Day in the life of a Lightbringer

[scimon]

Julia is a accredited Journey woman in the Guild of Lightbringers. She is one of those people found at a young age to have a minimal aptitude for Magic, not enough to warrant studying at the prestigious colleges of Magic but enough to get her a trade which does her well.

Her day starts on an ominous note, she awakens and notices her bedside light has died out, only 3 days since she casts it. She removes the covering cloth, renews it's light shakes her head and wanders downstairs to have breakfast and keep watch on the shop.

Barry, the delivery boy from the Alchemists guild does his normal daily flirting, he's cute but he always smells weird and the acid burns on his fingers show why he's just doing deliveries. He's never going to amount to more than that, Julia sighs wondering if she's being to picky as she takes 10 bottle of Paut, she's a feeling she's going to need it and even after the Guild cut she's got a decent profit this week.

And it's a good thing too as her first customer is Gustav from the Inn of the Five Horses, he's a busy man and can't wait around so is willing to pay for her fast service. He's got 3 tokens to recharge today, all guild stamped and numbered. She double checks her logs and yes she did only light one of them 3 days ago.

"No worries Gustav" she smiles, inwardly wincing at the cost "if it doesn't make 5 days the recharge is free you know that." It's guild policy and works out in the long run, keeps others from under cutting them. Sure a wizard might deign to light something for you but if it runs out after a couple of days don't come running to Julia.

The Guild says their tokens are carefully made to ensure the best results and their members have the practice and training to make their lights last the longest. Julia isn't so sure, but she's happy it keeps the money flowing.

So, 3 stones at full light, but one free, that's 500 copper for the fast service. Julia is drained and if she gets another customer she's going to need to drink of those Paut and looking at the queue that's a given. Still not a bad start to the day.

The rest of the day goes swimmingly, a lot of people just want glow stones which Julia could do in her sleep, they are fine for a bedside light and a steal at 60 copper. In the periods between sales she makes sure today's records are up to date and archives those she doesn't need any more.

In the evening Percy arrives to pick up her notes and drop off those from the Guild. Julia remembers days hunched over tables copying out token numbers and expiry dates into logs for the various guild members, she doesn't miss that and tosses Percy a couple of copper so he can buy something sugary on his way back to his masters.

Give it another few years and she'll be a Guild mistress and have her own Apprentices, she's sure she'll be nicer to them than her old Master Gruzzilwitt was. Though only if they work hard of course. And Old Gruzzie wasn't that bad in all, he set her up for a nice life.

She closes up shop and heads over to the Five Horses, ostensibly to check out her work but a few beers before bedtime can't hurt.

---

The Guild of Lightbringers takes low level Mages (Magery 0) and trains them in two spells. Light and Continual Light. Guild Members will know these spells at 15 to 20 or even more reducing the spells fatigue cost (but not their fees).

The Guild offers a money back guarantee on it's spells if cast on Guild Tokens by a Guild Mage. If the light dims within 5 days you can have it reapplied for free (or get a refund).

The Guild charges $60 for a Glowstone (Moonlight), $100 for a TorchStone and $200 for a SunStone. (Most guild members can cast a 2 FP Glowstone for free so they give a small discount on that). There's a 25% surcharge if you want immediate service ($75, $125, $250) which is waived if you leave it and come back later (generally 4 hours).

Guild Mages do not know Recover Energy so have to either rest or drink Paut to recover their Fatigue so the immediate service can eat into their profits.

The guild ensures all castings are logged and passed out to all the Journeymen and Guild Masters (generally reached when you can make 20 Glowstones in a minute without needing to drink any Paut) so if someone has a token run out they can take it to any guild member.

---

So I think the Guild could easily exist in any low tech setting with magic. The $60 for a Glowstone could easily be included in the cost of living for a character meaning. What do people think?

[benz72]

How do those prices total out in this context? Are only very fancy inns using sunstones? or are they so cheap that no one makes candles anymore?
On the flip side, what is the expected demand/workload and profit/lifestyle/CoL for lightbringers? Do you need one for every 200 people? or 1 per 1,000?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by scimon

(Most guild members can cast a 2 FP Glowstone for free so they give a small discount on that)

Hold up. Most guild members have an IQ/H skill at 20+? Is that sort of world-class mastery typical of all professionals in this setting?

[scimon]

How do those prices total out in this context? Are only very fancy inns using sunstones? or are they so cheap that no one makes candles anymore?
On the flip side, what is the expected demand/workload and profit/lifestyle/CoL for lightbringers? Do you need one for every 200 people? or 1 per 1,000?

The pricing is based on $33 per fatigue point cost for enchantments. They work out more expensive than candles so I think you average person may use those (I could drop the prices of course). This is mostly a thought based on my current dungeon fantasy game.

If we go with 5 days worth of candles being $25 then making the Glowstone $40 (and keeping the 5 day guarantee might well work.

Hold up. Most guild members have an IQ/H skill at 20+? Is that sort of world-class mastery typical of all professionals in this setting?

