Mageborn are like Coins - Worldbuilding TL 3

[ericthered]

With this in motion, now you have to work with mageborn with magery 0 and IQ 9 and wonder "how might those people be useful to the Lord? With this in motion, now you can work with specifics instead of in generalities and ask yourself "Just how much will we find the higher magics in GURPS MAGIC available to daily life."

Specifics. Yeah. The specific case is one Garrit who has IQ 8 and Magery 1. Oh these dice.

Originally Posted by Inky

To be fair, Seeker has prerequisites of Magery 1+ and IQ 12+. That means that less than one in 20 mages will be capable of learning it (I'm not sure of the exact IQ distribution Hal's using), i.e. less than one in 1000 people. Anyone who does learn it, though, might have a very profitable job!

I'm a little doubtful how often that specific case will come up. Cities are where younger sons with no chance of inheriting the 13 acres back home go to risk dying of disease or getting mugged trying to carve out a living in a strange and hostile place

I'm not sure of the exact IQ distribution Hal's using

7+2d6/2, rounded down. So IQ 12 requires rolling a 10 or higher, which happens 1/6 of the time. we're looking at about 1 in 3000 people.

Originally Posted by hal

Hi ericthered,

The ages of the people involved were rolled against the table for ages of NPCs mostly - no modifications. That they all hovered around adult ages is the luck of the draw. Note too, that each child born from this point onwards, has a basic 2% chance of being born a mageborn.

Could you check? I've written a bunch of random generators... If you'll check, I'll take this 1/3125 roll.

The table I used to generate the families was different than what HARN MANOR uses in its rules. Mine was a modification of their rules based on the Hundred rolls of around 1200 AD...

You already have HARN MANOR, which gives you about 80% of the material I work off of (save for the modified "historical tenant table" that I use:

As you can see, the ratios of families who hold a given amount of land has changed so as to give the serfs overall, LESS land than what HARN MANOR allows for.

ok... can you get me the acre rolls for the modified tables? I've actually got a generator of my own now, based on Harn Manor.

That still doesn't explain the tenant to acre ratio, though: what numbers are you using for that?

The same goes for the yeoman numbers: why are those so high? they're not from Harn manor. How are you generating them?

There is nothing to keep you from detailing your families down to the last drop - and making sure that random rolls do NOT create "things that don't make sense". For example? All the household heads in the Manor should be adults. If you have the time to detail the entirety of the family - you can not only generate the ages of the parents of the household, but also when their children will be born, their ages, and if you select a given year to be the present, you can go far enough into the family tree to generate those who have yet to be born.

So - pick up the free PDF FAMILY TREES from the Lythia.Com Harnworld forums (I'll send you the link to that if you don't already have it).

I've got FAMILY TREES. I've been looking into using it to make families, but its tricky to make it work with the household size generated by Harn Manor. I'm looking into generating a tree, and then randomly sampling years for a household of the correct size.

In any event - now you know why the numbers aren't quite what you might expect with Harn Manor. The number one complaint about Harn World is that it is way underpopulated than it should be. Almost as if it were post Black Plague than true medieval, but that's a discussion for private on another day. ;)

That makes sense, other than the issues raised above. I'm more interested in a world with a little more population pressure.

Originally Posted by ericthered

My original fief index was 0.80; you've given me 0.90. which is right?

Could I get this question answered?

[hal]

Snipped stuff that I will likely discuss in private email. :)

I'm not wedded to the idea of using Int(2d6/2)+7 for generating attributes between 8 and 13. By my count, the odds of rolling an 8 are roughly 3 in 36 (2 and 3 on 2d6) vs rolling a 12 (need a 10 or 11 which is 5/36). The odds of getting a mageborn 1 with any IQ is 100/1111 or 9%. 9% x 8% or roughly .75 Percent (yes, less than 1 percent). Now, no one likes a village idiot for a mage **teasing grin** I'm not adverse to redoing the numbers if necessary, but right off the bat, you saw the problems inherent in a genetic lottery being run for both decent IQ and Decent magery. sometimes there are losers in the lottery and there are winners. See my private email that will be heading your way soon.

