Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions

[Emerikol]

So I have this fantasy world that I'm building. Tech level wise it is kind of unusual. Depending on the race/nation the TL is different. The dwarves have invented a magical form of gunpowder and have cannon and crude personal weapons (think arquebus). They aren't sharing.

The world is sort of like a shrinking Roman empire that has not yet quite fallen. In fact this empire still has teeth but it's just not as big as it used to be. Maybe think Byzantine empire. The "common" language is still using that used by the empire and many nations derive from the remains of that empire on the frontier. The TL here is 2+. Perhaps armor and metallurgy has gotten better.

My question is about trade and shipping. I still don't see shipping tech as having advanced a ton. So Biremes and Triremes. I'm thinking when that drops it might answer some of my questions but not sure. The world has magic though so there is that influence.

I'm wanting to figure out the effectiveness of trade between my countries. I've marked out the heavy seas areas and the coastal seas areas so I am already thinking they won't go out to the heavy seas too often. I feel like the low-tech info available doesn't quite cover what I want. Maybe it's in companion 2 as that is the only one I haven't bought.

When I build my realms stats for the countries I want to be able to lay out the trade routes and what is traveling along those trade routes. I don't see a lot of details about the ships in that era either. Any ideas on the best way to go about this?

[Willy]

If you are around a TL of the late roman empire or a bit later, you may dive for ship stats in fantasy or low tech, The galleys the crusaders in near east used may be in your world too. Just with giant crossbows and the like instead of gunpowder weapons. Another question is if greek fire is known.

Also some roman ships and medieval too had a cargo space for several 100 tons. The grain fleet which supplied rome via ostia contained hunderets of ships some even larger.

[RGTraynor]

Well ... critical questions is how large seas and exactly what time period are we talking about? It's true that Roman maritime technology -- far more to the point, Roman navigational technology -- wasn't up to sailing the North Atlantic, but they didn't have to do so. We're talking the Med, the Black Sea, and western European coastal waters. Stellar navigation was definitely known by the 1st century AD, and had been being worked out for a couple hundred years beforehand.

Willy's right in that the Romans had huge grain fleets: Rome in antiquity could not have reached a tenth of its population without them. If you're talking a 9th political situation on TL2, though, then you've got the same trade problem that existed in the Med before Rome's complete dominance: piracy and warfare.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

S The world has magic though so there is that influence.

Potentially huge impacts for those who have enough of it.

For example (assuming Gurps default Magic or variant) Control winds is pretty doable. If you have a mage who can cast and maintain that simple square sail rigs are all you need.

If Essential Wood is available ships can be 3x as long and ramming may not work very well as DR and HP are tripled.

So "how much magic and who has it" is a question you need to answer.

[Mark Caliber]

Next question relating to trade:

How many 'nations' are involved?

I recommend starting with your Byzanto-Roman country and figure out their immediate neighbors first.

Then add an onion layer of adjacent regions or countries.

My next questions are, how big are these nations or regions? The answer is that they'll be as big as those nations can control.

I did come across a bit of interesting trivia lately. Do you know why the Greeks held sway over the Med for as long as they did?

Yes, they were the original Pirates/Traders in the area, but no I don't mean that.

Sure they were in the "center" of the Med and bridged a lot of civilizations, but no I mean something else.

Okay, sure they invented the bireme and triremes. (Did they though? I can't recall, but I think they did. I do know that their maritime fleets were superior to the Persians in quality but NOT quantity). But that's not what I learned recently.

Enough dawdling! Athens chief export product were clay pots.

In short, Athens was the chief provider of waterproof shipping containers for the old world.

So those are ALL good reasons why a TL 2 region of the world might 'dominate' a region.

But why don't the Dwarves with TL 4 gunnery sweep up everyone else? (Yeah, another question to answer).

I also agree that figuring out how common Magic is and what it can do will alter your world building tremendously! Might want to nail that down sooner than later!

[StevenH]

For the magic portion of your worldbuilding, you might want to look at this thread: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=173234


While it hasn't been active for a while, I presume it will start up again fairly soon.



In any case, it's a discussion about magic, its effects, its commonality, and how much can actually be done by the few mages that might actually exist.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by Mark Caliber

So those are ALL good reasons why a TL 2 region of the world might 'dominate' a region.

