Irregular golden coins minted from Heartwood amber — valued by weight and the quality of their inner light, and accepted throughout the Aurean Empire and beyond.
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The empire mints three denominations: Glimmer (a sliver the size of a fingernail, worth a day's labour), Shard (a thumb-sized chip, worth a month's wages), and Crown (a palm-sized disc of pure luminous amber, rare — one could buy a small farm). Counterfeiting is rampant in the Verge, where glass passes for amber in dim light. The Rootbound refuse to touch Shard-Crowns, calling them "wound-tears" — the crystallised blood of the Root. True Crowns pulse faintly when held near a portal to the Verdant Deep.