Originally Posted by ericthered

ok... can you get me the acre rolls for the modified tables? I've actually got a generator of my own now, based on Harn Manor.

"Craftsman" 1 to 10
"Virgate Farmer Plus" 11 - plus means more acres than usual.
"Virgate Farmer" 12 to 13
"1/2 Virgate Farmer" 14 to 16
"1/4 Virgate Farmer" 17 to 18
"Small Farmer" 19 to 25
"Villien Plus" 26
"Villien" 27 to 44
"1/2 Villien" 45 to 71
"1/4 Villien" 72 to 78
"Cottar" 79 to 90
"Slave"/"Cottar" 91 to 100

The slave/cottar issue depends on the kingdom type.

Originally Posted by ericthered

That still doesn't explain the tenant to acre ratio, though: what numbers are you using for that?

Straight up Harn Manor numbers are ahistorical I'm afraid. Gies and Gies gave a real world example of a village named Etlon - had 1871 acres of land. Its rolls had at least 114 family names listed. Familes to total acres works out to 16 some acres per tenant. The reality is, the actual acres was closer to 12.2 for most families in England according to E.A. Kosminsky.

In effect, roughly 32% of all arable land formed the Lord's Demesne, 40% were held by villeins, and 28% by freeholders. Out of 13,500 holdings in 1279, 46 percent amounted to 10 acres or less, probably near the minimum for subsistence.

Originally Posted by ericthered

The same goes for the yeoman numbers: why are those so high? they're not from Harn manor. How are you generating them?

Yeoman are to be taken from the Free Farmer results, but there were no real rules for HOW. I did have access to the original play test material from around 1994 or so, and found that the suggestion was a variable value of around 50%. My App allows me to fix the value as I see fit during run time. The Default set up is that each freehold farmer generated, has a 50% chance they will accept becoming a Yeoman instead. Those numbers can be altered after run time by selecting options and entering a new number in the field - altering it from 50% to say 33 percent if you wanted it that way. Keep in mind - my original intent was to be able to have my app generate FULL manors for all the kingdoms of Kaldor, export it to HTML and give me a snapshot of the entire kingdom at once (hence the name Automated Harn Manor). Problem is - I don't have much background in HTML 5 and didn't take the time to learn it. What I have is about maybe 40% of what I wanted for my finalized App. What I started to work on and then stopped relatively recently, was creating the database for each family, where it tracked who a person's parents were (personID), where they lived (FiefId), who their children were (PersonID) who they were married to (PersonID) etc. Each Person record held a name, where they currently reside, their birth year, their death year, their fertility, etc. I had even contemplated rolling for attributes, eye color, hair color, etc - but held off because I had other things to work on. Even now, I'm considering doing a full fledged NPC generator for GURPS that generates things like appearance (which translates to advantages or disadvantages for appearance), Voice, Vision, Hearing, Smell/taste, and am considering creating a table for advantages such as "No Advantages, 1 advantage, 2 advantages, 3 Advantage" and then creating another table for actual advantages to be added. For example (Extra +2 to ST) might be an advantage. Talent for a skill set might be another advantage.

Originally Posted by ericthered

I've got FAMILY TREES. I've been looking into using it to make families, but its tricky to make it work with the household size generated by Harn Manor. I'm looking into generating a tree, and then randomly sampling years for a household of the correct size.

I'm not overly fond of the household generation rules in Harn Manor myself. Probably the best way to handle this is to use a fusion of the FAMILY Tree rules with some of the HARNMASTER family detail rules (I'll email you privately on that). Ghost of an idea? Generate each family with the primary woman there. Roll for each head of family marital status (taken from HarnMaster), Roll for age of mother, which in turn determines how many of her children she's had, track who lived who died as of when the snapshot of the manor is taken (ie the present) and THAT gives the household size. Problems exist because there is no provision for those who are retired and in the twilight of their years. They usually live with their eldest child. Some offer their holding to their eldest in exchange for a retirement benefit in the form of a given amount of food, a roof over their heads and clothing. But that's from what I've read in history books, not HARN MANOR.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Could I get this question answered?

.90 - Sorry.

