Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3

[ericthered]

Rough Draft for sir Zeedrick. Tried to make him both a competent warrior and an ambitious manager for the estate. He has 10 unspent points.

His household are still coming. As are his last 10 points


Sir Zeedrick [165]
Attributes [90]
ST 11 [10]
DX 13 [60]
IQ 10 [0]
HT 12 [20]

HP 11 [0]
Will 12 [10]
Per 10 [0]
FP 11 [0]

Speed 6 [-5]
Move 5 [-5]

Advantages [40]:
Fit [5]
Combat Reflexes [15]
Charisma 4 [20]

Disadvantages [-15]:
Code of Honor (Keep my word, honor the church, don't be the first to fight dirty) [-5]
Sense if Duty (Tenents) [-5]
Selfish [-5]

Skills & Techniques [50]:
Riding (horse) -13 [4]
Lance -13 [4]
Shield -13 [2]
Broadsword -14 [8]

Savior-faire (Noble) - 11 [2] +4 **
Heraldry -10 [2]
Leadership - 14 [2] *
Tactics -10 [4]
soldier -10 [2]

Public Speaking - 14 [2] *
Diplomacy -10 [4] +4 **
Carousing - 12 [2] + 4 **
Administration - 11 [4]

Cavalry training (broadsword) 13+0 [3]
Combat Riding 13+4 [5]

*Bonus from charisma
** situational bonus form charisma


Household:
Zeedrick, Fiefholder, 45

Isabone, wife, 39
Safira, daughter, 18
Thedor, son, 13
Lilanta, daughter, 10

Jonas, son, 8


3 domestics
chamberlin
cook

alewife


household cost: $12,500



EDIT LOG: June 21st: family added.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Inky

The pre-determined life expectancies do seem odd, since one of the things that people often talk about mages being useful for in TL3 societies is improving the villagers' health and thus life expectancies (by securing a clean water supply, growing more food, or whatever), so it seems as if that would be a likely thing for people to try to do with their mages - and if the life expectancies are pre-determined, it seems as if nothing people do with their mages could make any difference to that. Is that the case, or not? You said how people could try to save individual characters that were about to die, once the danger became obvious, but no mention of in general.

He's using a system someone else built for him. I think at least someone will attempt large scale fighting of death and disease, so I bet we'll see at least something there... If nothing else increasing food production should let you attract new tenants that you can now support.

What's the knight character sheet meant to be used for? If he's just going to be a figurehead to represent somebody IC planning the things that the player is actually planning, 175 points not including his Wealth and Status seems a lot just for that. Possibly that's not it.

I suspect the knight will be arguing with the peasants about getting the mages trained up, getting called to court to explain what on earth is going on on his manor, and dealing with brigands who notice a new ripe plum of a manor for the picking. Sir Zeedrick is built accordingly.

[hal]

For what it is worth, the random encounters are intended to remind you that not all life will be "peaceful" nor "Easy".

Raiders who come to raid - will either destroy your assets, or they will steal them. Criminals may well simply show up to grab one or two things here or there and not be all too much of a problem.

There may be those who seek to do damage to your fields much as you might try to bless your fields - or a casting of Bless plant may very well curse them. Villagers who find their fields have been cursed, may well demand the head of the mageborn for having deliberately cursed their fields - complaining not to their lord, but to the religious authorities (claiming to be victims of black magic).

what do you do when you find that your fields are lit up by fire during a dry spell? Was it an enemy who torched your fields? Was it carelessness by a villager? Was it simply a natural act? These are unsettled times no?

In the end? it will be my pleasure to get you to start thinking about other issues than "Magic can be used as technology" and start thinking in terms of "how do my mageborn get their training?" and "how to I find my mageborn" along with "What do I want to have in my own household when it comes to magic offense and defense".

Got some coding to do to get the final details fleshed out with a touch of a button or two with my app - then I will give out the actual finalized villages to everyone (two people thus far) who has asked.

Until then...

Servile born (Serfs). Born to unfree parents whose contract is binding on them as well as their parents. They will never be free to marry unless their lord permits it. They will need a new home, agree to contracts that are binding on them and their children - if they want to have a home separate from their parents. They (the unwed) will need permission to leave the manor and go to markets or festivals and hopefully find mates.