That should have been Guild Masters (as I updated the text later) the test of a Guild Master is proving you have mastered the Spell to that level.

And I don't see why Master level characters in any profession should not have skills in the 20's, especially if there work can often have penalties attached to it.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by benz72

How do those prices total out in this context? Are only very fancy inns using sunstones? or are they so cheap that no one makes candles anymore?

Away from my books, but a bit of looking around online indicates tallow candles are $5 and burn for around 24 hours. IIRC, a standard torch produces equivalent light to about 20 candles. If the $100 Torchstones produce light equivalent to a torch (as their name implies), that means a Torchstone both costs and produces the same amount of light as a bundle of 20 candles. The former provides continual light for a guaranteed 120 hours, while the latter provides light that can essentially be switched on and off for a combined total of 24 hours. If you need less than 4.8 hours a day of artificial light, candles may be worthwhile - although given the convenience of a continual light source, just tossing the Torchstone into a coverable lantern (so you can "turn it off" by smothering the light, and "turn it on" by uncovering it) is probably better if you need more than 4 hours a day of artificial light. Keeping some candles - or other mundane light sources - around is still worthwhile, of course, in case your Torchstone(s) shut off early (as in the short story) and you need the light now, but at those prices and that performance, pretty much everyone is going to use Lightbringer tokens... with perhaps the exception of cases where low light will serve (if you only need 1 candela, then even if you need it for 24 hours a day, you're going through $25 worth of candles every 5 days, and thus paying 1/4th as much as using a Torchstone; even the low-cost Glowstone is over twice as much as just using a candle).

[whswhs]

GURPS Fantasy addressed this concept on pp. 102-103, under Magic as Infrastructure, though its magical "allied trade" had more modest skill levels: an Illuminator with IQ 12 and Magery 0, or IQ 11 and Magery 1, had Light-12 and Continual Light-13. That cost 2400 hours of training. If you assume the target is light equal to firelight, one professional could cast this 12 times a day, with an average duration of 7 days for each casting, giving 84 magical lamps in use—or 72 if they take the Sabbath off.

A tallow candle lasts 12 hours, and thus is good for between two and three days. So two tallow candles are good for a week, and cost $10. This caster can replace 72 tallow candles, so their services are worth $720 a week. And the light the provide is brighter and has no smoke, no odor, and no risk of fire. If they don't charge any more than $10, they'll badly cut into the tallow candle industry, and make around $36,000 a year, which is well into Wealthy at TL3. If they're willing to settle for Comfortable income of $16,800 a year, they can charge $4.67 per casting and totally wipe out the candle industry. Or if they're scarce, and the price gets bid up, they could be Very Wealthy at $168,000 a year and charge $46.67 per casting—though in that case they'd be found only in royal and high noble courts and big mercantile cities, I think.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by scimon

And I don't see why Master level characters in any profession should not have skills in the 20's, especially if there work can often have penalties attached to it.

When you're talking about the rank of Master, LTC2 gives them +2 skill relative to typical (journeyman) craftsmen, who in turn typically have skill 12, or skill 14 for more prestigious/difficult fields (like Jeweler and Armourer). They also get twice the pay (indeed, LTC2 has a general trend that Average skills at skill 12 produce Average wages, and every +1 to skill or skill difficulty corresponds to +1 SSR to wages - skill 13 is x1.5, 14 is x2, 15 is x3, 16 is x5, etc, relative to Average; a mage with skill 20 in an IQ/H skill is functionally +9 SSR above Average, for x30 to daily wages).

[scimon]

I knew I'd read it somewhere before, cheers Bill.

[scimon]

Simon heads off to Warehouse 23 for more PDF's....

[RGTraynor]

Well ... consider Kromm's guidance that a skill level of -18 represents around the best you can find, and that -21 or north of it represents around the best in recorded history.

I'm not as hardnosed myself; in my campaign, -21 represents the best in a kingdom or wide geographical region, and -25 is Best In The World. In the last 30 years, precisely ONE wizard in my campaign's reached -21 with any spell. She's got six spells at 21 and one at 26. She's also the highest point total character in the history of my campaign (north of 750, at this point) and legitimately the mightiest ice wizard in the world. A Magery/0 schmuck with just two spells she is not.

Skill level of 20 for a Magery/0 casual wizard -- and at, say, a generous IQ 12, that's 32 points by my off-the-top-of-my-head reckoning -- sounds more in the "Oh wow this concept is cool, I'll just hand over whatever points and training it takes" than anything realistically plausible.

Beyond that, exactly how common are mages in your world? If they're as common as blacksmiths, that's around one in six hundred. So in an average size medieval city, there might be ten or so of all sizes and trainings. If half of them are in your guild, can they churn out enough magical light for all purposes? As to whether they can do so economically, one has to consider the number of well-off households who can pay the amounts they'd charge.

Speaking of which, Bill, your numbers seem off to me. Your average low-tech household isn't buying those tallow candles; they're saving animal fat and dipping the candles themselves, with wicking they're making themselves out of scrap fabric.