The thing to keep in the back of your mind is that I also have the playtest rules from which Harn Manor evolved from when it was published. In some respects, if you saw the playtest material, you'd see where the final version came from. In other respects, you'd scratch your head and say "Why wasn't this included".

Long and short of it is this:

Encylopedia Harnica #3 set the basic rules structure in place for creating and running a manor. Harn Manor playtest built upon Encyclopedia Harnica #3 in more detail. HARN MANOR was cut to size and modified to its current form. So expect that there will be some elements grabbed from the playtest not present in HARN MANOR. I have rules I can use for nobilty who want to raise horses (absent from HARN MANOR). So - bear in mind, my app is more than just Harn Manor - it has been tinkered with to bring it in line with historical values.

[hal]

Behind the scenes look at how land holders get their allotted land:

"Virgate Farmer Plus"
FreeAcres = RolltheDice(1, 20) + 20 + RolltheDice(1, 6) * 5
In other words 1d20+20 + 1d6 x 5 Max acreage would be 40+30 or 70.

"Virgate Farmer"
FreeAcres = RolltheDice(1, 20) + 20

"1/2 Virgate Farmer"
FreeAcres = RolltheDice(1, 10) + 10

"1/4 Virgate Farmer"
FreeAcres = Int((RolltheDice(1, 10) + 10) / 2)
Note: This is an invention on my part relative to HARN MANOR. It was based on Kosminsky's listing of holdings, where the best approximation in HARN MANOR terms was quarter virgate holder or quarter Villein holder or possibly high end cottar holder. It made it much easier to generate values using that name than to use bog standard Harn Manor.

"Small Farmer"
FreeAcres = RolltheDice(1, 5)


"Villien Plus"
FreeAcres = RolltheDice(1, 6) * 5
SerfAcres = RolltheDice(1, 20) + 20

"Villien"
SerfAcres = RolltheDice(1, 20) + 20

"1/2 Villien"
SerfAcres = RolltheDice(1, 10) + 10

"1/4 Villien"
SerfAcres = Int((RolltheDice(1, 10) + 10) / 2)

"Cottar"
SerfAcres = RolltheDice(1, 5)

Hope that helps.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by hal

I'm not wedded to the idea of using Int(2d6/2)+7 for generating attributes between 8 and 13...

Its fine. I have my own system I've used for years, but its bespoke, has a different table for each attribute, and is aimed at 10.5 as the average for DX and IQ (because of how I see GM's stat NPC's). 7+2d6/2 is a little more swingy than I'd like, but I don't think we should mess with it as this stage, and dealing with extremes might be a good test.



I like Garrit. IQ 8 doesn't make you an idiot, it makes you unperceptive, easy to convince of things, and bad at most new tasks. If he can find a single useful spell he can use to improve lives every day, people will love him.


Thanks for the acreage numbers!

In effect, roughly 32% of all arable land formed the Lord's Demesne, 40% were held by villeins, and 28% by freeholders. Out of 13,500 holdings in 1279, 46 percent amounted to 10 acres or less, probably near the minimum for subsistence.

Ok, so target demesne acreage is 32%... we can call that 1/3rd. About what sir Zeedrick has. As far as subsistence went, I always assumed the cottars were living off of the Lord's land, and enriching him in the process. As best they could.

Yeoman are to be taken from the Free Farmer results, but there were no real rules for HOW.

In the original. Harn Manor gives a set number per fief. based on acreage and country. (page 12). Setting it as a set percentage of farmers is fine: I take it you leave their acreage unchanged? The new book sets the acreage for each unit class of yeoman. I wonder what happens when junior takes a likeing to one of those fancy new bows.

I'm not overly fond of the household generation rules in Harn Manor myself.... Ghost of an idea? Generate each family with the primary woman there.... Some offer their holding to their eldest in exchange for a retirement benefit in the form of a given amount of food, a roof over their heads and clothing. But that's from what I've read in history books, not HARN MANOR.

That's a fine way to do it. Household is a household, and generate familes rather than numbers.



For me the eldest taking the holding in exchange for taking care of their parents is a no-brainer to me, but I grew up near farmers. They care about THEIR land, they're emotionally attached to it, and keeping grandpa off the tractor can be difficult. So I figured, yeah, the "heir" gets the land and takes care of the parents until they die.

