Grey
Dialectical Hermeticist
This is as much a design exercise as an effort to make something for an upcoming game. Commentary welcome. I will be using my own Darkening Skies setting as a base, but hopefully the end result will be robust enough.
Necessities
Food & Water
Shelter
Protection
Entertainment
Wealth
Religion
Food
The Curselands, prior to the Curse, would've been the best farm and grazeland. The Stormcircle would have to produce rice, primarily. Kaerian farms would produce cereals, mainly. Industrial farms around the City-Engine would probably produce corn or potatoes, primarily. Fruit would have to come from the South and the Awakened Wood. City-Engine and the Wood would produce most of the meat.
Adding magic to the mix - highly pest resistant strains of crops would have been developed by Communers, with enhanced yields. The rice paddies of Stormcircle grow at accelerated rates. Private gardens would produce fruit, vegetables, spices.
Shelter
Basic Shelter - easy enough until the times comes for expansion, infrastructure, etc. Stone can come from Shaydensea, mountains. Wood from The Wood, natch. Glass from beach sand. In turn, necessitates small processing businesses - smelters, miners, loggers.
Protection
Other entities will want your food, wealth, supplies, manpower. Standing armies are expensive. Intelligence is vital. Fortifications and propaganda can forestall actual combat.
Entertainment
Often takes care of itself, but a ruler may have to manage excesses such as drug abuse, trafficking, and bloodsport. Also a good way to distract a populous from mistakes, threats, and failings.
Religion
Tricky thing - people want it, but it can have adverse affects on the other factors; taboos about food or entertainment, illogical objections to vital decisions, a threat to effective authority. However, it can also maintain loyalty to the ruling power against all reason, bolster protective forces, provide financial assistance in lean times. Best treated as a force of nature - inevitable, potentially exploitable, best treated with extreme caution.
The Infernal Houses require food & water, both for their members and to feed underlings, in order to fuel their other interests. Cheap sources include buying the surplus rice from Stormspires. Shelter becomes an issue beyond their primary holdings, which may not be able to support sufficient populations and may be too distant from certain locations to maximize returns. Similar principles apply to acquiring resources for processing/sale/construction. Entertainment may need to be monitored to prevent harm to production. More production becomes necessary to maintain a standing army, so other solutions must be examined unless there is significant income.
Wealth
Wealth is generated through trade or the accumulation of valuable resources. Lots of Wealth is good for morale, for reputation, and allows you to cover emergency situations (buying food during a blight, hiring mercenaries when under threat, paying weregilt when some young fool kills an important person). Wealth can also make you a target, however, and protecting it can be costly.
Other factors include technological development, the arts, and the matter of finding appropriate parents to carry on House lines.
Next Post: Some rough mechanics for manpower management
Necessities
Food & Water
Shelter
Protection
Entertainment
Wealth
Religion
Food
The Curselands, prior to the Curse, would've been the best farm and grazeland. The Stormcircle would have to produce rice, primarily. Kaerian farms would produce cereals, mainly. Industrial farms around the City-Engine would probably produce corn or potatoes, primarily. Fruit would have to come from the South and the Awakened Wood. City-Engine and the Wood would produce most of the meat.
Adding magic to the mix - highly pest resistant strains of crops would have been developed by Communers, with enhanced yields. The rice paddies of Stormcircle grow at accelerated rates. Private gardens would produce fruit, vegetables, spices.
Shelter
Basic Shelter - easy enough until the times comes for expansion, infrastructure, etc. Stone can come from Shaydensea, mountains. Wood from The Wood, natch. Glass from beach sand. In turn, necessitates small processing businesses - smelters, miners, loggers.
Protection
Other entities will want your food, wealth, supplies, manpower. Standing armies are expensive. Intelligence is vital. Fortifications and propaganda can forestall actual combat.
Entertainment
Often takes care of itself, but a ruler may have to manage excesses such as drug abuse, trafficking, and bloodsport. Also a good way to distract a populous from mistakes, threats, and failings.
Religion
Tricky thing - people want it, but it can have adverse affects on the other factors; taboos about food or entertainment, illogical objections to vital decisions, a threat to effective authority. However, it can also maintain loyalty to the ruling power against all reason, bolster protective forces, provide financial assistance in lean times. Best treated as a force of nature - inevitable, potentially exploitable, best treated with extreme caution.
The Infernal Houses require food & water, both for their members and to feed underlings, in order to fuel their other interests. Cheap sources include buying the surplus rice from Stormspires. Shelter becomes an issue beyond their primary holdings, which may not be able to support sufficient populations and may be too distant from certain locations to maximize returns. Similar principles apply to acquiring resources for processing/sale/construction. Entertainment may need to be monitored to prevent harm to production. More production becomes necessary to maintain a standing army, so other solutions must be examined unless there is significant income.
Wealth
Wealth is generated through trade or the accumulation of valuable resources. Lots of Wealth is good for morale, for reputation, and allows you to cover emergency situations (buying food during a blight, hiring mercenaries when under threat, paying weregilt when some young fool kills an important person). Wealth can also make you a target, however, and protecting it can be costly.
Other factors include technological development, the arts, and the matter of finding appropriate parents to carry on House lines.
Next Post: Some rough mechanics for manpower management
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