Mark

The mark (EWM; Elw: mareq) is the currency for the Elwynnese State, which replaced the natopo in Elwynn after 1.I.1688. State bonds denominated in marks were released for sale on 15.IV.1686. In these bonds, the value of the mark is based on a basket consisting of of the natopo, the Craitish cräite, the Mercurian crown, the Sanaman rilha, the Benacian sovereign, and the Ransenari erb. The factions of each of these currencies within the basket has not yet been released, but at trading, one Elwynnese mark was said to be equal to the average price per item of a the six staples of the Elwynnese shopping bag: a litre of cow milk, half a litre of camel milk, a loaf of plain bread, a kilogram of potatoes, a kilogram of rye flour, a kilogram of wheat flour, and a kilogram of white rice.

In its bill to the Council of Eliria, the Court of the Prince proposed that the currency was to be entirely cash-free in order to protect the people from money laundering and tax evasion. All parties had previously agreed on the need of establishing an independent currency for Elwynn, so it was this point that met most debate in the Council. Members from the Democratic Socialist Workers' Coalition opposed this, saying it violated people's privacy, and that the bill enabled the government of monitoring all economic transactions of all people in Elwynn. The government countered with denouncing the Socialists as "friends of money launderers, Vanics, terrorists, narcotic gangs, and of all those seeking the destruction of the Elwynnese state". The bill was then passed by the Council of Eliria with only the Socialist members opposing.

The electronic nature of the Mark allowed for continuing central government control by the Court of the Princess during the Second Elwynnese Civil War and for cross-referencing of user accounts with the records of the Panopticon Department (UDF). Transactions in rebel areas were blocked and the accounts of individuals and corporate entities known to have gone over to the rebel cause were remotely defunded. With the destruction of much of the central banking and financial services infrastructure during the Scouring (20.XIV.1695 AN) and its immediate aftermath, the electronic Mark was repurposed so as to facilitate the introduction of state controlled rationing, following the model implemented by the UGB, during the reconstruction period.

The electronic infrastructure, and associated data vaults, necessary for the operation of the Mark are presently believed to be under the control of the Military-Industrial Relations Bureau of Benacia Command, operated and administered via a backdoor that many are convinced was installed from the very earliest implementation of the Mark as an electronic currency. Others maintain that the nature of the Benacian Data Network, upon which the Mark was built and within whose confines it operates, were such that whoever took possession of the "keys" to the old Imperial network in the aftermath of the Kalirion Fracture would have unlimited access at every level of the legacy electronic information systems and their derivatives.

Beginning in the eleventh month of 1703 AN all holdings in marks were converted to the Benacian sovereign at a rate of 1 mark to 7 chits. The process of transferral was scheduled to be completed by 24.V.1704 AN.