

No but seriously I don't know why you went on a nerd rage rant so hard. You made so many implications with absolutely nothing to back it up.

Question on how the angels are, metaphysically speaking.

Are they essentially very minor gods, a servant race created by the gods, individuals picked by the gods to work for them in the bureaucracy, or beings created individually without the natural ability to reproduce among themselves (with mortals is another question, but not relevant) for the same purpose?

>>You imply so fucking much with your post. Did I ever say my setting has magic common enough

Not him but:

Putting aside you didn't actually tell us all that much about the setting, in general, there was:

>
>It's made by Heaven. It has what properties the mint wants it to have.

That's kind of a big deal and makes the other "point" of magic not being common, moot. It doesn't need to be common if one guy/organization can make coins with whatever properties they like i.e a single coin made of whatever can make anyone that ingests them functionally immortal. Also they can be infinitely produced.

This. End the thread it can only get worse

>That's kind of a big deal and makes the other "point" of magic not being common, moot. It doesn't need to be common if one guy/organization can make coins with whatever properties they like i.e a single coin made of whatever can make anyone that ingests them functionally immortal. Also they can be infinitely produced.

I'm not that guy, and secondly, he's referring to heaven doing it. The gods, angels and so forth. Why do you think humans would have access to such powers?

In traditional fantasy settings vampires are usually immortal, does that mean every joe mcblow peasant is also immortal? No, obviously not. There are different inherent power levels within the setting. Peasants and serfs may get a kick out of magical love potions or maybe the occasional +1 farming hoe, but the real good shit is rare and is not strong enough to fix the whole world's hunger, poverty, and other resource issues, even if the caster who had access to it was totally morally righteous and didn't use it for personal gain; what's to say its infinite?

Like I said, this much assumption is really irritating. Do you honestly believe I would work on a setting and design such a ridiculous oversight?

>using money
>in heaven
"Celestial Bureaucracy" means he's using Chinese thematics.

>in spite of near-ubiquitous mechanisms for eliminating material scarcity
Have you tried not playing D&D?

>an interstellar civilization has access to infinite resources
We have access to practically infinite energy, since the sun keeps shooting it at us, yet somehow electricity still costs money.

>(nanofabrication)
Not automatically implied by space travel, mate.
>which eliminates productive labor altogether and collapses capitalism completely.
That's a big assumption you've got there.

>"The poor" are completely pointless and actively toxic
You are entitled to hold this opinion, as people do now and did throughout history. But there's no evidence to suggest that it'll become more correct as time progresses.

>only the most malevolent of deities would be so ignorant as to permit, let alone condone, this kind of brain-stunted foolishness.
Sounds like you need to study cultures other than your own as well as basic economics

>That's kind of a big deal and makes the other "point" of magic not being common, moot.
That's like saying real life is a high magic setting because YHWH can do what he wants.

>like i.e a single coin made of whatever can make anyone that ingests them functionally immortal. Also they can be infinitely produced.
That's not the same thing as saying "this ceramic works good for coins because that's how the gods make it", but enjoy rolling about in your own autism.

How'd everyone get so butthurt, so fast?

it's Veeky Forums, butthurt capital of the internet.

>"Celestial Bureaucracy" means he's using Chinese thematics.
No it doesn't, especially since he didn't reference it as a celestial bureaucracy, he referenced it as a divine bureaucracy.

>Have you tried not playing D&D?
Shit, I never play D&D, but all the autistics on this board are absolutely addicted to it and use it as the base reference for all their shitty, speculative, NARPfag threads, like this one.

>We have access to practically infinite energy, since the sun keeps shooting it at us, yet somehow electricity still costs money.
1. Electricity does not cost money. Access to the electrical grid does.

2. We don't have the means to eliminate energy, let alone material scarcity at this point in time. A high fantasy world, or an interstellar civilization, however, certainly would.

3. Even setting aside the fact that we don't yet have the means to defeat scarcity, it's more than obvious that the contemporary economy is an incredibly irrational and inefficient means to distribute the resources we do have, especially when it comes to something like electrical power.

>Not automatically implied by space travel, mate.
Seeing as that we already have quite advanced 3D printing and experimental nanofabrication today, a civilization that has the capacity to readily travel between stars will be significantly more advanced in that regard. Even if it isn't the case, there are the two other facts I mentioned that effectively eliminate scarcity - 1) the vast abundance of resources in space, and 2) virtual reality.

>That's a big assumption you've got there.
Capitalism past the point of scarcity is simply madness.

>You are entitled to hold this opinion, as people do now and did throughout history. But there's no evidence to suggest that it'll become more correct as time progresses.
It's already true now, and has been for a few decades.

>Sounds like you need to study cultures other than your own as well as basic economics
>t. bourgeoisie high school student

>No it doesn't, especially since he didn't reference it as a celestial bureaucracy, he referenced it as a divine bureaucracy.

OP here- I did indeed mean to use Chinese thematics in my 'divine' or 'celestial' bureaucracy. They mean the same thing.

Nice try, covering your ass here, NARPfag, but the image you used in the OP is very clearly kike shit, and you're not actually running any game, because you've never done that before.

You're getting worse by the post. Is there any issue in your life you'd like to talk about? This was just a thread to spitball some ideas, but you seem to be taking it very personally. What's up?

Chinese Heaven is the slum area outside of Christian Heaven, so they can't have all the nice things.

>he didn't reference it as a celestial bureaucracy, he referenced it as a divine bureaucracy.
Different translations, same thing.

>I never play D&D
>but I still assume it's the only thing around
>I'm not the dumb one here, you are!'

>Electricity does not cost money. Access to the electrical grid does.
Money that increases proportionately to the electricity you draw from it. This argument is purely semantic, and is questionable even on that ground.

>A high fantasy world, or an interstellar civilization, however, certainly would [be able to eliminate scarcity]
If you want to write a post-scarcity setting, feel free. But thinking that every and all such setting can is foolishness that belies a storied ignorance.

>the contemporary economy is an incredibly irrational and inefficient means to distribute the resources we do have
>t. bourgeoisie high school student

>especially when it comes to something like electrical power.
Our electrical system is incredibly sophisticated and effective. There are some major inefficiencies introduced by the lack of a good way to store excess, but I'm pretty sure that Donald Sadoway's electrochemistry is going to provide a solution once he gets his head out of his ass about hiring experts, and some proper production line and marketing people get on the job.

>a civilization that has the capacity to readily travel between stars will be significantly more advanced in that regard.
If it's based on a hypothetical advancement of modern tech, sure. If it's purely fictional, no. Technology isn't a line, and it's not a tree like a fucking video game either.

>Capitalism past the point of scarcity is simply madness.
That's a real hot opinion and all, but it doesn't really support the thesis that nano-fabrication will instantly create a world in where there is nothing left where demand exceeds supply, which is the only case in which capitalism could or would be completely collapsed.

>near-ubiquitous mechanisms for eliminating material scarcity. Like, in a high fantasy world, you can magic whatever you want into existence.
If you eliminate material scarcity, commerce just becomes about something more than base materials.