The economy in Alliance of Heroes is based on the Dinar. There are no other measures of currency, so you don't have to worry about how many pennies are in one Dinar, etc.

Money is rare. If you kill a monster and find a handful of Dinars, then you should count yourself pretty fortunate. Finding a couple of Dinars is something to be excited about. You should carefully hoard your Dinars until you have saved enough to buy that perfect weapon, or piece of armor. Don't blow it all in one place though. You will need to make offerings at the temples and shrines, especially at advancement time, and you are going to need plenty of Dinars to pay for training when you advance.

Aside from finding actual Dinars on the monsters you kill, they can be the source of other ways to raise funds. Many of the monsters you kill will be carrying weapons and wearing armor. A single weapon or piece of armor from a creature is not usually very valuable, so you will have to bundle a bunch of things together. To bundle items together, hold the items you wish to bundle in your hands. The items must be identical. You cannot bundle a sword and a shield together. Use the BUNDLE verb to bundle the items. For example, to bundle two swords, hold them and type BUNDLE SWORD. When you do that, you will then be holding "a bundle of swords." To add more swords to the bundle, hold the bundle in one hand and the lose skin in the other, and type BUNDLE SWORD again. Many objects can be bundled, but you will find some things that cannot be bundled.

When you have collected a bunch of the same object in a bundle, you are ready to pawn them. Go into a pawn shop, hold the bundle in your hand, and try to SELL it. For example, if you had a bundle of swords, you would type SELL SWORDS. If there are enough of the items in the bundle to make it worth something, the pawn broker will give you some Dinars. If you have not collected enough of the items to make the bundle valuable enough, the pawn broker will tell you how many of those you have to collect.

You can also skin the creatures you kill. You may not always be successful in your attempt to skin something, but if you manage to avoid botching the job entirely, you will end up with a skin or a body part from the creature. Individual creature skins, like other items, are not very valuable, but they can also be bundled and sold. You should try to sell creature skins to furriers, since they will usually give you a higher price than the pawn shop.

Also, don't forget to SEARCH the creatures you kill. Some of them carry treasure.

When you start the game, you will find some Dinars in your pocket. Those Dinars are just a loan that you have to pay back. When you use the WEALTH command, you will see how many Dinars you are carrying, and if you have a debt you will see how much you owe.

You can get into debt in several ways. When you start the game, you are already in debt. You can go directly to pay off the debt, but then you won't have any money with which to buy a weapon or other equipment. You can also go to the pawn shop and borrow money. They won't loan you much, but it is usually enough to help you advance a level if you get caught short of funds. If you do something illegal, you may also be fined for your actions. The fine is usually taken out of your pocket money, but if you don't have enough on you then the fine may be added to your debt.

To pay your debt, you must find a Town Clerk. Town Clerks can be found in most of the official buildings, like Council Halls, Magistrate Offices, etc. When you find a Town Clerk, go there and use the PAY verb to pay your debt. For example, PAY 10 to pay ten Dinars. You can pay part of your debt at a time, you do not have to pay the full amount at once.

There are merchants located all throughout the city of Athens, and they sell a wide variety of goods. Many of the shops are similar. For example, you will find several clothing shops around town. However, the specific inventory of goods the shops sell is different for each shop.

Regardless of the items the shops sell, the process for buying an item is the same. To start the process, go to the shop and type ORDER. When you type ORDER, you will be welcomed to the shop, and you will see a list of items for sale. For example:

The main menu for a shop will only display 10 items at a time. If a shop has more than ten items, you will have the option to type MORE to display more items on the menu.

If you are interested in an item, type the number of the item you want to examine. For example, from the menu above you might select 1. You will see something like:

This displays the name of the item, the asking price for the item, and a brief description of the item. If you decide that you are not interested in it after all, you can type BACK to return to the main menu.

Some items may be customized. That means you can have the item made from special materials, or in a specific color. If an item can be customized, the CUSTOMIZE option will be shown, as it is above. By typing CUSTOMIZE, you will see the custom menu.

In this example, you can have the sash made a specific color, and you can also have it made from a custom material. Let's look at the custom materials by typing in 2.

The sash is available in a variety of materials, however, having it made from special materials has a big effect on the price. The prices listed here are in addition to the base price of the item, so a brocade sash has a price of 139 Dinars, that's 138 Dinars more than the 1 Dinar price on a common sash. You can either select one of the materials, or type BACK to return to the previous menu.

Once you have made all of your custom selections (you don't have to customize things if you don't want to spend the extra Dinars), you will be back at the BUY menu. Type in BUY to start haggling over the price of the item. For the example below, we selected a linen sash.

You should do some haggling over the price, but be warned, if you offer too low a price you risk insulting the merchant. Make the merchant mad enough, and he or she won't do business with you. Alternatively, if you consistently pay too high a price for items, the merchants will see you coming and may raise their prices, suspecting that you will pay the higher price automatically. Haggling over prices is an art, and it is affected by some of your character's stats, such as Appearance.

To offer a lower price for the item, use the OFFER command. For example, OFFER 4. The merchant will reply with a counter offer.

Once the merchant quotes a price you are willing to pay, type ACCEPT to accept the deal. After a sale, the main menu is automatically redisplayed, in case you want to do more shopping. You can buy several items during one trip.

When you are all done shopping, type DONE. You will return to the main shop, and your purchases will be placed in your hands. If you bought more items than you can hold, they will all be placed into a sack or other container, and you will be handed the container. You can open the container later, and then just DROP the empty container.