Money, Coinage & Finances in the Kingdom
The Kingdom's coins are of about 10 grams in weight. between nickel and quarter-dollar sized; many have raised features near the edge to reduce "trimming". The strike quality is pretty good for the gold and silver (which also have ridged edges to prevent trimming), a bit less so for the copper, and even less for the brass. The purity is consistent and high. The royal cut for minting of gold and silver coins is 5%, and 7% for copper and brass.
A variety of Half-Crowns, Half-Pents, and other fractional coins are seen mostly in the cities.
Most lower-caste/class folks will only see part of their income in cash. Typically, folks in the country will see Pents, DinarRi, and the occasional Soldi, but much wealth that they have access to will be in the form of commodities, hence there is still a fair amount of bartering.
Inside some fiefs, the local lord may strike their own coinage, or issue paper scrip (often worthless elsewhere). Paper Banknotes are used in inter-city and intra-city commerce in various denominations: they may be issued by a wealthy (or maybe not) noble House, or a House Minor (non-noble merchant house). They usually have a transaction fee for getting them issued (typically 1% to 5%), and will be discounted an additional amount (5% to 50%) depending upon the wealth of the House, their fame, the distance, etc. Each contains some degree of anti-counterfeiting measures. Though similar in some ways, a "Letter of Credit" simply is a promise by a Merchant Bank that the named individual is "good for" a certain amount of money.
Foreign coins are not too common, as the T’Keln, and Cyrmangi do not strike coinage of their own, and the less said about the (usually) debased coinage of the Stormlands, the better. The Kousmani do strike and use some coins of there own that are sometimes seen in small quantity by traders in the Kingdom (the most common being the Bel, a 25 gm gold coin showing a stylized shooting star on one side and a trading ship on the other). While they were semi-common in Southmarch (especially in the border regions), the Krawshi Empire’s Rall (a 15 gm gold coin showing emperor on one side and some sort of snake and leaf motif on the other) and Pazar (a silver 5 gm coin showing the same sort of snake and leaf motif on one side and a star on the other) have been less common since the last war started. Foreign coinage tends to trade at a discount, perhaps significant. There are other, less common coins rattling about, some of which are worth a lot (in the right hands) and others of which are essentially worthless.
For example, coins of the old Solar Empire (31 grams gold, 29 mm diameter, 2 mm thick -- a “Sol” or a “Smiley”), 15.5 grams silver (a “Zhackel” or “Burnin' Eye”), 4 grams electrum (a “wyvern”)) are sometimes found in old hoards (most often in the Central Domains, or Eastmarch) and will trade for a fair premium on the metal content if in good condition, but rarely less than their metal content minus a small %. Some superstitious country folk talk about Imperial Treasure being cursed, and that plus the collector value means that few circulate for long.
The Royal Mint takes great care to make counterfeiting a hard task. The Reeves make it a potentially dangerous business. Still, it happens. The most common but still convincing common method is to take lead, make an impression of a real coin for a series of molds, pouring the lead in, and plating the lead. All this is fairly hard to do and unless strict quality control is kept up, the results are not very easy to pass. Or, you can create a steel “blank” of the real coins, strike them in lead, and plate the results. Even better quality, but engraving a good enough “blank” is tough work, and you need machinery to strike many coins. Magical glamours may allow you to make (or make it easier to pass) trash, but many merchants keep counter charms to help make that tougher. Finally, the amount of engraving and ridged edges on the gold and silver coins makes “trimming”- i.e., shaving a little off the circumference of the coin, too tough. A good counter measure to all these scams is a sensitive balance scale.
Meanwhile, passing bad coins (“Flash-Trash”) will get all your coins examined by a royal magistrate and confiscated if bad. If the Reeve finds strong evidence that you are striking flash-trash, the common penalty is branding, loss of a thumb, and time at hard labor. A second offense will find you strapped to a bench so that melted lead may be more conveniently poured into your eye sockets. Third offenses are kinda rare, but I suppose a simple hanging (or beheading for nobles and magic users) would be called for.
Remember, a week here is 10 days long...and all the prices given below are buying prices in medium sized cities.
A Half-Soldi will buy you a nice, filling, balanced basic sit down meal. Nothing fancy, but meat, plenty of starch, a good amount of seasonal fresh or preserved veggies, and a half liter of some fair beer or a third of a liter of “plonk” wine to wash it all down with. A DinarRi will get you a bowl of thick stew flavored w/ some meat, or some cheap beer, or a decent 'handmeal'. A Pent will buy you a small very bad beer, or plenty of fresh water (in most places), or a chunk of poor bread, a small bowl of thin vegetable gruel, or a piece (or 3) of fruit or veggie in season, or a cold bath and the use of some really coarse soap (and I'm afraid it'll be BYOT...).
Hiring a master-class expert for training purposes (someone with 90%+ skill level) costs 5-25 Soldi per hour. Learning a Common Magic Spell takes a week (half a week if concentrating full time, under ideal conditions, and you’re a quick study) and starts at 200 crowns for the cheapest spells, and goes up from there.
Lodging: Inn-floor accommodations (for those that spent money there before-hand) can be had for a few DinarRi a night. An average private room goes for about 2 Soldi a night (1 for shared).
A basic iron utility knife will set you back about 10 Soldi (or abt 6 for a cheap bronze one), a decent fighting dagger 20-25 Crowns, and a good "mercy" dagger 40-50 Soldi (sharp, really good point for cutting throats or pushing into armor holes, or even piercing armor). A basic iron broadsword costs about 100 Soldi. You can get a bad flute for a few Soldi, while a good lap harp starts at 150.
So, a down on her luck adventurer could live OK on 15 Crowns a week -- that'd be one good meal, sleeping on the common room floor (or a tiny private room) at cheap rooming house, several lighter meals or snacks eaten elsewhere, a little money for incidentals. Poor folk get by on 3-5 Crowns per week (sharing a hovel, poor meals, few incidentals except an occasional cold bath).
See the equipment list for more examples of prices.