[Banestorm] How little can a resident of Yrth know about the setting?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I think the idea is that while the book is quite frank about Yrth's origin and history, the players won't know that, and he wants to know how well known various ideas are.

That's in-character knowledge. The OP seems to be talking about player knowledge. The characters won't think it's odd that they are Catholics or Protestants or Muslims or Whatever, will they?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I'm thinking of running a Banestorm where much of the focus is on simply exploring the setting. A lot of that would include discovering the deep, dark secrets of Yrth, but I'm wondering how far I can push this. How ignorant could the PCs theoretically be at the beginning?

They could be inhabitants of an ocean island unaware that the ship that brought their ancestors to wreck there ever left Earth. That's pretty darn ignorant.

[Miles]

Originally Posted by ericthered

It probably depends a LOT on who you are. If you're a peasant, you know diddly squat. you don't even have a good idea of the local area. A knight will know more. A Lord might know about the bane storm. If you're a wizard, you might know that a magic storm changes the land. No need to say transport. The storm changes the land. If you're an underground engineer, odds are you know whats going on.

That's one way to run a Banestorm campaign, but it's not the way the setting works by default. At the minimum, every priest and wizard knows about Earth, which means the nobility does by logical extension. It's generally suggested that most skilled city-tradesmen are aware as well, which means the knowledge is so widely spread that it would trickle down to the lower levels of society by default. That doesn't mean that you can't start a game with a party of peasant hicks who aren't aware of their history, but that really narrows down character options (no IQ-heavy PCs).

All of the Abrahamic religions have traditions that reference their origins on earth, and they're quite openly preached. Christians have a Curia instead of a Pope, Muslims have the legend of how Geb'al-Din was found, and Jews have their Promised Land. Meanwhile, wizards are paranoid about the possibility of Earth technology undermining their power base, and have a vague but fairly accurate picture of what Earth was like in the 16th Century, due to that influx of French banestorm victims at that time.

Of course, it's more widespread than that. Take a look at the vignette that introduces the first chapter. The sergeant not only understands Banestorms, but recognizes a reference to London, and can place it as being in "Inguland". Of course, that also showed the captain understanding English, so take it with a grain of salt. The greatest epic on Yrth apparently is filled with a "sense of yearning for lost Earth". Translations of Shakespeare are flying around Tredroy, and banned Earth novels are moderately popular with nobles.

I'd say that just about everyone in the Christian and Muslim lands knows that humans came from another land once upon a time, even if everything they knew about the subject wouldn't require more than a short sentence. Things get dicier in Sahud, the Northlands, and the rest of the world, because we don't know what legends are common and there isn't one centralized faith carrying the stories.

[Michael Thayne]

Okay, great ideas everyone. The next question: I plan to give the characters a lot of freedom choosing starting skills. Question is, what skills get you what knowledge? How many people would know the year on the Christian calendar, for example?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

How many people would know the year on the Christian calendar, for example?

Anybody with CF: Christian?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Okay, great ideas everyone. The next question: I plan to give the characters a lot of freedom choosing starting skills. Question is, what skills get you what knowledge? How many people would know the year on the Christian calendar, for example?

The Christian cultures on Yrth use that calendar - Easter is seriously important to them - so everyone in those cultures and anyone who interacts with them frequently will know it. Hence, anyone with CF: Christian. If you're interested in calendars, you might well decide that Yrth is still using the Julian calendar, rather than having taken up the Gregorian.

A bigger question is why you are so interested in knowledge about Yrth. It appears you're planning to run a campaign about the relationship between Earth and Yrth? That's OK, but it doesn't seem amazing enough to be the whole plotline, and it definitely isn't the only possible kind of Banestorm campaign. The one I have played was essentially postmodern dungeon fantasy: sticking reasonably to the tropes of dungeon-bashing, but with characters who have backgrounds based in real history. It puts a very different spin on things. There are lots of other ways to use Yrth.

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Okay, great ideas everyone. The next question: I plan to give the characters a lot of freedom choosing starting skills. Question is, what skills get you what knowledge? How many people would know the year on the Christian calendar, for example?

I suppose that would depend on how you, as GM, want to interpret the setting. Take Christianity, for instance:

1) Yrth geography includes a Bethlehem and a Gallilee somewhere in Al-Haz. In which case, a really, really good Research, Theology (Christian), History (the Banestorm Period) or Geography (Al-Haz) roll reveals that the geography is inconistent or something else is fishy.

2) The Yrth New Testament replace such place names with Yrthian equivalents. In which case high levels of Research, Expert Skill: Philology, or Theology (Christian) shows that the text has been subtly altered over 2000 years.

3) Yrth Christianity places Judea somewhere over the Western Sea (or somewhere else inaccessible). So Navigation or Geography might reveal that it isn't, in fact, there.

4) Yrth Christianity doesn't know where Judea is, in which case exploration of the world reveals that it's not there.

5) Yrth Christianity admits at some level that Judea is probably on another world. In which case, a Theology (Christian) skill at whatever level reveals that information. It might be known to every educated person, or only to Bishops, or only to Cardinals, or only to a body of mystics or devoted scholars, or whatever.

[Astromancer]

It's important to remember that the printing press exists on Yrth. Books are at least as common on Yrth as they were in 16th century Europe maybe more so. However, many rural hamlets, even in France and England, had very few books. More than on Earth, the books would be concentraited in the towns and cities.

Those who've suggested that rural isolation seriously limits knowledge have the point. There was a small French village on the South side of the Central Mastif which didn't even speak the local patoise let alone French. The village was only twenty-five miles from a city with a university, but the rough terrain made that a three day walk on foot. The village lacked even horses because horseback riding was impractical in the area.

They put a train through and the village transformed overnight.

For the maxium variety of skills and types, I'd place the village in either Caithness or Cardiel. Have a small area of higher mana and a small cabal of teaching wizards. The main village is isolated, and the wizards mean to keep it that way. The head of the cabal has nobal rank either because the Cabal holds the village in fife from the local bigwigs or as a courtesy rank of a kind.

Between the village, the surrounding rural spaces and/or wilderness, and the cabal's "school/institute/hospital," most skills can be justified.

[Polydamas]

The other thing to remember is that its not normal for villages to be completely isolated. They exist in networks (Christian consanguity laws, and the tendency of a new village to hive off when the old one worked so many fields that the walk to the farther ones became bothersome, encouraged this). But the king, academic knowledge, or formal theology could be very irrelevant to many country folk, especially those in small settlements and rough terrain.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Anybody with CF: Christian?

I'm not sure that is so. Most medieval records were kept in regnal years, especially ones created by the secular power. The village priest would probably know the year to help calculate the date of Easter and so on (if he doesn't just use a table or ask his friend three villages over who went to university), but knowing the date in the Christian calendar wouldn't be crucial for a lot of people.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I'm not sure that is so. Most medieval records were kept in regnal years, especially ones created by the secular power. The village priest would probably know the year to help calculate the date of Easter and so on (if he doesn't just use a table or ask his friend three villages over who went to university), but knowing the date in the Christian calendar wouldn't be crucial for a lot of people.

There's no skill of "knowing the date". Not knowing the date is probably a disadvantage. You can probably count it as part of Status -1, Social Stigma: Uneducated, Anglish Native/Illiterate or something.