.90 - Sorry.

Thanks

... So - bear in mind, my app is more than just Harn Manor - it has been tinkered with to bring it in line with historical values.

Thus my questions when it deviates!

[Inky]

Originally Posted by hal

Hi All,
My project listing all of the spells by college and by magery is completed. Below in this and the next post, are all magery 0 spells by college

Air Jet                  Air
Air Vision               Air
Body of Air              Air
Breathe Air              Air
Concussion               Air
Create Air               Air
Destroy Air              Air
Devitalize Air           Air
Earth to Air             Air
Essential Air            Air
No-Smell                 Air
Odor                     Air
Purify Air               Air
Seek Air                 Air
Shape Air                Air
Stench                   Air
Walk on Air              Air
Wall of Wind             Air
Windstorm                Air
Beast Link               Animal
Beast Possession         Animal
Beast Seeker             Animal
Beast Speech             Animal
Beast Summoning          Animal
Beast-Rouser             Animal
Beast-Soother            Animal
Bird Control             Animal
Fish Control             Animal
Hybrid Control           Animal
Mammal Control           Animal
Master                   Animal
Repel Bird               Animal
Repel Fish               Animal
Repel Hybrids            Animal
Repel Mammal             Animal
Repel Reptile            Animal
Repel Vermin             Animal
Reptile Control          Animal
Rider                    Animal
Rider Within             Animal
Shapeshifting            Animal
Vermin Control           Animal
Alter Voice              Body Control
Ambidexterity            Body Control
Balance                  Body Control
Boost Dexterity          Body Control
Boost Health             Body Control
Boost Strength           Body Control
Cadence                  Body Control
Climbing                 Body Control
Clumsiness               Body Control
Debility                 Body Control
Frailty                  Body Control
Fumble                   Body Control
Grace                    Body Control
Hair Growth              Body Control
Haircut                  Body Control
Hinder                   Body Control
Itch                     Body Control
Might                    Body Control
Nauseate                 Body Control
Pain                     Body Control
Perfume                  Body Control
Reflexes                 Body Control
Retch                    Body Control
Rooted Feet              Body Control
Roundabout               Body Control
Spasm                    Body Control
Stop Spasm               Body Control
Strike Blind             Body Control
Strike Deaf              Body Control
Strike Dumb              Body Control
Stun                     Body Control
Tanglefoot               Body Control
Tickle                   Body Control
Touch                    Body Control
Vigor                    Body Control
Borrow Language          Communication & Empathy
Borrow Skill             Communication & Empathy
Control Person           Communication & Empathy
Dispel Possession        Communication & Empathy
Dream Projection         Communication & Empathy
Dream Sending            Communication & Empathy
Dream Viewing            Communication & Empathy
Gift of Letters          Communication & Empathy
Gift of Tongues          Communication & Empathy
Hide Emotion             Communication & Empathy
Hide Thoughts            Communication & Empathy
Insignificance           Communication & Empathy
Lend Language            Communication & Empathy
Lend Skill               Communication & Empathy
Mind-Reading             Communication & Empathy
Mind-Search              Communication & Empathy
Mind-Sending             Communication & Empathy
Persuasion               Communication & Empathy
Presence                 Communication & Empathy
Retrogression            Communication & Empathy
Sense Emotion            Communication & Empathy
Sense Foes               Communication & Empathy
Sense Life               Communication & Empathy
Soul Rider               Communication & Empathy
Telepathy                Communication & Empathy
Truthsayer               Communication & Empathy
Vexation                 Communication & Empathy
Earth Vision             Earth
Essential Earth          Earth
Predict Earth Movement   Earth
Seek Earth               Earth
Seek Pass                Earth
Shape Earth              Earth
Walk Through Earth       Earth
Cold                     Fire
Create Fire              Fire
Essential Flame          Fire
Extinguish Fire          Fire
Fast Fire                Fire
Fireproof                Fire
Flame Jet                Fire
Heat                     Fire
Ignite Fire              Fire
Phantom Flame            Fire
Resist Cold              Fire
Resist Fire              Fire
Seek Fire                Fire
Shape Fire               Fire
Slow Fire                Fire
Smoke                    Fire
Warmth                   Fire
Cook                     Food
Create Food              Food
Decay                    Food
Distill                  Food
Essential Food           Food
Mature                   Food
Poison Food              Food
Prepare Game             Food
Preserve Food            Food
Purify Food              Food
Season                   Food
Seek Food                Food
Test Food                Food
Water to Wine            Food
Beacon                   Gate
Create Door              Gate
Trace Teleport           Gate
Awaken                   Healing
Body-Reading             Healing
Lend Vitality            Healing
Minor Healing            Healing
Recover Energy           Healing
Relieve Madness          Healing
Relieve Sickness         Healing
Remove Contagion         Healing
Resist Disease           Healing
Resist Poison            Healing
Restoration              Healing
Restore Hearing          Healing
Restore Memory           Healing
Restore Sight            Healing
Restore Speech           Healing
Share Energy             Healing
Share Vitality           Healing
Stop Bleeding            Healing
Suspended Animation      Healing
Complex Illusion         Illusion & Creation
Illusion Disguise        Illusion & Creation
Illusion Shell           Illusion & Creation
Independence             Illusion & Creation
Initiative               Illusion & Creation
Inscribe                 Illusion & Creation
Know Illusion            Illusion & Creation
Simple Illusion          Illusion & Creation
Alarm                    Knowledge
Glass Wall               Knowledge
Identify Spell           Knowledge
Memorize                 Knowledge
Tell Position            Knowledge
Tell Time                Knowledge
Test Load                Knowledge

