Different phrasing when receiving payment from villages

[Digheld]

I find it is a bit strange that the societies of the Unreal world consistently denote payments in squirrel hides. I understand that they are used internally as a reference value, but it wrenches me into the Real World when it is written out to the player. Feels too game-y. Couldn't the same obfuscated scale as debts be used? "You will be paid a small/decent/large amount from our stores."

[makute]

I think it fits right. When bargaining, each part tries to get the most out of the trade, and obfuscating the debt helps in that regard.

On the other hand, the player wants to know exactly how much their efforts are worth when doing missions.

[Digheld]

Well no matter what the player wants, I just think using squirrel skins as a currency feels strange. Payments were no doubt clarified, this is true. Wouldn't something more commonplace be used? Kgs of grain, or something similar. Maybe I am wrong and this would be a natural exchange in iron age Finland. It just feels off to me.

[Erkka]

Squirrel hide has been one of the historically used "standard units of measuring barter value" in Finland. The word for "money" in Finnish is "raha", and the etymology of that word derives from (squirrel) hide. This dates back to the same era UrW draws its inspiration from. So, generally speaking - foreign traders were interested in buying the valuable winter furs, and a squirrel hide was a base unit to measure the value of bigger / more rare furs. A bit simplified, but something like this =)

[Digheld]

My mistake then, I should've looked over my assumptions!