Coin Piles Hit Record Heights as Realm's Mood Sinks Below Dungeon Level

The Merchant Princes of Waterdeep closed out a record-setting week on Friday, and I would like to be happy about it. I tried. I sat with the numbers for an hour. (I have checked them four times, and once more by candlelight.)

The good news is short. The Silver & Platinum 500 rose 0.6 percent to 7,811, its first gain since setting an all-time high three days earlier. The Dwarven Jones Industrial Average climbed 423 points to 51,654. Somewhere a counting-house clerk rang a little bell.

The other news came out the same morning. The Collegium of Michigloom published its monthly survey of how ordinary Waterdhavians feel about their money, and they feel bad. The sentiment index fell to 46.3 from 48.1, the gloomiest reading since spring. The part that measures how people feel about right now dropped from 50.9 to 44.7. That is the kind of fall you normally only get from a trapdoor.

So the coin piles are at record heights, and the people who are supposed to spend the coin are miserable. This sounds like a contradiction, but it isn't one. Share prices track what the Merchant Princes expect the big guilds to earn years from now. The survey tracks whether you can afford a loaf on Tuesday.

About that loaf. The Loaf Index stands at 6 copper this week. Households told Michigloom they expect prices to rise 4.7 percent over the next year (up from 4.6), which puts the same loaf at about 6.3 copper by next autumn. A third of a copper sounds like nothing. A family of five eating one loaf each per day loses roughly 85 loaves over the year to that third of a copper. I did this on the back of a flour sack. Twice.

Borrowing is worse. The Royal Exchequer of Waterdeep's ten-year note now yields 5.24 percent, so a tavern-keeper borrowing 10,000 gp at that rate pays 524 gp a year in interest. That is 8,733 loaves. Lamp oil from the Oil Lords of Amn sits near 91 gp a barrel, or about 1,524 loaves per barrel, and the wyvern carriers are feeling it. Delvta Wyvern Lines cut its yearly profit forecast after burning 4.1 billion gp on fuel in a single quarter. That works out to around 68 billion loaves, and I had to lie down on the office floor for a bit.

Part of the week's wobble came from the arcane-engine guilds. Reports suggested OpenEye was earning less than everyone had whispered, rune-chip shares slumped on Thursday, and then a clarifying scroll arrived Friday and everyone un-panicked. My colleague Sterling Vanmoor called it "a healthy volatility moment." Sterling once called a mimic "a healthy furniture moment."

Gold rose 1.5 percent, to 4,220 gold pieces an ounce. I have stared at that figure all afternoon, because I do not know what it means when gold gets more expensive in gold. My aunt Marigold, who keeps her savings in a boot, says it means the boot is winning. I can't prove her wrong. Bitgold went up too, which tells us nothing about anything.

What this means for your pantry: the Merchant Princes are celebrating, so buy your flour before they notice it's on the shelf.

— B.T. (Loaf Index: see sidebar)