Freeborn: Generally agree to farm for 7 years, then renegotiate their lease(s). They do not have any built in protection to secure their amount of land leased, nor the right to inherit the land - should the Lord so choose. If the Lord decides to raise rents by 25% in one year - they can either accept that new lease, or leave and go elsewhere (requiring a wagon to transport their goods along with a beast of burden to pull the wagon.

Franklins/Yeomen: These are freemen who in exchange for a nominal rent plus military service, are free to work their lands either as farmers or as stockmen. Regardless, they are armed, and even armored if wealthy enough.

Men at Arms: These are professional soldiers - some who are sons of Knights who themselves, never became knights. They are usually well trained and generally are well armored as well.

Sergeants: Mounted men at arms. Rarely medium calvary, usually light cavalry.

Nobility: The class of people charged with providing taxes to their liege, as well as miltary service to their Liege - as well as providing protection to their people. In exchange, they are granted services from their people, along with taxes and fees of their own.

Squires: Sons of other knights, in training to become a Knight - usually by the time they are 21 years old.

Clergy: Individuals who are part of a church hierarchy - and since the religions of this particular Kingdom worship a goddess of Chivalry and War as their state religion (Practiced by nobility and soldiers) as well as a Goddess of Fertility and agriculture (worshipped mainly by villagers) - the concept of female members of the Clergy is not uncommon. While there are few women knights - they are not totally uncommon thanks to their patron deity being a goddess.

If there are more questions, let me know.

[KarlKost]

Besides bandits roaming the wilds, there's also common crime among both commoners and nobility. Tavern fights that end in deaths or debilities, murders, hidden theft, individual and family disputes.

And gossip. Gossip amoung the commoners mainly. Small communities will tend to be an endless cesspool of gossip. The gossip of commoners can even raise or ruin the reputation of nobles.

And castle servants are a major source of gossip.

Now, with mages, everything goes sky high.

What spells would the mages pick? The most commons would be food, agriculture and healing spells obviously.

That being said, there would be SEVERAL variations too.

Divination spells would be far too comon.

Mageborn commoners would mostly stick to food, farming and healing - oh yes, making and breaking too. Court wizards however would probably invest a lot of time in mind spells and divinations - and would be seen as dangerous, and would be hated and envyed by a ton of people, particularly non mages.

If the church accept mages, those would perhaps dedicate themselves to "understand the divine", and thus would go towards meta-spells and perhaps divinations.

Most possibly the churches would be the mage schools.

I do have to add one thing thou: I do not find feudalism to be a realistic system for a world with mages.

[hal]

Sorry for the well delayed responses here... Medical issues ongoing with family as well as pending surgeries for self...

That being said - I finally had some time to relax and read. The Medieval Village by Gies and Gies is one book I've had for some time, and I can't recommend enough Daily Life in Medieval Times by Gies and Gies. If you google that title, right off the bat, you will find a couple of copies of the book for less than $7 (10 copies - used from Thrift Books!). This book effectively combines three other titles into one, which includes Life in a Medieval Village, Life in a Medieval Castle, and Life in a Medieval City.

In any event, HARN MANOR which is the primary vehicle by which all of this in this thread is being carried, has a stat called "Labor Pool" which is relatively easily enough listed as being Number of families x 500 man days.

You might think "Hey, one person can at best, working every single day - can produce no more than 365 man days of labor!" and you'd be right. But into that figure is the expectation that there are 4.75 people per family, and that the husband, wife, and children each combine to produce a final total of 500 days per family.

Unfortunately, the original rules fail to take into account that craftsmen would be exempt from this total in the sense that they need their man days of labor to pursue their crafts. Elsewhere in the rules, it states that a family of slaves can produce a given number of labor days equal to a specified number, which includes the woman's time of child care. So we deduct a given number of man (or in this case woman) days from the total. Elsewhere, in another product, there are labor costs for running a household (ie, rules elsewhere, but not in Harn Manor) that would deduct even further, the labor required for cooking, cleaning, mending of clothes, etc.

Realistically speaking? The game is an abstract of sorts - but it does give useful values for determining how much labor is required to maintain the village (ditches, fences, tools, roads, etc) for an abstracted "Fief Index" (the better the maintenance and index, the more income overall) as well as how much labor is required to produce output from a field, as well as how much labor is required to handle the cattle (not just cows, oxen etc - but also swine, sheep, goats etc).

In all? The idea will be to simply see how well you can interject GURPS MAGIC into such a scenario.

