Gems

Gems are the story wars currency. You get gems every time someone votes for your draft, every time someone views a story you created, and from the free gems functionality which takes 20 hours to refresh and gives you 3-8 gems per time. They can also be purchased for around 500 gems a dollar with discounts above 30% for buying in bulk. Gems are spent on creating forum threads (5 gems), stories (10 gems), and groups (30 gems). They can also be spent in the Story Wars shop where you can buy night mode and (if you also meet the point requirement) badges.

Culture
While Story Wars was originally intended to make money from gem sales (along with sales to schools) few people bought them and many experience Story Wars users have wished people would "stop obsessing over gems."