"Llamas dwell in bleak, mountainous areas in small herds, bordering areas where the snow is perpetual. They are able to survive on far less natural forage than sheep. Females can be milked, but the amount produced is a mere 2 fluid ounces per day; as a very fatty product, this is used to make cheese but little else. Neither the cheese nor the milk is sold.
"Because these animals exist in only one small part of the world, and are only semi-domesticated, there is no market for their sale as animals. Their fleece, if obtained, can be sold by adventurers who have braved the mountains in a given season. However, the amount of fleece on the market at any one time is so scant that it cannot be bought."
The decision not to create a standard market price for these animals wasn't taken lightly. In the Medieval-Renaissance world, which the Guide attempts to present, these animals weren't even known until the 16th century. Even after that, being semi-domesticated, they weren't raised in barns or stalls, within a few miles of a market square. Those who benefited followed them along the mountain slopes, living nomadic lives, taking them when meat or leather was needed for food or clothing, not as a commercial venture.
I could presuppose a world where llamas are raised on farms, like they are today ... but even my reading about that suggested many failed attempts in Australia and Scotland before transplantation succeeded. This idea, that the players might try to move a herd of vicuna from the Andes to a place where they could be raised, perhaps with the help of speak with animals and innovations in food, feels like a better use for the animal, adventure-wise, than making them "another kind of goat." So I chose to step back, perceive the animal as it naturally existed, and give prices for what their fleece would bring on the market (not included here) if obtained. In essence, making it a kind of treasure ... but a more valuable one if the character's took the time to clean the fleece, turn it into cloth and make actual clothing items. A guanaco shawl might fetch as much as a hundred gold pieces, even more.
I don't see the Guide as merely a price list. The full title is "A Streetvendor's Guide to Worldbuilding" ... and that last word is all-important. The world is made up of stuff we grow, transform and sell, and all the changes we make to our surroundings that enables that. I'm not only interested in something where the DM might think, "Hm, that might be an interesting treasure" ... but also something that would cause the DM to better visualise what the people are doing in the world from day to day. This could suggest motivations and directions to take the game beyond having something to spend one's money on.
It's also important to me that the book serves as a guide for writing fiction. Every writer finds a moment where they need to describe a place, or give the character a profession, or motivate the character towards an object. By having a better understanding of things, and how they're made, I'm hoping the Guide can also serve to provide inspiration for writers ... in both the sense of having more to write about and also as a jumping off point to doing more research on a given thing. We can't google something if we don't know it exists.
Running D&D tonight. If it goes as well as I hope, I'll have something to write about tomorrow.
with SOOOO much material to cover I try to keep questions to myself and it's always nice when a post is offered that resolved one or two of them, as is the case here. Thank you
ReplyDeleteC'mon, feedback is wanted. Which "two" were resolved.
ReplyDeleteI'm positive this question was answered in the distant, distant past, but this seems like a good time optically to ask regardless: What role do you put on the Game in terms of its influence on the Guide and it's contents?
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, what if any role do the classes, spells, items and other factors which exist in your game influence the nature of the listed products and their use? Would you say "spellcasters are too busy living life to be perma-casting mundane productivity spells" or "Leveled Hirelings are available in XYZ conditions for XYZ price", or is the assumption more that the vast majority of life even in a fantastical setting would be relatively mundane and it just so happens that the PCs interact overwhelmingly with the unusual?
I don't think I've ever come close to the level of excitement I have for this product when seeing anything produced by "the company".
ReplyDeleteSomewhat loaded question, Pandred, but let me start from the perma-casting argument.
ReplyDeleteThis has never made any sense. An 11th level druid with plant growth is able to cause 1100 square feet per day to grow completely. An acre is 41,000 square feet. 30 acres is more than 1,200,000 square feet. In the 37 days it takes the druid to produce 1 acre of growth, all the other acres on a 30 acre farm have progressed through two-fifths of their natural growth cycle. With hay, they've reached three-fifths of growth. And this is just one farm. A small, backcountry neighbourhood has 400 acres being ordinarily cultivated. The 11th level druid is WASTING time bothering to go out and make this 2 acres in three months produce what the other 400 acres do ordinarily. It's silly.
An 11th level druid with stone shape can produce 14 cubic feet of stone into a desired shape. An ordinary mason can easily do as much in four hours. Tell me again what's the point of this druid spending time doing this work?
Perma-casting has no appreciable effect on life on a COMMERCIAL level. It's a great benefit for boutique-handicrafting for a spellcaster to rework their tiny part of the world, but that's all it's really good for, apart from problem solving while adventuring.
Okay, let's talk about XYZ conditions.
Ordinarily, in my game world, those kind of conditions would apply. It makes no sense to be able to hire a vintner in the desert or a teamster in a forest with no roads. However, because the book is intended to give information on all things, a flat price is given for both goods and services, i.e. wages, for others to work with in their worlds, as they see fit.
It would be impractical for me to provide details for what wouldn't exist where, or under what conditions it would exist, as it couldn't possibly apply to every game world. The best I can do is add a detail like, Llamas live at such and such an altitude. The reader is then free to decide whether or not that's a "condition" for him or her, or not. What matters is that they gain some idea of what a llama is.
Manure. Hadn't accounted for it nor it's secondary uses - tanning, mushroom production, fertilizer, et al.
ReplyDeleteand in re: llamas - the things that either DON'T exist of have no/limited value to the world at large.
You've provided a framework to either explain them OR to incorporate them, which is why your actionable data/information beats the hell out of being spoonfed. We had a brief exchange months ago regarding tapping maple trees for syrup. I've incorporated it and it's become a part of at least one story-line in my world, has been used as "treasure" and I have a half-orc barbarian who LOVES the stuff so it has to be located whenever they're in "civilization" and he gets sullen when it can't be obtained!
Very reassuring.
ReplyDelete