CORRECTION: In trying to build a Mageborn 0 Mid-wife character with GURPS CHARACTER ASSISTANT, I spotted an error that I made using the GURPS SPELL CHARTS document. For healing spells, it lets you either use Empathy in lieu of Magery, or it requires magery 1. The charts did not "carry down" the magery requirement for Lend Energy, which is the basis for ALL healing spells as a base requisite. Arrgh!

This gives Recover Energy as a Magery 0 spell, whereas Basic Set specifically says it requires Magery 1. Which are we going with? Might make rather a big difference to how much magic Magery 0 characters can do per day.

Remind me, how do the mages accumulate character points? Is it according to the "Study" rules in Basic Set (depending on how we divide up how much time they spend working vs. how much time studying), plus the ST, DX and HT increases for growing children (see page 1 of thread), or are there also some "adventuring CP" (e.g. a point for mages who are involved in dealing with one of the random natural disasters)?
If it's purely what they get from the "Study" rules, then it seems like they'd be earning anywhere from 2 or 3 points each year for only Learning on the Job to 15 points each year (Intensive Training 5 hours a day 300 days a year) or more, depending what was allowed or what the pupils or the knight could afford to pay for.

Did we sort anything out about the question of where they're to learn their spells from initially and what it's to cost? I can't remember. (There are some notes on page 293 of the Basic Set about finding teachers, including magic teachers. They look quite useful). From what ericthered got, it looks like our mages start out without any spells?

[hal]

Originally Posted by Inky

Did we sort anything out about the question of where they're to learn their spells from initially and what it's to cost? I can't remember. (There are some notes on page 293 of the Basic Set about finding teachers, including magic teachers. They look quite useful). From what ericthered got, it looks like our mages start out without any spells?

Hi Inky,
That's where you come in - where are the mageborn learning their spells from? What is the price of such studying - do they get hit with a fee per spell they're taught, or do they somehow defer the costs in some fashion? Are they subsidized by the Lord's Largess or do they have to make arrangements of their own?

GURPS never made the distinction about how a character gets their spells largely because it never monetized the value of the spells themselves. Historically, when a practitioner of a craft (any craft) took on an apprentice, he often was paid to take the apprentice on - getting relatively free labor from his apprentice who was legally bound to him. In return, he was obligated to train his apprentice.

Many years before the FORUMS even existed, we had the GURPSNET mailing list. There, I ran an exercise called MAGEWARS, in which the forces of ROME could study their spells with unfettered access because the mages studied their spells from books or had multiple academies. Carthage on the other hand, had the master/apprentice style of study, which meant that the students could only learn spells that their masters knew - but that their skils were HIGHER in the spells they knew (useful for ritual magic casting). Keep in mind this was when GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition was NEW. If you have limited points to spend, do you buy 40 spells at 1 point apiece, or do you buy 10 spells at 4 points apiece?

