Interesting Fantasy Cultures

[fectin]

The third example is almost more like micro-feudalism, which might be a good hook for some culture.

[Laertes]

The sources I've read all indicate that it was horrible work due to the extremely high temperatures of the islands, the massive amounts of disease that were rife in the sugar wetlands, and the backbreaking work. There's a reason why Haiti was the main sugar producer until the revolution, at which point its production dropped off precipitously because the slaves were freed.

[radthemad4]

Giants, due to their massive size and proportionately smaller surface area might do very well in areas of extreme cold - my giants live high in mountains above the cloud forest - making them appear to live on floating castles.

Big things need more oxygen which higher altitudes lack IIRC. Could work in other cold areas though.

I think it is worth considering what benefits physiological differences might make.

The extrapolations wouldn't all fit the standard tropes, but it certainly becomes interesting to think about.

Still, I think this is a great brainstorming seed.

An idea that comes to mind is Discworld style background magic or something. High magic zones could have more improbable creatures inhabiting them.

[Chamomile]

An idea that comes to mind is Discworld style background magic or something. High magic zones could have more improbable creatures inhabiting them.

How about some kind of spawning pit? Dense concentrations of magical energy cause bizarre magical creatures to be produced spontaneously from the depths of some pit melted into the ground by the fulminating soup of condensed magic.

[darkmaster]

First, we must acknowledge the fact that we only actually know about one species worth of sapient psychology. This can be limiting when we try to come up with what others from another humanoid race, or what others from a non-humanoid race, might have as their "average" mindset. At the same time, human mindsets are culturally influenced in many ways, so if you look from one human culture to the next geographically or temporally you can find a lot of idea seeds of how humanoids might act.

It's important to remember that we are not the only animals, and there is not actually any reason to not consider other animals when thinking of the traits of other races. For instance I based the Dwarves of Sarindor on horses.

Are you sure that sugar slaves died because the farming is that inherently dangerous? Or did they just die because they were treated like shit all the time? Compared to mining, it seems like plant farming would be relatively safe if the workers aren't overworked.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha, no, mining is not more dangerous. First if you're on a sugar plantation then you're working in sweltering heat and and humidity all day long; you're also probably in the jungle, so disease is rampant and without modern medicine if you get malaria you're fucked, and you will get malaria because Sugar Cane grows in fucking swamps.

[Lokathor]

An idea that comes to mind is Discworld style background magic or something. High magic zones could have more improbable creatures inhabiting them.

How about some kind of spawning pit? Dense concentrations of magical energy cause bizarre magical creatures to be produced spontaneously from the depths of some pit melted into the ground by the fulminating soup of condensed magic.

That's basically how demons work. All outsiders actually. They're literal manifestations of their home plane, given a living form, and when they die the stuff that composes them returns to the plane. Elementals too.

It's important to remember that we are not the only animals, and there is not actually any reason to not consider other animals when thinking of the traits of other races. For instance I based the Dwarves of Sarindor on horses.

I absolutely included the word sapient to make that distinction.

First if you're on a sugar plantation then you're working in sweltering heat and and humidity all day long; you're also probably in the jungle, so disease is rampant and without modern medicine if you get malaria you're fucked, and you will get malaria because Sugar Cane grows in fucking swamps.

Thankfully, within DnD at least, a local cleric or two and a self-resetting trap of Endure Elements seems to fix that problem quite easily.

[darkmaster]

It's important to remember that we are not the only animals, and there is not actually any reason to not consider other animals when thinking of the traits of other races. For instance I based the Dwarves of Sarindor on horses.

I absolutely included the word sapient to make that distinction.

And I said that limiting your scope of examination to just humans is stupid. Because while we don't know how horses would think if given sentience, we can extrapolate that they might be risk adverse due to poor regenerative abilities.

First if you're on a sugar plantation then you're working in sweltering heat and and humidity all day long; you're also probably in the jungle, so disease is rampant and without modern medicine if you get malaria you're fucked, and you will get malaria because Sugar Cane grows in fucking swamps.

