From: ian i. gorlick (igorlick@bnr.ca)
Date: Sat 27 Aug 1994 - 11:45:00 EEST
(Alison Place here, not Ian Gorlick.)
Now that I've finished reading 10 days backlog of dailies, which is not a quick task, there are a few things that I would like to stick in my tuppenceworth on.
To answer the former first, it seems that on Earth, the original definition of an acre was the area of land that a man and a yoke (that is, two) of oxen could plow in a day. This was tremendously variable, and could have different measurements even on the same domain. Various English kings (Henry VIII included, though he wasn't the first) standardised it as any area of land measuring 4840 square yards.
If there are any who would like to read an excellent description of the progressive abilities of medieval European farmers, I recommend The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, by Jean Gimpel. In it he describes the effects of better climate, three-field versus two-field rotations, horses vs. oxen, shoeing one's animals, using a proper horse collar, using more than one animal to pull, and different types of plows, to name a few variables. Any discussion of what is a normal yield, or how long it took a farmer to plow, needs to define all of these. For instance, "in the twelfth century in the Slavic lands, east of Germany, the unit of labor was what one horse or two oxen could plow in a day." He describes yields for wheat varying from 2.5 times the amount of grain sown to an amazing high of 15 times. He mentions that the horse is generally more expensive to keep than an ox, and where population pressure was not so great that utmost productivity was not needed, the adoption of horses lagged greatly. My local seer tells me that the Sun Domers in Prax have had great difficulty in raising good quality horses, so they are probably stuck with oxen unless they buy some good new imports.
Neil Smith mentions that he feels that an iron plowshare would counter any fertility in the earth (5619). I don't think so, as it was invented to annoy elves and trolls, not the earth. Of course, who can afford one?
For Bless Crops, I still feel that it is a personal spell, that any farmer could cast on himself or herself. Whether changing the animals during the day would affect the spell, I don't know, and wouldn't worry about. Since most farmers have to plow more than one acre every year, I can see the logistics of priestesses getting all their Bless Crops correctly cast when and where there will be no lost time to be rather formidable. The idea that the ritual augments all yields, as in Tim Minas' message (5851), doesn't really sit well with me. I would prefer to use Bless Crops to make sure that an acceptable yield would always occur, but spectacular yields were not due to that, but just to the great weather we had that year. It seems more meant to be a safeguard against starvation than an assurance of permanent bonuses. Neither do I think that it can be used to concentrated effect on smaller plots.
In our game, there is a great spring ceremony on Aldrya's Day, when everyone plows their heart out from dawn to dusk, and then revels at night. There is also the ceremonial copulation in the fields between a man and a woman to ensure everyone's fertility, and much private and promiscuous celebrating after the plowing. It's one of those worship ceremonies that no-one minds attending.
4. Disease Spirits.
Thanks to John Strauss (5671) for the idea about every disease spirit having Summon Disease Spirit. I like that one. David Baur's idea of them being all around, but not obvious since they have less than 1 POW (5668) doesn't work for me, as the usual rules state that one's CON must be overcome before one is infected, and that takes a good, obvious POW. Are you using a modification of this rule?
I was starting to think along the lines of a disease spirit actually breeding in situ, by using the parts of one's abilities or souls that it is destroying. In this case, it is stealing them for the creation of new spirits. In fact, I even had the heretical notion that it might be skimming unused magic points to do this. I realise that this would be unique and need much explaining, but it does have several virtues. Firstly, disease is contagious, unlike other forms of spirit possession, and this is what initially annoyed me about them. Also, it would make a longterm chronic disease much more beneficial from the spirit's point of view, by increasing the chances of breeding more spirits, while being much harder to detect. (We play that possession is covert, unlike John, and thus a chronic case is hard to spot, and can do a lot of damage before it is detected. We spend a lot of money at Chalana Arroy being diagnosed, let me tell you!) This is frequently the case among Terran diseases, which infect many more people if they are not virulently lethal. Not only would the disease have fewer contacts with likely victims before killing their present host, but said host is frequently expelled from contact with most other potential hosts when their disease is so dangerous. Refinements, anyone? I look forward to the new Lords of Terror, and thank you for the notice, Eric.
6. Hyaenas, and other Praxian carnivores
The recent discussion about Hyaena prompted me to think about what their position is in Prax. The list of large carnivores is very short, and consists of Allosauri (huge!), cliff toads (restricted habitat?), Deinonychi (sight hunters, therefore daytime only) and very occasional tigers and Smilodons in the Zola Fel Valley, plus the hyaenas.
Hyaenas must be a dominant carnivore, and the true hunter of the night on the plains. Hear the hyaenas laugh, and look to your herds! I am sure that all native Praxians have much more respect for the hunting abilities of these animals than the discussion of them as carrion-eaters would indicate, though their position as domestic animals of the Morokanthi probably doesn't recommend them to many. Mind you, their ability to gulp down huge chunks of meat at a sitting must certainly have given Genert confidence. Is it possible that Hyaena has only had that and his bonecrunching abilities since that time?
If you don't like hyaenas to be one of the most effective predators on the plains, what about the running bears of the earlier Cenozoic, who could run like wolves, and hunted in packs? Bet they could stampede a herd just fine! Or dire wolves, a lovely Pleistocene import.
7. Sylila, as in, what does anyone know about it? My former main character comes from there, but there is darn little information around. What is the societal structure, the original pantheon before the Lunar period, and any other quirks that might be known? I know that Hon-eel is worshipped there as the maize goddess, that Sylila is probably a Heartlands wannabe, but little else.
By the way, RQ-Con Compendium plus many pages of dailies can be a dangerous thing to read late at night. I had the most peculiar dream in which three Orlanthi or Khelmali (can't remember which now) were retrieving some ancient (pre-Gondwanaland) Barsoomian gems from a site in South Africa. On the way out of the old palace, which was now part of Kralorela, one of them got lost. He ended up in the Queen Mother's apartments, who was extremely interested to talk to a real barbarian, as she had been studying their religions and languages as a hobby. Unfortunately, the alarm then woke me.
Bye for now, Alison
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