Over the course of our Kickstarter campaign we’ve had a number of questions about the coins we’re making for Crucible. This post is intended to give a bit more information about the design of the coins and our process for making them.
In Crucible, as we described in an earlier post, the coins originated as tokens of primal power, used by the Invested – beings on the path to Enlightenment – as reservoirs of energy to expand their powers and capabilities.
The seven tokens together describe on their Tale-sides the creation of the Crucible and the major events of its early history:
Creation: The six Primes coming together in the luminous ether.
Crucible: The world itself, with the Lumen as a hole passing through it.
Elements: The Primal powers who worked together to shape the terrain, life and first four sentient species: the Kalatur, Drake, Skirr and Ïakshai.
Fundaments: Fate and Flux stepping down from the ether and granting their blessing to Humans and Akrasi alike.
The Vault: The great artifact that tumbles in place over the centre of Lihuri Almat, and is rumoured to hold, variously, the secrets of immortality, the sleeping Elements, the end of the World, or riches and power unimaginable.
Pillars of Enlightenment: The six pillars that encircle the Vault and guide people on the many paths to their individual perfection.
Everglass Empire: The seventh coin once showed something else, but is now marked with the double-hourglass symbol of the ancient Human empire.
As it became more and more common to find tokens with their energy spent, some entrepreneurial sentient decided that the spiritual value of the tokens made the exhausted ones useful as a trade item, effectively inventing currency.
At the height of the hubris of the Everglass Empire, an egotistical and god-like ruler turned the power of the tokens against themselves, engraving their own face and their culture’s value of them onto their otherwise unbreakable surface. On the most powerful and rare tokens of all they changed not only the Face side but the Tale side as well, removing for all time the symbolic reference to the final step of Enlightenment and replacing it with their own crest.
Nowadays most of the currency in circulation are copies, or burnt out remnants, of these ancient symbols. Some still contain power, though, and pass unnoticed by mundane folks. The Invested can separate the wheat from the chaff by dropping coins from their hands. Those with power remaining will land on their edge, pointing toward the Vault, no matter where they are in the Settle.
Creating the coins
In the real world, the coins will be manufactured by Campaign Coins exactly to our designs. The process for creating the vector files they use to make the moulds is exacting, and our Art Director Lea Jeges is being very careful to make them with the right mix of detail, contrast and texture to hold the antiquing finish. We want them to display well, throw well, and be clearly and immediately recognisable for which side is Heads and which is Tales so that players can quickly calculate success.
As it stands, the first two coins (denomination 1 & 2) are antique bronze finish, denominations 5, 10 and 20 are antique silver, and denominations 50 and 100 are antique gold. The size of the coins won’t vary greatly, as they still need to fit into people’s hands and rattle around properly, and we’ll continue to update you as the designs evolve.