Well, this time, the shoe will be on your feet. How do the mageborn on your manor learn new spells? Do they have to study with the local mageborn in your village ONLY? Do you ask a nearby manor's mageborn "hey, we need the animal spells that your mages have, but we have healing spells we can teach your apprentices - let's swap?" What about what happens when all the spells your mages know are for Magery 0, with no one knowing any magery 1 spells, and you have a Magery 1 mage in your village? How does he gain his spells?

Questions like these require the GM make some world building decisions. And this is where I will smile and sit back - letting you all put forth your own solutions. Where you run into issue - the solutions you will find will be solely dependent upon you.

Me? In the village I will detail little by little in this thread, I will put forth the notion that the Village Priest, who is supposed to be educated in his letters, will be responsible to training the fledgling mageborn. Said mageborn will soak up both the ability to read as well as pick up the ethics and morality of his priestly teacher (whether the mageborn FOLLOWS the ethics and morality is another question entirely!). But it helps to point out to the mageborn, what will happen if the mageborn fails to heed the limits imposed upon them for behaviors in the future. Put another way? If such a mageborn wants "Necromantic spells" - he's likely have a secret as a disadvantage, because chances are, the society will burn him at the stake, hang him in the gallows after blinding him etc.

Then, for my village, the only stone building around other than perhaps the grainery - will be either the Church or the Lord's manor house. Chances are good, any books required for study by a budding mageborn will be kept in the Lord's library. If he pays the price of the books manufacture, then he will likely retain ownership of the book(s). But which books will the Lord buy (how do you price a book?) How do you price a spell even? THAT is open for debate right now. So - put forth ideas, or help others refine their ideas.

As I often tell my players in game play...

"What is good for the Goose is good for the Gander"

Or

"A implies B" and let them figure out what B is after they put forth A.

:)

[hal]

Inky raised a point about "which way are we going" regards to issues discovered in GURPS MAGIC. Where I myself make a mistake, or where someone who created the GURPS MAGIC FLOW CHART makes a mistake, the main book is the deciding source. Where GURPS MAGIC does something significantly different than its original sources such as GURPS MAGIC 2nd edition or GURPS GRIMOIRE - those sources, if not a system adjustment (such as modifying how much a spell costs in energy, or the prerequisite chain or how the spell functions). In one specific instance, Lightning Armor in GURPS MAGIC for 4e, lacks the Magery Requirement that Electric Armor had in GURPS GRIMOIRE (something I consider an Ooopsie). But - you as a GM, a free to make the rulings you want.

This isn't so much MY game world so much as it is an exercise you're invited to participate in with a little help on my part.

As time goes on, I'll share with you some of my biases (aka books) that I tend to use when building a game world simulating Medieval history. HARN WORLD has a lot of useful resources that I find useful. MIDKEMIA PRESS's CITIES (still something you can purchase online as a PDF) is to me, invaluable where it comes to detailing a small town or a city (small or large) along with a really NEAT series of encounter tables for the city. If you've read Raymond Feist's RIFTWAR SERIES - you will immediately recognize the name Midkemia, and know that Raymond was a GAMER and go from there (Much as the GAME OF THRONES author was a gamer).

Books useful to a GM, concepts useful to a GM, game supplements useful to a GM who wants to customize their game universe (Such as the supplement THE COMPLEATE ALCHEMIST or THE ARCANUM 30th Anniversary Edition) for the alchemical rules may be worth your while. I use the HARN WORLD economics system in lieu of GURPS rules almost exclusively (with a little Chivalry and Sorcery tossed in for good measure).

The only thing worse than having your daughter proudly tell you "Hey Dad, I aced my Medieval section of classes - and I didn't even crack open the book" is asking "how did that happen and hearing her respond "I eavesdropped on the gaming sessions when I was a kid". A certain pride comes to the fore that she picked that up from my games, and a certain TERROR comes when you realize a young pre-teenager was also listening to the adult content of the gaming table where the adults were unaware of innocent ears hearing...

