[hal]

As you might guess, generating the Family data is not a problem. The code I was working on was to get an operational Fief Management process such that it could generate an entire document for any given fief - be it for NPCs or for Player characters. My intent was to create a database so that a single player could run their Fief/Manor for years and have records for each successive year's worth of events and management decisions made. Right now, I've got it so that it can read the entirety of Kingdom of Kaldor data and fill it in for the user to fill in their budget and all that fun stuff - but got stalled and lost interest.

As for the FAMILY TREE PDF, I can easily get a birth date for these "NPC's" and set a Death Date for them based on the rules for determining such without any REAL problem. As GM, I'd tentatively rule this to be a "planned death date absent magical interference". Death dates can be a function of accidental death such as someone during harvest accidentally opening their main artery in their leg by means of a scythe, or perhaps a childbirth issue that kills a mother, or perhaps illness, or falling down a ravine, etc. One COULD simulate the births of children using Family Tree rules easily enough.

Statistically, 1 in 2 children born prior to 1900, died before the age of 15 - something this Family Tree PDF holds to pretty well. In the end? When we discuss various things such as say, the use of "Bless Plants", the players will be told "Plows handled by Oxen teams or horse teams go relatively straight and narrow rather than in circles. To cover an entire field - one needs a radius big enough to incribe a rectangle within a circle, or they need to use smaller circles in multiple castings". In short - the idea is to deal with this "scenario" in such a way as to determine how many mageborn there will be, vs how many practicing mages there will be, vs other issues that may arise.

For instance, prior to GURPS GRIMOIRE, the spell "Mage Light" did not exist. As a consequence, being able to determine if anyone had magery or not required the spell "Aura". Otherwise, one had to try and study a spell, if lacking the magery requisite required, the spell would not be successfully cast.

It is intended that this "simulation" if you will, give people the basic material, but let THEM spend their mage coins as they see fit. If most people are not capable of literacy - how does one go about training the next generation of mages? If a serf requires permission of his lord to leave the land for any sojourn out of the village for any length of time, how does an apprentice learn new skills not available to those known or possessed by the practicing Village mage? If the Lord's want to take a promising student with magical aptitude and train the mageborn in magic - what might they demand of their "Serf" child who has magery?

These are questions that are going to be necessary to ask. Most lords know that any serf they free from their contract will no longer be under obligation to their heirs, few will want to lessen their future labor pool without some corresponding benefit.

So - let's see what kind of intrest this thread drums up. Creating the background material for the Villages won't really be the problem. Getting people to read the GURPS MAGIC books and seeing how the spells interact with each other, and the fact that once you train a mage to learn specific spells and undertake specific jobs - you've "Spent" that mage, rendering him/her unable to handle any other potential magic activity.

In addition, when you have a mother who has magery, she will have family duties that involve raising her children (not to mention carrying her children to term!) that will definitely shape their capabilities to function.

So, this is an invitation, let's see how many more might join in on it and get it rolling. My hope is that if we get enough involved, it will be self-sustaining to where you will reach your own conclusions, engage in your own experimentation in what happens when you have a feudal style society and a precious commodity/talent such as magery.