Thankfully, within DnD at least, a local cleric or two and a self-resetting trap of Endure Elements seems to fix that problem quite easily.

Except that you're working on a sugar plantation, which is back breaking labor, so unless your a golem or some shit, and therefore don't care, then you are probably a member of society nobody cares enough about to provide expensive magical protections for, and since we're talking about slavery... yeah, no one cares you're expendable.

[Lokathor]

All manual farming is back breaking labor. But for as low as 1,000gp (or less) you can have Endure Elements on all your workers forever and then you don't have to go through the troublesome process of getting more workers when the current ones die from exhaustion. Less than the cost of a single suit of Full Plate. The most questionable part about what I said is actually the Remove Disease part, but honestly if you're separating out the sick people rapidly and you can fully cure 2 people per day (5th level, 1 spell + 1 bonus spell from 16+ wisdom), then you can probably keep any sort of outbreak under control.

[darkmaster]

Except the price of dirt farmers is seriously measured in copper so 1000 gp is actually really expensive compared to just getting more people

[Laertes]

Except the price of dirt farmers is seriously measured in copper so 1000 gp is actually really expensive compared to just getting more people

That really depends. A lot of places (late Roman empire, 16th-17th century Russia, 19th century America and Argentina) had severe labour shortages which inflated farm wages significantly. Others, like 13th and 18th century Britain and late 19th century Spain were supersaturated with dirt farmers and actively wanted to get rid of them. It's difficult to make a judgement call.

[darkmaster]

Well, yes, but in the scope of D&D the value of dirt farmers is measured in copper. In other setting maybe not so much, like in Sarindor the world is permeated by Mana which all living things use as a source of energy, like the sun. So plants actually grow larger and faster in Sarindor, making farmers less important and rarer, not uncommon but fewer than you'd see in the real world supporting cities of similar sizes at the same level of technology and so each one would make more on average.

[Omegonthesane]

Well, yes, but in the scope of D&D the value of dirt farmers is measured in copper.

Do you have a citation for that? Untrained labourers are measured in silver, and I'd have thought dirt farmers - as an IRL common employer of untrained labourers - would be worth more not less.

[Chamomile]

Farmers make a profit measured in copper, but they supply their own meals.

[Omegonthesane]

On the flip side, if you plan to run your plantation for long enough, throwing undead at the problem becomes economically viable. In addition to the requirement of a necromancer or at least a scroll of Animate Dead, creating a 1 HD skeleton costs the same amount as 250 man-hours of unpaid labour, however they never tire, never become diseased, and have an upkeep cost of "absolutely nothing" so will not only work longer but more efficiently as well.

Unless sugar farming is in any way skilled, in which case ignore that post.

[darkmaster]

Okay, so the DM's guide says laborers are hired for 1 sp per payment period, but here's the thing, the numbers for hiring people as given in the DMs guide make no fucking sense. According to the DMs guild you can hire an architect or engineer for only five times that which makes exactly zero sense.

Chamomile also makes a good point, but not the point he thinks he's making. Realistically, dirt farmers through most of history didn't make profits, they made their meals, if their lucky if they're unlucky they starved to death.

Like I said, if you have access to like golems or undead or something there's very little reason not to use them instead of people (well, maybe golems would be too heavy and sink into the mud) because while there is an element of skill to the planting and upkeep, you don't get slaves for that, you get slaves for the back breaking labor of harvesting the stuff in hellish conditions.

[Laertes]

Well, yes, but in the scope of D&D the value of dirt farmers is measured in copper. In other setting maybe not so much, like in Sarindor the world is permeated by Mana which all living things use as a source of energy, like the sun. So plants actually grow larger and faster in Sarindor, making farmers less important and rarer, not uncommon but fewer than you'd see in the real world supporting cities of similar sizes at the same level of technology and so each one would make more on average.

So let's go through those examples. I imagine that you could easily set a D&D game in each of them.

