Powerful characters actually can have bat caves batcaves that have sword racks literally ''covered'' in 15,000 gp magic items. It's not even a big deal, because they could just go home and slap some Efreet around and get some more. But even a single '''major''' magic item – that's heavy stuff that such characters will notice. Those things ''don't'' come free with hope alone, and every archmage knows that.

Many people wonder why a masterwork dagger goes for more than its weight in gold. That's a pretty valid question to ask; certainly I'm not going to attempt to justify the 600 gp price tag on a masterwork walking stick – that's just an example of simplistic game mechanics run amok. But to an ''extent'' the crazy prices can be justified by the fact that every settlement in every D&D world is on a war footing ''all the time''. The idea that Peace is somehow a natural state is a fairly recent one, and based on the frequency of wars all over the world – , it's obviously just wishful thinking anyway. War is the default position of every major economy in the D&D world, and that means that weapons have an immediate, and desperate, clientele. Iron is still relatively cheap, because you can't kill people with it ''right now'', but actual weapons and armor are crazy expensive.

People from the modern world are generally pretty perplexed by this idea of handing back and forth actual metal as a medium of exchange. It is an undeniable truth in our lives that the idea of currency is just that: an ''idea''. As long as whatever I'm trading for goods and services can be traded for goods and services, it doesn't actually matter if the exchange commodity has any ascribed intrinsic worth. Paper descriptions of value or even ephemeral electronic representations are not only adequate, they're ''convenient''. But more than that, using valuable commodities as a medium of exchange inhibits the growth of the economy. As long as a certain portion of the wealth is locked up in currency, the economy is strangled coming and going: not only is there a completely arbitrary limit on how many goods and services can be exchanged (the gold supply), but there is also a limit on the kinds of industry and artistic expression that can occur (in that if you use gold for anything ''but'' currency , you're actually shrinking the money supply and producing negative GDP). So... you're going to solve that by instituting a paper-based exchange system where initially the paper is exchangeable for gold and that eventually gets phased out when the Plebes realize that handing actual gold back and forth is inconvenient and dumb, right? Wrong. Remember that this is the Iron Age, and people haven't invented Nationalism yet. The cornerstone of the Greenback currency is a belief in the nation that prints it – and nations simply don't exist. You've got empires, and you've got kingdoms, and you've got tribes, and you've got unincorporated villages... and that's it as far as civilization goes. When you look at a map in D&D and a colored region has a name on it, that's the name of the ''region''. Possibly it's even the name of some guy ''in'' the region. The point is, that it's not a country in the modern sense of the word, so if some new guy walks in who's bad enough the next cartographer will put ''his'' name on the region instead.

And So... you're going to solve that by instituting a paper-based exchange system where initially the paper is exchangeable for gold and that eventually gets phased out when the Plebes realize that means handing actual gold back and forth is inconvenient and dumb, right? Wrong. Remember that "this is the Iron Age, and people haven't invented Nationalism yet. The Full Faith and Credit cornerstone of the Kingdom of Daxall" Greenback currency is worth precisely a belief in the nation that prints it – and nations simply don't exist. You've got empires, and you'nothingve got kingdoms, and you've got tribes, and you've got unincorporated villages... and that's it as far as civilization goes. And while King Daxall canWhen you look at a map in D&D and a colored region has a name on it, through force that's the name of arms, take all the gold away from all the peasants and get them to trade pieces of paper for goods and services in its place – noone will actually ''believeregion'' that the paper is currency. TheyPossibly it're literally trading promises by King Daxall that hes even the name of some guy 'll let them have their money back if they leave town. And since the serfs can't even leave town, even that promise is meaningless to them. A serf accepts paper for goods and services only because hein'll be beheaded if he doesn'tthe region. The black market value of these pieces of paper point is pretty close to zero. Worse, nearby governments will see this as a blatant attempt to sequester all the gold in King Daxallthat it's pants and will probably declare war (not a country in addition to the fact that noone outside modern sense of the reach of King Daxallword, so if some new guy walks in who's pikemen bad enough, the next cartographer will accept Daxall Dollars)put ''his'' name on the region instead.

The amount of gold it takes to get anywhere as a land lord landlord is ''very large''. The question that arises , then, is why awesome architecture exists ''at all''. It's a valid question, ; the listed costs to put things like pit traps and thrones made of bone into your dungeon are stupendously large , and actual magical swag can be made available for much less than that. The answer is that:

# Powerful artificers and adventurers don't even ''want'' your gold. If something has a value of 100,000 gold pieces, it can't be purchased with gold pieces at all – because that's an actual ton of gold that you'd have to plop over the counter , and the merchant you're dealing with won't take your money even if you have it.

