Closest real-world matches for Yrth cultures?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Willy

If looking at Yrth you always should consider the impact of magic, on the one hand it enables faste communication higher crop harvest and much more which gives much more people the possibilty to do something els instead of farming. The rate in early medieval times of 10 farmer producing so few extra food that 1 noble / priest or otherwise non farming occupation could live from the surplus, is a bit low if magic works. A lot of earth or weather spells help in farming and give much more surplus, maybe a 4 to 1 rate like before introducing fertilizers, pestizides and steam powered machines to farming is more likely. This enables a lot of folks to have spare time in which they can think to make live better or innovate otherwise, or just send the kids to a basic school.

That was the pro, but here is also a disadvantage of magery. historically there was always more work than workers, the pressing demand of labor, forced people to innovate, if magic makes that obsolete there may be no need to invent machines or a better understanding of nature. Also the mages, which would be in a powerful position wouldn´t like to compete with the technological invention, and they are in a good position to shoot this down.

In the extrem you may get a society in which everything is resolved by magic and a bit of work, but is very staid technological, maybe folks live after millennia still at a medieval tech level and are happy about it, like countless generations before.

The one flaw in this argument is Equivalent TL which is effectively Niven's Law (Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology)

Even if everything was done by magic that doesn't mean the actually TL is going to stand still and the ETL sure won't. While many of these are due to different physical laws they do illustrate the issue:

Azoth-1 TL(4+3)^ ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Azoth-7 TL(4+2)^ ETL12; Faster "interstellar" space flight
Britannica-5 TL(5+1)^ ETL10; Antimatter bombs
Etheria TL(5+1),(etheric spacecraft, TL5^) ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight
Futura TL(5+1)^ ETL7: Manned spaceflight
Igor-1 TL(6+1)^ ETL9 with some inventions
Roma Universalis TL3^ ETL9; Manned interplanetary spaceflight

D&D's Starjammer definitely has ETL9 (Manned interplanetary spaceflight) even if it is puttering around TL(4+1)-TL(4+2).