Late Roman empire - General population decline due to breakdown of infrastructure, constant wars, et cetera. The empire is crumbling, and everyone is fighting not for an eternal triumph, but to buy a little more time before the barbarians squish us all. Corruption is so entrenched and at such a high level that the emperor needs to hold back the best part of the army to prevent coups. Cities have dwindled into towns, towns into villages, and entire agricultural regions now lie abandoned. Labour is scarce and what fighting units there are, are badly understrength and filled with barbarian mercenaries. The economy is reverting to subsistence due to lack of people to do the work. You could run a very cool game in that, with ruin exploring mixed with savage fighting mixed with high-level intrigue.

16th century Ukraine - The barbarians have been fought back to their strongholds, but they still raid frequently. Vast new areas of land are open, and while they're too dangerous for most settlers, they've become a frontier filled with religious heretics, runaway serfs and slaves, raiders, bandits and other free folk. Land is unbelievably cheap - it's just there for the taking, the only cost is having to defend it. Labour is scarce and prices are high due to the low population and free availability of the richest farmland on earth. A game here would be equally cool, and would have a distinct "freedom vs responsibility" and "law vs chaos" vibe to it.

19th century America - As the genocide of the indigenous peoples gathers pace, the population moves westwards, buoyed by waves of European immigrants pouring in. Entire towns are founded overnight, but the vast wealth of the open West means there's an insatiable desire for more. The brutality of the earlier settlers is now being tempered by the law abiding people; there's a real clash of cultures here and a constant sense that different dreams are fighting and only one of them is going to come true. People are valuable, and the skills they bring are desperately sought after. The lack of readily available labour means that technology is hungrily chased as an alternative. A game using this sort of theme would involve a heady sense of nostalgia for the old, violent days of roaming adventurers and the constant awareness that the frontier is slipping away; it should involve PCs being aware that the place of a deadly wanderer in such a society is growing smaller every day and that soon the real heroes will be the farmers, not the killers.

[Laertes]

On the flip side, if you plan to run your plantation for long enough, throwing undead at the problem becomes economically viable. In addition to the requirement of a necromancer or at least a scroll of Animate Dead, creating a 1 HD skeleton costs the same amount as 250 man-hours of unpaid labour, however they never tire, never become diseased, and have an upkeep cost of "absolutely nothing" so will not only work longer but more efficiently as well.

Unless sugar farming is in any way skilled, in which case ignore that post.

Amusingly, real-world zombie myths originate from precisely that very Caribbean sugar-growing culture, as a form of undead slave labour.

[Chamomile]

Okay, so the DM's guide says laborers are hired for 1 sp per payment period, but here's the thing, the numbers for hiring people as given in the DMs guide make no fucking sense.

So you were completely wrong about everything and now you are shifting the goal posts like a madman. Seriously, this is the second time now you've derailed an interesting discussion in order to be completely wrong about something. Cut it out.

[darkmaster]

Okay Chamomile, it's good to see you have nothing to add, but let's just go over this nice and slow. Skilled labor, like building walls and castles, has always and will always pay much more than unskilled labor because it is more scarce than unskilled labor. And while actual prices for labor will vary, the skilled labor will always pay orders of magnitude more if there is demand for it at all because no matter how scarce unskilled labor is, under normal circumstances skilled labor will be more scarce just by dint of requiring specialized skills.

[Chamomile]

@darkmaster: You haven't actually made a point. You've listed a bunch of facts, but none of them were ever actually in contention. What you're doing is saying that the prices in the DMG don't make sense (true) and then using that to arbitrarily declare that the price of a fictitious spell must necessarily be too high to be worth it (very, very false).

Either we ignore how the economics of the DMG are screwed up and just use those prices, in which case you are dead wrong because unskilled laborers are employed for silver, not copper, and the farmers' copper wages are a result of the fact that most of their crop goes to feeding themselves and replanting for next year, or we're revising the economics anyway in which case the buying power of 1 GP is whatever we say it is and the 1000 GP pricetag can be worth more than a king's castle or less than a head of cabbage. Not only do we have options to solve the problem you're harping about, there is actually no option that doesn't solve the problem. The only reason to have the price of dirt farmers be very, very low is if we want it to be.