Here , we're going to be focusing in on :

Well, two reasons: the first is the obvious one that gold is extremely ''limited'' in what it can possibly purchase. A +2 sword is worth your weight in gold. Not ''its'' weight in gold, ''your'' weight in gold. It seriously costs over 166 pounds of gold, and that's just not reasonable for most people to put into their pockets. So people interacting with even the shallow end of the magic trade ''need'' there to be some crazily expensive items that have no purpose save to look pretty and be exchangeable for other stuff. But unlike our world , gems actually have real value as well: as the fuel for powerful magics.

On Earth, the only reason that a diamond is expensive is because there's an international organization called DeBeers that seriously has actual assassins that will shoot you in the face if you try to sell diamonds for less than the price they've determined that they're supposed to be sold for. (That, and they've got mad skills at advertising.) D&D doesn't have that kind of armed monopoly to maintain gem prices, but it does have the fact that people continuously use up gems for spells like ''[[SRD:Raise Dead|raise dead]]'' and item creation and the like. So the fact that you can use ruby dust to make ''[[SRD:Continual Flame|continual flames]]'' that you can turn around and sell as [[SRD:Everburning TorcheTorch|Everburning TorcheTorches]]s means that ruby dust will continue to have value as long as people value light.

But even so, gems can be simply acquired by the very powerful. The realities of the ''wish'' based economy ensure that gems can simply be obtained in large numbers by anyone who ''really'' cares enough to dedicate a conjured earth elemental to collecting them. Magical items that cannot be created with the application of spells (that is, magic items valued at more than 15,000 gp) cannot be purchased on the open market with mundane currency, not even gems. That isn't to say that you can't cheat a goblin out of a [[SRD:Staff of Power|staff of power ]] with some shiny rocks, you totally can (heck, you could also ''stab the goblin in the face'' and take that staff of power), but doing so is not considered a "fair trade" and requires a bluff check on your part.

'''Concentration:''' Ideas take form on the outer planes, and really pernicious or stellar ideas can be so powerful that they take a while to form. In the before-time, they can be found as an amber-like substance that is extremely valued on Mechanus, and by extension every single other outer plane as well. Concentration is actually made out of ideas, and while it looks like a solid object , it is actually a liquid that flows so slowly that you could watch it for a year and only a Modron could tell you how far the flow had taken it. A pound of concentration goes for 50,000 gp to an interested party, and can be used in magical crafting by those with the patience to learn its secrets (see [[Book of Gears (3.5e Sourcebook)|Book of Gears]] for more information on the use of Concentration).

'''Hope:''' Hope is funny stuff, ; it has lots of inertia, but those who carry it are not weighed down in the least. It has mass, but not weight. Even the smallest piece of Hope sheds light like a ''[[SRD:Daylight|daylight]]'' spell (the effective spell level for this effect is 7, and Hope can overcome almost any darkness). Hope is measured in kilograms rather than pounds, and ; a kilo of Hope goes for 100,000 gp to those who want it, and it can be used in magical crafting (see <u>Tome of Virtue</u> for more information on the use of Hope).

'''Raw Chaos:''' The plane of Limbo is filled with possibility and change. Usually , this manifests as a continuous creation and destruction that is awe -inspiring and terrifying at the same time. Sometimes, for whatever reason , this possibility doesn't become anything, and just stays as Raw Chaos. Raw Chaos can have any dimensions and any amount of mass, but from a practical standpoint , you either have it or you don't. If you have Raw Chaos and someone else doesn't , you can give it to them, and it is generally considered good form for them to give you magical items or planar currency worth 200,000 gp in exchange. Raw Chaos can be transformed into magical items by those with the correct skills (See <u>Tome of Tiamat</u> for more information on the use of Raw Chaos).

4. Any skilled profession that is based on one of the ten Knowledge skills in D&D is a Sage, and is not handled with the Profession skill at all. An Architect does not have "Profession: Sage", he has Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering. The pay scale of a Sage of any kind is extremely dependent upon his skill results. A character with four or five ranks in a couple of knowledges might pull down 10 GP per week, but a character who can regularly make a DC 30 check in any subject , no matter how arcane , can pull down the big bucks. Assuming , of course , that he can find someone that actually needs his services.</small>

Just because you selected a profession that makes a lot of money doesn't mean that anyone will hire you. Generally , only relatively organized areas actually have economies that even can actually hire Butlers and Clerks. But just because there is work available in an area doesn't mean that there's work available ''for you''. Even in major cities , there aren't a whole lot of jobs for a clerk or a barrister, so the competition for those jobs is pretty stiff. Prospective employers are fairly choosy about who they select for such employment, and they'll usually go to guilds (whose reputation is on the line every time they vouch for someone) or their own aristocratic family members rather than hire some random Half-Orc who claims to have the requisite skills.