Well, on that note. Feel free to send private emails for clarifications, or ask them here, but don't be shy about proposing your own solutions.

[hal]

Regards to the Time Use rules...

If anyone wants it - I have a spreadsheet I crafted some time back for my one player. I've updated it and cleared it of any "prior crud" so it is usable for people for their own use if they desire it. Let me know and I'll send it to you as an excel spreadsheet attachment. They're not hard to make. :)

So, I'm going to try to work on my mageborn by the name of Gwiawn Metson. ST: 10 DX:11 IQ:10 HT: 8 magery 0. Age will be 28.108 years. A year being 365.24 days, I'll multiply it by .108 and determine that my mageborn will be 28 years 39 days 10 hours and 42 minutes old. More detail than anyone is likely to need, but hey - the detail is there if you wanted it.

So, how do I envision that boy's life unfolding? His father is a farmer (serf social status). In medieval times, a boy aged 12 is counted as an adult for census purposes - ie, the Poll tax purpose of taxing). So, I'm going to start detailing from the age of 12 on wards.

Now I've got a decision to make. What happened to Gwiawn at age 12. Under a more normal time where Gwiawn is little more than a normal person instead of mageborn, his life's path would have had him helping his father, maybe tend to sheep, pick up sling as a skill, fall in love or have an arranged marriage, grow old and die. Instead, he's about to embark upon the path of a mageborn (what ever that might be).

So, let's look at the other mageborn in the Villiage. Celine is only 4 years older than Gwiawn. That implies to me, that there may have been an older mageborn who helped teach Celine and/or Gwiawn - but who has either since moved on (perhaps he was a freeman?) or died. I'm going to presume Freeman for now and that the teacher moved on...

So, as mini-GM for my village, I will assume that Celine and Gwiawn's spell lists will be different, and if Celine grows up on the manor here, she likely learned her spells from that guy, and that Gwiawn likely apprenticed outside of the village.

So - in my mind's eye, the Lord of the manor paid for the apprentice fee and Gwiawn spent from age 14 to age 21, as an apprentice on another's manor. Why age 14 instead of 12? I'm going to consider the fact that it will take some time for the Village Priest to teach Gwiawn how to read and drum into Gwiawn's head, the ethics and morals expected of someone who may potentially wield some sort of power - power that can be used for corruption as easily as for good. It also gives me the ability to flesh out 104 weeks of time living in the village itself, helping Da with his duties at home or to the Lord proper as unskilled physical lalborer.

As GM in other campaigns, I've long used "religious activity" time towards those skills reflecting religious training. Theology (Layperson) would be appropriate. I also as GM, permit the time spent towards social activities as a means for acquiring friends (hint: allies). Travel Time, I permit that time to be used towards area knowledge - as you have to become familiar with the region you travel through. Medieval work tends to be longer than 40 hour weeks - so I tend to bump that up to between 50 and 60 hours per week instead of the more modern 40 hours - YOU may want to do it differently (and I won't give you grief if you do. This thread is just as much about world building as it is exploring the ramifications of what goes into the training of a mageborn and why they are like coins (ie - once spent, they gain a specific benefit, and no other).

So, next post will contain my decisions on the 2 years of down time where Gwiawn lives a mostly normal life prior to becoming an apprentice in a nearby village, or possibly even in a nearby town. I've an eye towards Earth Magic as well as Plant magic for Gwiawn. In the Town, he will likely be used to move earth like a bulldozer might be used in today's time. He may learn to turn Earth to Stone - helping to build sewers underground, or make conduits for water that in ancient Roman times, have been metered to people through their fountain systems. The plant magics will of course, require that Gwiawn find a use for that as well. Town plots of land for small crops might do nicely, or perhaps nearby land to the Town would be "rented" by the citizens of the local lord for them to work. (This would mean they're not on his Census form, but would rent his land in return for a fee).

What can I do with 7 years apprenticeship? Well, Lend Energy is a given. Possibly Thaumatology might be appropriate. Area knowledge of the Town would make sense. More on my next post later...

[ericthered]

I'm looking at the best way to have magery 0 caster make food.