For example - many of you may want to use shortcuts for casting the spells using "area" as opposed to dealing with the actual sitatuion. Short of finding a way to invent a plow that can plow in curves - drawn by some power source more adaptable to pulling in a curve - you're going to run into the issue that all fields will be rectangular in shape.

Next, you're going to want to argue "That can be overcome" to a degree, but then you're going to have to remember that each "Furrow" is planted with one grain type, and each Selion (effectively one acre of land) is accounted for as being the land owed to a tenant. These are more easily understood than would be the concept of mathematically derived values that use circles. So - plan accordingly.

If GURPS MAGIC had been more "agriculturally driven" - we might have seen spells for helping with the harvest itself, a VERY labor intensive process - so much so that a Lord was obligated to pay 2 pence per day in labor costs, or provide food in addition to 1 pence per laborer per day.

Something as simple as a rainfall within 1 week of planting of crops in Autumn and then having a frost was enough to kill the entire crop - so being able to prevent rainfall upon crops would be a big thing. But consider - if Air Golems can provide a given amount of "pull power" - might a team of air golem driven plows be worth it? In theory - yes. The problem however, is raising sufficient capital in order to be able to purchase such a magical item. Even something as simple as ordinary tools were deemed to be costs borne by the Lord as part of his "Chattel" that the serfs rented instead of owned.

For those who like to research their material and incorporate it within their games, I would suggest that you look for LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE (or get the LIFE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES) cheaply as used books.

Unfortunately, HARN MANOR does not include rules for chicken raising, but GRAIN INTO GOLD (available from https://www.drivethrurpg.com/ ) may well be worth picking up. Why? The author makes an attempt to show how much in the way of grains are needed to feed a given number of chickens - this is something that is relatively easily translatable for use with HARNMANOR.

By far, the one book I turn to often, which unfortunately sells for $46 new.

Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England c.1200–1520

This book has a lot of historical data worth delving into.

back in a week or so...

[hal]

It also occurs to me to add before I call it a day. :)

For those who would like to impose some form of stylized education on some of your budding mageborn, I would like to point out that a Priest is the likely source of education in a village. If you want to have mageborn who instill a certain education for your villlagers - you may want to consider a form of "fee" imposed upon those who would educate the individual youths or adults. The thing to keep in mind however, is that said individuals may well desire employment as clerks elsewhere, with the understanding that employment prospects for such "clerks" may be limited to religion, cities, and nobility.

Things cost in the game. Time for spells and spell lists. Accessibility to spells in the form of teachers who may or may not reside within your village (if you as Lord control the accessibility to spells by instruction, you have at least that much control. If your mageborn has to travel out of the village to another village, will you get them back once they leave?

So - education requires time (man days of labor). Priests will teach their relgious ethics and morals as well as literacy. For those who wonder what kinds of miracles the priests may provide, bear in mind that this exercise is about the effects of magic upon the village life, not the priests (although, we can discuss the rules for Divine miracles later on in another thread in GURPS or what have you).

In general, I will likely downgrade the available man days of labor by removing those who are outright "Craftsmen". I would also suggest that if you depend upon "participants" who are also children - that you may find they can be disruptive of ceremonial casting as much as being helpful.

On that note, time to head out...

[Inky]

Does anyone know what happened to this - did it not happen, or has it been going on all along by e-mails or private messages, or what?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Inky

Does anyone know what happened to this - did it not happen, or has it been going on all along by e-mails or private messages, or what?

It kind of abruptly halted in about the spot you see.

[hal]

A couple of things...

Lost access to my primary PC not too long ago, been surfing the web via kindle, and am slowly recovering access to emails, and accounts.

Hopefully, I'll get things up to snuff in the upcoming weeks. Just upgraded win 8.0 machine to win 10, and now need to get conversant with win10 for my usual software. The bad news is I don't have my vb.net programming environment from win7 machine on my win10 machine. The good news is my visual suite professional is on my win10 machine.

Before long, I hope to install my Fantasy Grounds software on win10 machine as well as transfer various spreadsheets onto win10 machine.

Also, I had the impression few were really interested in this. If there is interest still, I'll contact people via email or private messages or even Facebook instant messaging.

Today I finally got my pop3 accounts set up for my pc to where it works, so I'll be a bit more active.

Hal

[Inky]

Thanks for the replies, both of you! Wondered if I was being daft and somehow overlooked it :-D