“ What if the sources of precious metal in the realm all failed, so that the only sources for gold and other precious metal were hostile foreign lands? Gold coinage might become increasingly rare, resulting in hoarding. Player characters that appear with masses of treasure might be suspected of being in the pay of foreign powers.”
“ The PC's end up in a strange world where the very rocks are made of gold and jewels.As such gold and jewels is worth very little, but the iron in their swords and belt buckles is suddenly worth a LOT.”
“ A magical stave with two distinct uses. One end is a healing stick, which can heal some quite serious diseases, the other half can be used to inflict those diseases on other people.”