[Omegonthesane]

Also, if you're planning on going to an Upper Plane when you die, and you still want sugar in your tea, 1000gp on the welfare of the people getting you that sugar seems a small investment.

A point ruined by Fabricate I guess.

[Shatner]

Whenever I've needed to magic up a labor force, formian workers are the way to go. The great hives on Mechanus have a glut of workers and a shortage of stuff with class levels (only the queen has actual spells, as opposed to just spell-like abilities), so it's win-win for a caster to agree to some modest casting or forging requests on behalf of the hive in exchange for a couple dozen lifelong indentured formians.

The little guys can cast Cure Serious Wounds and Make Whole, each one has Skill Focus: Some Craft as well as skill ranks, and they are immune or resistant to literally everything except acid. Skeletons are cheaper, but for skilled labor, nothing beats formians.

Of course, this requires planar spells and negotiating with outsiders so it's all susceptible to DM approval/fuckery. Still, the space ants are an often overlooked option.

[Lokathor]

A point ruined by Fabricate I guess.

Fabricate still requires that you have raw materials to convert into finished product. You could make a case that the plants could be instantly harvested into bags of usable sugar, but you'd at least need the plants to be tended by someone as they grow. Wild plants don't usually fare as well. This is what Harvest Moon has taught me.

Of course, if you're at the level where you're using Fabricate, you might as well assume the use of Plant Growth. You can also convert a pinch of sugar into lots of temporary sugar with Minor Creation. It goes away in a few hours, but that's plenty of time to make your tea as sweet as you need, or bake a batch of cookies and eat them.

[Chamomile]

You can also convert a pinch of sugar into lots of temporary sugar with Minor Creation. It goes away in a few hours, but that's plenty of time to make your tea as sweet as you need, or bake a batch of cookies and eat them.

Better still, the sugar and whatever fat it's been converted to will presumably also disappear after you've had it. You can create ingredients, bake cookies, eat the entire batch, and still be hungry for dinner.

[darkmaster]

Chamomile, I was going to point out how your rebuttal doesn't actually change a goddamn thing and skilled labor will still be far more expensive than unskilled labor and changing the value of currency therefore doesn't actually effect the argument at all. But I'd much rather talk about animals, and plants, and stuff, and how we can inform fantasy races by that metric.

To my mind halfings as the farmer hoards who spread into occupied territory and drive out the creatures living there don't work for a few reasons, mostly because they're just small and therefore shit at fighting and moving around. Even if they could take territory, which would be difficult, they would never be able to hold it without help, and not a single fucking person is going to help what is essentially an extremely aggressive invasive species that displaces or kills anything in an area every few generations. It just isn't going to happen. Because at that point halfllings are more like a plague than a sentient race.

So with that in mind let's write the preface for my halfling racial profile shall we?

Halflings are not fighters, they have small, tiny, bodies, with weak, stubby limbs. Halflings conquer nothing, and basically have no chance of holding onto any territory they happen to have against a determined attack. But that's okay because halflings actually make more sense as Ferns... Just hear me out. Other races thrive by having a lot of resources to exploit, halflings thrive by needing very little. They're small, so they don't need as much food or water to survive, they're pretty mild mannered and non-threatening, and generally pretty friendly and charismatic too, so other races don't mind them being around. So while other races have sprawling empires that need to consume a lot of resources to survive halflings are perfectly content to live humble lives and being friends with everyone. Which isn't to say halflings can't, or won't, fight. Halflings are small, which means they're really good at hiding and fitting into places larger creatures just can't go, so they make an ideal guerrilla force which can strike suddenly under cover of dark or in cramped quarters and retreat. Which makes sense, in the natural world if you are smaller and weaker than other creatures you survive by staying out of sight or by attacking from an unexpected quarter.