Golden Mouse

Gold was discovered in the highlands of Oslee by Cester Mouse in IX 15. Within a year, the gold was divided “equally” between Eyr and Holystaine, though by IX 25 a network of Eyrsh forts in the region made this a legal fiction at best. Protests by Holystaine were met with Eyrsh military support for Osleegan separatists—never more than a few hundred—who soon obtained complete “independence” from Holystaine… under Eyrsh administration.
By the early IX 30s the Eyrsh had established many state-run mines across Oslee, some mined by the thousands of desperate men and women who had flocked to the region, but most were worked by convicts from across the Commonweal.
The mother lode of Oslee is located far up in the Dwarrescarps, a sheer geological uplift of greenstone. Most mines cut horizontally into the cliff sides along quartz seems. These were first delved after the easy gold was largely extracted in the first few years. New mines and panning began popping up in the years and decades after along the rivers downstream. At present, the mines generate about 120,000oz/year.
Historically, ten silver crowners made up one golden guilder, but as gold began to flood the economy, this was allowed to float, with the current ratio being about 7:1. Pennies became debased to maintain silver purity. Inflation initially increased largely due to the “blood gold” effect—Holystaine waged a diplomatic campaign protesting the Eyrsh theft of their gold rich lands, making the use and purchase of Eyrsh “blood gold” diplomatic taboo. Without external uses for the gold, it was used internally, which led to an increasingly costly conversion for the first few decades (until Eyr sufficiently bribed Holystaine into backing down).
Gold inflation caused guilders to lose purchasing power in crowners, so the wealthy elites respond by purchasing assets—land, claims, monopolies, and foreign goods.
Silver/copper inflation comes from a cascade: state pays for major domestic projects in gold or silver > contractors pay wages/supplies in pennies and mills > mills/pennies chase scarce food/housing/timber > princes jump in both Eyr and along the road networks that supply the mines. If mill prices rise faster than wages, the city fills with hungry, angry people.
Eyrsh Assay Office 1) keeps crowners pure, 2) debases pennies, 3) lets mills multiply
Poor increasingly live in a “mills world” where prices are slippery; the state insists “the crowne is pure” as proof the regime isn’t corrupt; everyone agrees while knowing the pennies got worse.
The Assay Office becomes one of the most important offices in the Werld.
Debasing currency = a life sentence in the mines. This creates legal inflation, where increasingly trivial fines become mine sentences. This creates a surge in bribery as the penalty gradient becomes insane; a surge in “respectable” discretionary enforcement; a prison economy that begins to look like a state within a state. Eventually corruption becomes so bad reform becomes a political necessity—big show trials where crooked officials are sent to work the mines. The system is denounced as “Eyrsh slavery” after a famous poet is sent to the mines for adultery, though he dies of malnutrition, his journal is smuggled back to Eyr and printed, causing a sensation and moral outrage. The mines are now only used for severe crimes.
Guilders were eventually no longer minted during the “blood gold” embargo, replaced instead by bullion trade bars which could be easily melted down and reminded abroad to circumvent the embargo
Paper treasury notes denominated in 1, 2, 5, and 10 crowner equivalents can be backed without requiring open foreign convertibility, allowing “stuck gold” to be used domestically without actually dumping gold into street coins
Grain notes—effectively short term “bread notes” redeemable for fixed rations during price spikes to stabilize the urban poor. They are typically printed as circular tokens on cardboard; these expired tokens soon became used by children as pogs, which is now a popular game among Eyrsh youth