This is another super-cool Visual Basic program I wrote to make the
DM's life easier.  It simplifies the labor of rolling up jewellery
and gems, and calculating their value.  Since I love making simple
things, like AD&D rules, and making them complicated, I added a few
wrinkles to it.

You can pick major racial cultures and the age of items, These will
affect the value of items, since some cultures have better
craftsmanship than others, and some epochs are better as well.  In
addition, different cultures make different objects, so the range of
possible items varies.

For any given culture you pick, there's a chance of encountering
items from another culture.  For example, living in Taiwan, I
frequently come across stuff from the states, but never from North
Korea.  In Nepal, I came across Nestle's stuff everywherem, but
never once saw anything from Taiwan.  This chance varies from one
culture to another, since some are more likely to have such
"imports".

The only thing that bugs me here has been the necessity of positing
a single world value standard for these items.  Ideally, depending
on what culture you find yourself in when finding jewellery and
gems, the value would also vary.  That would have made this too
complicated, even for me.  More to the point, this would have been
way too campaign-specific.

With gems, there's always a chance of something magical about it.

Hope you find this useful!

Denrandrien, at darkstar@c2.hinet.net