History Main / FictionalCurrency

Inventing a fictional currency helps establish a setting as unique, and when done well it builds immersion. Of course, when done poorly, it can have the opposite effect — having an unexpected or unexplained reference to a made-up word that means "money" can be confusing or distracting. Often, a fictional currency will be roughly equivalent in value to a real-life one; this saves the writer the effort of having to do conversion rates mentally. The most common targets for this treatment tend to be the dollar or the yen. This is occasionally explicit, as with the [[Manga/{{Trigun}} double dollar]] or the [[TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}} nuyen]]. The zeni (or [[SpellMyNameWithAnS zenny]]) is a popular name for fictional currencies in Japanese media[[note]]It comes from the word for [[ShapedLikeItself "money" or "coin"]].[[/note]]; derivatives of the word like "jenny" or "berry" are also common.

** [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Belly/Beli/Beri/Berry]] are used throughout the ocean-going world, and are [[http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Belly roughly equal to yen/pennies;]] a loaf of bread is 150 belly, [[TheFashionista designer clothing]] is 10,000 to 28,800, a cheap weapon is 50,000, a rare one is a million, a ''secondhand'' ship is a '''hundred''' million, etc. Every noteworthy pirate seen in the series has a [[BountyHunter bounty]] of at least five million on their head, with several of the [[PersonOfMassDestruction most powerful]] (such as the Four Emperors and a few of their top lieutenants, and as of Chapter 903 [[spoiler:Luffy]], have bounties of over a '''billion''').

%%* The ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' series uses Cole.

** In the [=SMPLive=] [[ReunionEpisode reunion]], Conar Coin.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has lien (Ⱡ), which is not paper money or coins, but appears to be printed on ''cards''.

* ''Fury Unleashed'' by Awesome Games Studio uses Golden Ink (normal Ink is ExperiencePoints and used to [[SkillScoresAndPerks buy upgrades]] to Fury) as the currency for Fury to buy items from the Ink Master and Gun Seller. Justified as this game is set in a '90s type of comic book come to life.

%% ''VideoGame/FusionFall'' uses taro.

* The Fire Nation in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' uses a currency called "Bǎn". The Gaang carries mostly Water Tribe money (never named), which is accepted in some parts of the Earth Kingdom, but not all (this gets them into a tight spot). The United Republic in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' uses Yuans.

** Gundam X has a banknote shown in one episode issued by the Bank of Saints Island; the name for this currency is unknown.
** In Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans, the currency in the Martian colony of Chryse was called Galar and a banknote was shown in one episode; it was not known if it was simply the colony's currency or the currency of its parent nation Arbrau.
** Averted in G-Gundam and Gundam 00, where the currencies currently at circulation or were in circulation at the time of broadcast were mentioned or shown.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' uses ryō, which WordOfGod states has a 10:1 exchange rate with yen.

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* The currency of ''WebAnimation/MonkeyWrench'' is called "pixels". Its symbol is a P with two vertical lines through it, and appears to be mostly digitally traded. When it does appear in physical form, it's glowing blue cubes of various but similar sizes, potentially denoting value by size--the value of a single pixel is unknown, but ten million can buy a battle cruiser and twenty-five thousand is considered "measley" for a pest removal job.

** Its SpiritualSuccessor, Anime/SpaceDandy, uses the same.

* ''LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'' uses Vals, which seem to be a direct equivalent to yen.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' has multiple in-universe instances of this, depending on which VRMMO it applies to.

* ''LightNovel/VioletEvergarden'' uses "kohls" on the continent of Telsis.

* ''Literature/RebornAsASpaceMercenaryIWokeUpPilotingTheStrongestStarship'' uses the Ener, which is noted by the protagonist, Hiro, to be roughly 100 yen, or roughly one US dollar, give or take a few pennies. InUniverse, it was also the primary currency of ''Stella Online'', [[MediaTransmigration the video game whose world Hiro got dumped into]].

* ''Literature/LivInTheFuture'' has ZScrip, the currency of the year 3000. The banknotes' design resembles US dollars.

** The standard currency is the "sem", a coin that's minted from various metals. People might specify the metal ''à la'' "gold sem" or leave it implicit, much like "two-fifty" could mean $2.50 or $250.00 in context.
** Cresce is a communist state that abhors money, so citizens who produce beyond their required quotas earn [[http://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch09/ch09_18.html Labour Points]] instead. These magic coins are keyed to the earner's aura so that they can't be spent by anyone else.

** Ankh-Morpork uses dollars, but coins less than that are shillings, pence, ha'pennies, and even smaller fractions of a penny like elims (1/16th of a penny), which can apparently get you a small and mostly edible potato in some parts of the city. Morporkian currency appears based on several archaic currency systems on Earth, including pre-decimalisation British which is as weird and unearthly as you'll find anywhere. Or perhaps more so. A discussion of the weirdness of Ankh-Morpork currency is '''[[http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Currency here]]''' and on the associated discussion page.

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' uses ental, commonly abbreviated to "en". The games take place [[spoiler:after a global apocalypse]] so it makes sense to make up a new currency.

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' franchise similarly uses rupees, which is oddly enough a real currency (used by Mauritius, Seychelles, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka), though no one's quite sure if it's supposed to be a reference to that or a pun on the word "rubies" since Zelda's rupees look rather like absurdly large gemstones. (It doesn't help that the NES game's instruction manual erroneously refers to them as "rubies", as do the infamous CD-i games.) Originally there were only two kinds of rupees - green ones worth 1 unit and blue ones worth 5 - due to the engine limitations of the NES. Later games in the series have a wider variety of colors and values, such as red (20) and silver (100), though the exact values vary from game to game. (Silver rupees in particular have ranged from 5 to ''200.'') Some of the games also have a peculiar variant called a "rupoor," which actually ''takes money away'' from the player, although it's never explained exactly how that works.

** Westerosi [[GoldSilverCopperStandard gold dragons, silver stags, and copper pennies]] (plus a few more rarely encountered ones, like a copper star, which is worth more than a regular copper penny). When the Targaryen dynasty conquered and united the Seven Kingdoms, they imposed this standardized currency system across the entire continent. Before that, each kingdom used their own local currencies (some of which are still encountered, because they still contain precious metals - such as Hand coins in the Reach, which are only worth about half as much as a gold dragon). Curiously, they used "silver stag" coins even ''before'' the Targaryens were overthrown by the Baratheons (whose sigil is a stag) - possibly because the Baratheons were always a younger branch of the Targaryen family through intermarriage. Unlike many fantasy series, the novels actually take inflation into account: food prices drastically increase during wartime. Money values are also different in prequel eras: price numbers are three times ''smaller'' in the Tales of Dunk & Egg era, set 90 years before the main novels (3 gold dragons and change is considered a good price for a horse in the Dunk & Egg era, but ''one'' gold dragon is considered a fair price for a horse in the main novels). George R.R. Martin hasn't worked out all of the specifics, but at least he acknowledges that inflation ''exists'' on a scale of centuries - in contrast with other series in which "a gold coin" is worth the exact same amount across thousands of years.

* Valorian Marks and Bruchteil in [[Podcast/Kingmaker The Kingmaker Histories]].

[[folder:Podcasts]]
* Valorian Marks and Bruchteil in [[Podcast/Kingmaker The Kingmaker Histories]].