Create Food has three different modes, I think the inorganic matter to food one is the most reliable. With skill 12, a week's labor (50 hours of FP recovery) can make 75 meals in a week (2 meals per hour, 25% of castings fail). The mage can do this at any time of year. With about 11 meals per day... he can feed a family of four. If he's converting organic matter (which isn't free, but could possibly be close to it), he can feed six people. Grueling hours, grueling work, and his wife is still working hard to get all the other essentials. you may as well go work the land.

If he can get his skill up to 15, things change. If we're willing to spam spells (beware the critical failure table) he can produce 270 meals a week, (6 meals an hour, 10% of which fail) or enough to feed around 13 people. Which is a lot, but he's still really working hard, and he's rolling on the critical failure table every week. If we reduce the number of times he rolls, we loose a fair amount of the benefit, and only get 180 meals a week, (4 meals an hour, 10% of which fail).

Essential Food doesn't help, its more expensive per meal than Create Food.

Plant Growth and Bless Plants are a bit more complex: they are area spells, and so the more energy can be pumped into them, the better: two castings at 3 yards only barely exceed the benefit of a single casting at 4 yards. The two spells also stack with each other.

analyzing these spells requires an estimate of how many meals a square yard of field produces. By gurps Low-tech companion 3, a TL3 acre of wheat can produce 440 lbs of the stuff. A acre has roughly 5,000 square yards in it. So each lb of wheat requires 5,000 square yards / 440 lb = ~ 11 square yards of casting. Using the survival numbers from that book, you need about 2 lbs of grain a day, so a pound is a meal and a half: you need ~7.5 square yards of field for a meal of wheat.

Bless Plants doubles crop yields, and is fairly cheap: rounding pi to three, a single 10 yard radius casting increases the number of available meals by 40. In a 50 hour week 30 castings can be made. At skill 12, this increases the food available by 900 meals (30 castings at 40 meals each, with a 25% failure rate). This only will cover two acres over the entire week, so a mage relying on their own FP isn't going to run out of land. (also, this means you have two more acres worth of stuff, so it generalizes well). This spell is rather time sensitive though: it must be cast during the growing season. Possibly, it might be pro-rated with diminishing returns as the season gets later and later. Though as I look at the variety of agricultural activities, there may be a variety of targets to "bless" through the year. Harn manor mentions late grains and early grains. And perhaps blessing orchards can be done even before you plant the early grains.

But even with three months of full benefit from bless plants, and three months of half benefit, the bless plants mage by himself really only doubles 36 acres of land. This is nice, because the work required to harvest probably isn't doubled, so something like the mage's house hold and two additional households are supported: these are the kind of margins that can make you good money, but its not economy warping. Until ceremonial magic gets invoked, which I'll leave alone for now, other than noting that two mages with skill <15 working this spell together will cover 30% more ground than they would working separately, and that's not a trivial amount.

Plant Growth is rather tame by comparison. It's three times as expensive, and has some awkward breakpoints. Not only that, it takes four castings to make a crop like wheat grow to maturity (maintaining generally isn't worth it, because you want to hit as wide an area as possible). a typical 9 point casting hits 27 square yards. This would be 2.5 meals of wheat... if we got four months of growth. As it is, we get .6 meals for spending 9 Energy. This worse than create food, and not worth considering outside of ceremonial magic.

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So right now Bless Plants looks like the most profitable thing a Mage can do in way of food. It also has the most promise for expanding on, and it gives the mage quite a bit of time off... to work on other things, or perhaps to study harder and make more money next time.

[ericthered]

I don't intend to use time charts. 2 points per year in skills feels better to me. If I need more for people who actually spend time training, I'll pull out some variation on the worminghall learning as a job rules.

I'm not sure that mageborn actually need to learn how to read or Thaumatology. They focus in on their chosen specialty spells and let the learned pontificate from Italy or where-ever they go to study.

Some of these area spells are really sensitive to casting size. FP and ER would really boost productivity.

I saw a house-rule where recover energy is a 5-point advantage rather than a skill, kind of like fit, and it would be so nice here... but it isn't standard gurps, which is what we're looking at.

I'm eyeing breath control. If recover energy is out of reach, breath control looks really nice.