Hexactic Alm

The Hexactic Alm [ARM] is the official currency of the nations of Anrel, accepted throughout the Natorn Archipelago. An alm is worth six pins, and 24 alms are a crown.

The alm originally a food token given to refugees during the Long War, which could be exchanged for food. The alm is a fiat currency, since the coins are made from base metal with little intrinsic value.

Alms are a bronze-alloy hexagonal coin with a circular hole in the centre, enabling them to be easily stacked on poles or hung on a string. Unlike older coins which were stamped individually from molten precious metals, alms are stamped from sheets of pressed bronze alloy, using a sheet roller and a screw press.

The hexagonal shape was chosen partly to reflect the Hexact, but also so that coins can be cut from a sheet with minimum wastage. Stacks of alms are brush-milled to give their sides a finished edge. Each of the Hexactic realms in Anrel manufactures its own coins, using stamps designed to minimise fraud, but the relative low value of alm coins and the complexity of machinery needed for their manufacture has make fraud less practical.

Alm coins were introduced during the Long War as ration tokens, which soldiers and refugees could exchange for a basic meal. At the end of the war the coin was officially adopted by the Hexactic government of Trésard, then subsequently by other nations. Inflation after the war meant the alm was revalued at the rate of six old alms to the new alm.

The alm was intended to be the value of a loaf of bread, with the Hexact authorities in each nation using primitive monetary policy to retain this rate of exchange. In practice inflation has reduced this price.

In the past alms were cut in half, or even into six triangular wedges, called “pins”, to provide change, or exchange for lower priced goods. Today, pins are small coins, the 2p and half-alm (3p) being most common. There were formerly half-pin coins.

24 alms make a crown, 12 alms being a half-crown, 6 alms called a sixer.