Technology 11

This is the seventh in a series of posts intended to provide a technological framework for my world. The purpose of this framework is to create unique, regional settings for player interaction. A realistic simulation of the actual world is not a goal of this system and will not be given credence when approving comments.

Regions with a technology of 11 will have an average population density of 7,001 to 12,950 per 20-mile hex.  This includes the following regions, shown on this table:

151 regions.  This technology accounts for 3,517 hexes of my world, occupied by 34,756,621 humanoids.  Only 1,484,873 of these are non-human.

Available Technologies

See tech 10.  One thing about finishing these tech levels, I find myself wanting to get started on the next one, as I'm no more sure about what the next change is going to be than the reader is.  I'm very pleased that each level seems to a) be very different from the previous level; and b) relate directly to changes that ought to be made to troubles/problems created with the earlier technology.  That's a continuity I didn't plan for but seems to present itself at each stage as I go forward.

Tech 11 technologies are as follows:

Mathematics & Engineering.  I feel both deserve to be considered one and the same for the world at this tech level.  Fortifications proliferate, particularly in rural parts of the region, as nobles seek to solidify their power.  Fresh water is piped into the city from outside, deeper wells are dug (both for water and for the purpose of mining in the outer districts), while quays and wharves expand the capacity of ports to service shipping.  Temples and palaces reach impressive proportions, as do libraries, law courts, market squares and mills.  Dams and bridges are a distinctive feature of the rural and urban landscape.

Calendar.  Farms will grow more interested in growing crops that will produce wealth (particularly fibres) rather than food, beginning to challenge the self-sustainability of the region.  Taxes are now leveled on a yearly basis and rents paid monthly, while work among the lower classes in urban areas is regulated by clocks that chime from clock towers.

Optics.  Developments in naval tactics allow for signalling between ships and widespread use of telescopes for communication, along with improvements in cartography.  The region's shipbuilders will make three-masted ships able to cross the Atlantic, Pacific or Indian oceans.  Whaling is carried out by many ships.  The accuracy of firing siege engines is higher than at lower tech levels.

Literature.  With the widespread building of libraries and entrenched education of the young, at least 10% of the population is able to read the plethora of books that are bought and owned in the region.  The audience is caught up in a tradition of folk stories and morality tales, encouraging a large portion of the population to see corrupted persons as undeserving and malevolent.  Ideas of chivalry, love, the repudiation of villainy and the pursuit of goodness present themselves as enemies to the corruption in cities, challenging the status quo.

Assassination.  Whereas I mentioned in tech 10 that assassination had become a profession, it isn't until this tech that it becomes a 'power'; characters need an intelligence of 11 to become assassins.

Lifestyle - Rural

The countryside of this tech is defined by large estates that have gobbled up the small manor farms that once existed.  Since the size of these estates is greatly increased, often with areas up to half a hex in size, the environs are not so closely managed as smaller estates would be.  Thus the outlying edges of their domains tend to be loosely managed, making travel easy for players so long as they avoid the most carefully watched fields or estate works.

Upon the environs, family clans, sometimes operating as brigands, will join together in protective allegiances, paying their rents and subtly growing crops or gathering the land's resources to sell to the many villages or towns nearby.  This is often overlooked without much concern, since the lord, too, is making a great deal of money and the small pickings of these groups can be too much trouble to roust out.

When brigandage happens, the dwellers in one lord's land will often travel a great distance to be sure and strike in land controlled by someone else; sometimes, booty will be divided with the lord's agents, so that the lord will overlook their activities and even provide them with a degree of protection (not playing the lord's hand, of course).  These arrangements will sometimes grow to be generational.

In areas nearer to the lord's personal domain, villages carry forward a small industrial existence.  Gangs of up to a hundred will work a field together, mine the hills, build infrastructure, drain swamps, clear forests, beachcomb or whatever labor is needed.  There are always a half dozen overseers for these activities, present and very aware.  Laborers under the control of the lord do not work alone or in small numbers.

Adventurers abound, spurred by the tales of knights, ladies, magic and the protection of the innocent.  Many of these tend to be dreamers rather than practical souls - some on the scale of Don Quixote - but a few will be experienced.  Their presence, however, tends to make the population, even the lords themselves if they are directly approached, interested in an adventurer's tales or what an adventurer's quest may be.  Many will be helpful, so long as their own power isn't challenged.

Because the growing of food is on the decline, periods of extensive famine can severely hurt the poorer districts in the region (and the towns and cities).  Indifferent lords do not share food when it is scarce, so that it can happen that hundreds or thousands can die of starvation in bad years.

Lifestyle - Urban

Towns and cities both become defensive strongholds, sometimes on a grand scale.  Cities may show signs of having to expand their walls to include more residents - which will have the effect of disallowing much of the corrupted town from gaining access into the more 'civilized' portion of the city.  This inner district may only be accessible by writ and it may even be necessary to be met at the gate by an indentured servant or agent before entrance will be allowed.

Private gardens surrounded by walls become common, with many palaces owned by merchants and lords being also being fortified.  Lower districts will be squalid and the residents treated with disdain; the law has become so oppressive that mass executions intended to end rebellion are seen as a necessary measure to keep the peace.  Press gangs roam the streets looking for vulnerable persons, particularly drunks or anyone too poor to find a place for the night, being paid fees for every head they can find.  As such, many of the vice-directed professions will hand over clients, deadbeats or troublesome persons to the press gangs for a piece of this fee, rather than commit murder.  Some places in the red light district (now several streets) do a booming business in subtly removing a person's defenses in order to make them sailors, soldiers or wage slaves.  Of course, in some parts of the world, complete slavery is a common thing.

Outside the walls (and often inside), every available space is dedicated to the growing of food.  The 'suburbs,' then, feature scattered dwellings growing vegetables, fruits and tubers, all of which provide the best potential food mass per acre.  This is delivered to the gates, where carters collect it to take inside to the urban dwellers daily.  Travel in and out of the town is rare, as the guards will often turn away people, regardless of their ability to pay the exorbitant fees to enter.

Government & Military

In most ways this is unchanged from tech 10, except for an increased interest in naval maneuvers, where the region meets the sea.  Sappers and artillerists are a bigger feature of the standing army.  The rural lords have an greater power with the monarch, being that they control so much more territory individually, while urban lords tend to look more inwardly with regards to their problems.  There is a certain resistance in the latter to turn over wealth, though of course the greater number of men are collected from the towns and cities.

Conclusion

I know that it is probably getting difficult remembering the individual tech levels, as they tend to blur together.  Allow me to quickly run over them again:

Tech 5.  Nomadic, living in tents.  Villages are impermanent, with a steadily changing population, in fords and established exchange points.

Tech 6.  Agricultural, with villages wholly dedicated to farming.  No artisans, leadership is clan and tribal based.  Some mining.

Tech 7.  Towns feature workshops for simple manufactures, with less emphasis on farming.  Councils gather to make decisions while religion remains a personal choice.

Tech 8.  A widening of the gap between rich and poor, money is common, inns and taverns as well, with caravans.  Towns and the military are run by autocratic rule, with little law or restraint.

Tech 9.  Writing and law helps make towns more open, though the rural districts are increasingly oppressed.  Artisans and the religious become the most visible urban influences.

Tech 10.  Feudalism shuts down the rural countryside completely, while towns grow corrupt and full of filth, disease and dangerous vice.

Hope that helps.