You are older than me, I suppose. I was playing it at 11 years old or so. My first CRPG, although my dad had run a D&D game for the family a few years prior so I had a reference point.

I remember my cousin telling us about the Creeping Coins and my imagination went wild, assuming you could loot them and they’d attack you later from your inventory.

Nope. Just normal randomly spawning encounter.