The Scales of the Exchequer
Throughout the Unified Kingdoms there are many cultural differences that range from curious, to stark. The Cotnor Wildernessin the frozen north, for instance, has a very different set of style and decorum than the clothing-optional tropics of Greynor. The hunters of Eastern Craysilt and the rangers of Birkwud, likewise, share many traditions and values. However, there are just as many peculiarities and colloquialisms betwixt and between the two as there are similarities.
These differences in opinion, taste, and style are a part and parcel of the Unified Kingdoms as a whole, and are lauded at the celebrations every year, come the Kings Day holiday.
Yet at every celebration, at every social event, there is an underpinning of uniformity throughout. The Unified Kingdoms, as far flung as the city-states may seem from one another, is a cohesive unit, and national pride shines through in myriad little things. Little flags are handed out. Scarves with the Gold and Green of the Kingdoms are knitted year round, and large gatherings boast a plethora of Kingdoms merchandise.
More conspicuously, there is a constant throughout each and every city, town and hamlet that binds the country together economically as well as geographically. Money.
Less conspicuously, there is the administrative official that oversees commerce and exchanges in each population center. The Chancellor of the Exchequer. Many people say it is the same man, jokingly, because they one and all seem to dress exactly the same, with the same conservative suit and tie, and a bowler hat, with an umbrella hooked to one crooked arm. They always seems to show up when they are being spoken about, and seem to be very sad much of the time. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer carries with him a very special tool. A set of precisely calibrated scales.
As a whole, the Kingdoms adopted the Stilton Ounce as a standard for official weights and measures a long time ago. Since then, the money has changed. It has changed shape, design, manufacturing process...everything that one could change about it has been changed about it, and multiple times. Yet the value remains the same, and this is due in no small part to the Chancellors of the Exhcequer, and their wondrous scales.
These scales tell the exact value, in Stilton Ounces of gold, of any item put upon them. Any item. It is whispered, by the conspiracy-minded, that the scales are even calibrated for people! There are so many whispers and rumors swirling around the Chancellors that it is hard to parse fact from fiction, although the scuttlebutt would have one believe that no one, who has ever tried to steal from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has ever been seen again.
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