Money

The Dwarven Silver and Gold Coin   Primarily, the dwarves of the Old Empire and the Commonwealth use a standardized silver coin of one ounce as their base currency. Called a Silver Shield, the coin is octagonal in shape and bears the likeness of the Ruler who presided over its striking on the obverse and a randomized dwarven glyph of power on the reverse. There exist some variations on the Silver Shield across time and geography, but they are all the same weight. Back during the days of the Empire, dwarves did not typically produce half-coins, nor do they allow coins to be clipped in half. Then and now, dwarven merchants and moneychangers highly scrutinize and harshly devalue coins that appear to be shaved in any way, and thus it has been important for the Mints of dwarven rulers to incorporate clever design elements that protect the integrity of the coinage. Two examples that are very common to the Silver Shield are raised and milled edges, both of which make detecting clipping and shaving much easier.   Some dwarven realms, especially those of the Delve-Kings' personal mints, have created their own denominations of both silver and gold. Half ounces, quarter ounces and one-eighths are the most common; though several Delve-Kings have created standardized rectangular slips, strips, bars and bricks of both precious metals to replace the old coinage entirely and it appears to have caught on in several important exchanges within the mercantile Commonwealth.    Before the dissolution of the Dwarven Empire, the Imperial Mint also struck circular, one ounce gold coins with a profile image of the God-Emperor on the obverse and a striking sunburst design on the reverse. These were called Gold Crowns, and they were used widely by diplomats and merchants who needed to move large amounts of value in a more-compact manner. These coins are still in use today in every dwarven realm, though they are uniformly susceptible to shaving and clipping. Also, Gold Crowns have been dispersed greatly across the world and they are in short supply in places where the hold of value and unit of account would be convenient. There have been some efforts by the dwarves of the Holdfast Plateau and the Commonwealth to remint their gold stores into an updated, more secure coin much akin to the common Silver Shield, but the designs are quite divergent and there isn't enough gold in either realms' stores to capture the hearts and minds of merchants across the world.    By and large, many dwarven merchants have taken to expressing value of any and all goods, services and accounts in Silver Shields regardless of whether the coins are of that particular design's standardized weight and shape. This allows for debts, exchanges and accounts to be settled quickly and abstracted to numbers on a ledger and base metals in a vault somewhere.