But why don't the Dwarves with TL 4 gunnery sweep up everyone else? (Yeah, another question to answer).

I also agree that figuring out how common Magic is and what it can do will alter your world building tremendously! Might want to nail that down sooner than later!

Dwarves can't float, too dense, they sink like a rock. Hence racial phobia against bodies of water you cant wade in, they aren't "pirates". Might not stop them controlling a port or two though.

Infighting amongst Dwarves for initial control of the projectile technology cut their population rather a lot and so they are mostly in a strong defensive position right now. Their lower birthrates and insular culture keep them from being terribly expansionist at this point in time.

What they have they keep, but they aren't making moves to get more (at least no so much as the outside world knows).

--------------------
Magic now, thats a thing. You can pretty easily end up in a TL2+1/2/3 situation depending on how much, how easy, how common, how controlled, how limited (IE what spells are actually available).
As others have pointed out relatively simple spells make certain ~TL2 tech much improved.

• Most of these have little to no prerequisites:
  -Navigation - Find Direction, Tell Position, Know Location, Seek (various)
  -Mapping - Measurement, Tell position, Know location
  -Communication - Sight (to improve distance for flash codes), dream sending,
  -Sailing - Current, Predict weather,
  -Food preservation-Test Food, Purify Food, Preserve Food
  -Food production- Create food, Plant Growth, Heal Plant, Bless Plants
  -Health services- Obvious
  -Construction- structures or items (wagons, boats, etc)

Any or all of these spells, and many others not listed, could have a huge impact on population growth and survival. They would impact Merchants and economies greatly.

[Emerikol]

I don't see magic as commonplace. I limit it by requiring you be born with magery and I limit how many have magery. It is not unheard of though by any means. In fact in large cities most people know of wizards and maybe have seen magic worked. Not frequently but on occasion.

There are a lot of nations. Like maybe 10 in the inland sea area but there are probably many more deeper inland and at the periphery. The sea in question is Mediterranean like in some areas. In others it is more wide open.

So did the Roman grain fleets sail across the sea directly from Egypt to Rome or did they go around hugging the coast? I'm assuming a little of both occurs when it is convenient to hug the coast as part of your route.

Unlike the real world, where after you pass Gibraltar there is open sea, I do have a bunch of lands beyond that point. So I have a city that sits approximately where Gibraltar sits except the African coast is closer making the passage narrower. This city is a major trade hub and of course charges a fee to pass by unmolested. This city is not an imperial city. The Imperial capitol is more centralized in our quasi-Mediterranean area.

Unlike the dark ages, I do have some large cities in this world so I do need to figure out how that will work. Not a ton mind you. Probably less than the real ancient world had but still a few. This Gibraltar city is one such really large city. The Imperial capitol is another. It goes down a lot from there.

I also want to figure out the flow of trade goods on a broad scale. Enough to do my realms stats really well.

[Emerikol]

Originally Posted by bocephus

Dwarves can't float, too dense, they sink like a rock. Hence racial phobia against bodies of water you cant wade in, they aren't "pirates". Might not stop them controlling a port or two though.

Infighting amongst Dwarves for initial control of the projectile technology cut their population rather a lot and so they are mostly in a strong defensive position right now. Their lower birthrates and insular culture keep them from being terribly expansionist at this point in time.

What they have they keep, but they aren't making moves to get more (at least no so much as the outside world knows).

Both elves and dwarves suffer from low birthrates. Elves even more so but dwarves increase at about a tenth the rate of humans. They are clannish and tend to only organize when threatened from outside. They prefer underground cities so the surface is not an area they want to "conquer". They do hire out their services for gold and gems though. They do not like being at sea and generally fear the water.

When I set up my races, I've kind of made the goal that they will all be zero point templates. Meaning the pros and cons balance out. The player though can remove cons or add pros so no player will be bound to be a typical member of his race. This will go for stats as well. I may list what is typical for dwarves but no player has to follow that suggestion. If they don't want the downsides though then what remains will have a cost. If they want nothing provided by the template I might discuss just how much they want to play a dwarf. Same goes for elves or any other race. I've not worked out every single one. This will go for the races "alignment" as well. So elves tend to be good but that doesn't preclude an evil one.