Money for an Icon

[Suteinu]

Last night, my players' characters wound up doing battle in a temple. This temple was the same as depicted on the cover of the AD&D 1st Ed PHB (with the two Thieves, not Rogues, stealing a jewel eye, remember?) Anyhow, the other eye was present last night, and one of the characters, a bounty hunter, pried it loose. My question is: how much would a gem that size be worth?

[EvanescentHero]

With no frame of reference, approximately how large is this gem?

[Santra]

With no frame of reference, approximately how large is this gem?

Round cut red gem, most likely a ruby, roughly the size of a human head.

[Suteinu]

Yeah, that's about right. Here's an image:

http://www.councilofmages.com/

[HoarsHalberd]

Basically the only people who will be able to afford it are kings and extremely rich lords. You could set up an entire quest line of trying to sell something that valuable. It'd probably be easier to trade magical items (unless you're running a magic mart world) from the king's armoury. Arrange a drop off point (both sides would be very, very paranoid about a trade of this value.)

[Shining Wrath]

I'm going to go with the rule of thumb that the price of a gem per carat doubles when you double the size of the gem; i.e., doubling the size increases the value by 4. Bigger stones are rarer.

So if you call a typical 1 ct ruby as being worth 500 GP; and there are 141 carets to an ounce; and a typical human head weighs 11 pounds; and the density of ruby is 4 gm/cc so a head sized ruby weighs 44 pounds, I obtain

The ruby weighs about 6204 carats.
The ruby has doubled in size 12.6 times (2**12.6=6204).
That means the price has increased 4**12.6 times or 38,489,616.
Times 500 (price of a one-carat ruby) gives you about 19 billion gold pieces.
If a small castle costs 50,000 GP you ought to be able to trade that ruby for 380,000 castles.

[EvanescentHero]

I agree with HoarsHalberd here; almost no one is going to be able to afford the kind of value a gem that size would be worth. Make a quest out of pawning or trading the thing. Make a list of magic items or other goods or services (boats, deeds, airships, retainers, small amounts of soldiers employed to the characters, etc.) that a king or other person in a position to trade for such a valuable object would be willing to offer, hold some negotiation sessions, and see what they're interested in.

[Shining Wrath]

I agree with HoarsHalberd here; almost no one is going to be able to afford the kind of value a gem that size would be worth. Make a quest out of pawning or trading the thing. Make a list of magic items or other goods or services (boats, deeds, airships, retainers, small amounts of soldiers employed to the characters, etc.) that a king or other person in a position to trade for such a valuable object would be willing to offer, hold some negotiation sessions, and see what they're interested in.

I also recommend a quick glance at Steinbeck's The Pearl. People will talk trash about the stone and so on.

[Santra]

You know...if your players are a high enough level a dragon would do just about anything for that stone. If they can stop the dragon from killing them to get it they should be able to work a decent deal regarding services and goods.

Also consider that a stone that large might be useful as a focus for some sort of powerful arcane ritual so a large mages college might be interested.

[Marcelinari]

Alternatively... it could be made of red-coloured cut glass, making it worth ~ 20gp. That's what my old DM did, if I recall correctly. It sidesteps the issue nicely.

[SharkForce]

Alternatively... it could be made of red-coloured cut glass, making it worth ~ 20gp. That's what my old DM did, if I recall correctly. It sidesteps the issue nicely.

you could go slightly less far, and make it of a less valuable gem.

from a quick google search, pyrope, almandine, and spinel can be a fairly similar shade of red but are not worth as much as ruby to my knowledge.

alternately, as i recall, large gemstones are comparatively quite common on the elemental plane of earth. it is entirely plausible that such gems are considerably less valuable if their origin can be determined, and if you're going to make a purchase worth such a ridiculous amount, you're going to want to check its origin very thoroughly if there's a chance the actual value is, say, 1,000 gp instead of 19 billion gp. for that much of a cost discrepancy, i think it's worth hiring an expert to tell you if it's really that valuable :P

on the other hand, let's not forget that a spyglass costs 1,000 gp.

even if it's "only" glass, i'm gonna go out on a limb and speculate that crafting technology in the setting is not great as far as glass is concerned, and a large clear glass gemstone that has been cut nicely and has no bubbles or cloudiness in it may be worth a considerable amount even if it is just glass. perhaps not as much as a ruby the size of your head would be, but still, it may be worth a surprising amount.

[kaoskonfety]

Negative infinity gold pieces, its cursed and the whole party is cursed now. Everyone they sell the cut up pieces to? Cursed. Their families? Cursed. The entire royal line when fragments finds their way into the crown jewels? Cursed! Nasty, subtle, eventually lethal. CURSED!

As others have pointed out - assuming a "somewhat real world value" and "its a ruby" - it is functionally too big to sell. Even a less valuable stone would still be of stunning market value.
Cutting it into more manageable pieces and selling it to several noble families/kingdoms or "gifting" it to an Emperor of the known world would be your main options for unloading it for filthy monies approaching its value. Magic items will help fill the gap, but yikes, that's alot of bling.

But you know - its cursed and the temple guardians who seek its return never sleep and cannot die...

[Occasional Sage]

Also, if its highly flawed it would be worth much, MUCH less, though it'd look nice from a distance.

ETA: In a fantasy world with spontaneous-creation spells and gems brought from the Plane of Earth, values will drop fast compared to our world.

[Ardantis]

It sounds like a bad idea all around.

[TheOOB]

How much money do you want to give the party? A thousand factors can alter the value of a gem, not just size.