Tag: #WorldBuilding

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Farming and Economy Knowledge Compendium: Things Players Have Learned

Farming Tips, Tricks, and Tidbits

  • Potatoes, amaranth, and wheat can be planted in the fall. The wheat will be harvested in last summer/early fall of the next year.
  • Goats produce milk for around 420 days a year, if they have kidded that year.
  • Most goats give birth to two kids per pregnancy, though one or three kids is also a possibility.
  • Goat gestation takes around 150 days, and should be started around Day 425.
  • Charcoal takes a week to make a single batch using the mound method.
  • It takes about 40 gold pieces to feed 60 chickens for a year.

Prices in the Farming Community Around Gretchen’s

  • 1 Copper per egg
  • 5 Coppers per omelet
  • 2 Silver per adult chicken
  • 5 Silver per gallon of goat milk
  • 2 Silver for a small block of sheep’s butter
  • 6 Copper for bunches of leeks, onions, or garlic
  • 50 Gold for a trained farm dog

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Calendar Days

The calendar of Adralel is circular. Everyone agrees that there are 10 days in a week, 50 weeks in a year and thus 500 days in a year. Everyone agrees that there are 12 holidays spread more or less equidistant around the course of the year. That, however, is where general agreement stops.

The way in which a community thinks about how the year is divided often reflects their lifestyle. For instance, many farmers divide the year into Waxing Days and Waning Days. Waxing begins on Day 418, the Lean Day of Thanks, while Waning begins on Day 68, the Day of Plenty. Their year is tied to the soil.

A cleric or mage may think of the year in terms of magic and energies, dividing the year into before the Summer Solstice on Day 126 and after the Summer Solstice. Urbanites, keeping the same schedule all year regardless of season, often follow the calendar more literally, marking the new year on Day 1 and celebrating the halfway point on Day 251 at the Death of the Year holiday.

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The Marauding Mist

Caravan guards sit close around a campfire, mist all around them on an otherwise cloudless night. A few flasks make their way around the circle. They talk in low voices, and eye the shifting mist largely obscuring the merchant’s wagons.

“Back before the world burned, I’ve heard there was no marauding mist. The mist was blameless, innocent of danger. When the great lords made terrible magics and devices for their wars on each other, the mist was born from their hate.”

“Well I’ve heard the mist is from another world, creeping in through holes the lords tore in the very fabric of the sky, reaching too far beyond their ken in their lust for power, calling upon power or magic they had no right to. Just like entitled little lordlings now.” The guard turned her head and spit into the mist.

“That’s what I think, too,” another volunteered. “That it comes from another world, I mean. And sometimes it brings things with it! My nan knew someone who stumbled out of the mist. They said they didn’t even recognize the stars anymore. Never could explain rightly where they come from, poor sod.”

“We’ll set two per watch tonight, just like any mist night, in case one a ya takes ta screamin’.” A calm voice cut across the chatter. Everyone nods at the veteran’s words , accepting his edict without protest. He knew his business. “Even better is ta be inside on mist nights, where the maraudin’ mist fears ta go, but I doubt those cozy merchants would invite the likes a us guard to join ’em in their snug wagons.”

The newest addition to the guard troop glanced bleakly at the closest wagon, separated from their fire by the barest tendril of mist. It was plain that indoors was where he would rather be, even at the cost of mockery and laughter from those around the fire. Noticing his discomfort, one of the guards takes up a story teller’s voice.

“The mist holds nameless dread and sharp, thin blades. Folk lost out in the mist, if they’re found at all, are found as corpses. Sometimes they look perfect, without a mark on their bodies. Dead from fear alone, some say. Sometimes they look like badly dressed meat, they have so many cuts all across their flesh. Occasional folk can walk through the mist untouched, and no one knows why. Dangerous trick to try twice, of course. The mist is fickle, and jealous of its secrets. The mist-“

“Shut up, Venric.” The vetran quashes the attempt to further spook the untested guard in a conversational tone of voice. “We don’t need people more riled up than they already are. Nice a you ta volunteer fer middle watch.”

“I had middle watch last night!” Venric exclaimed in outrage. He groaned, already imagining how much harder tomorrow would be after having such fractured sleep two nights in a row. He continued to grumble to anyone who would listen as the guards settled into the bedrolls.

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On Goblins and Elves

The dominant races on Adralel are dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans. There are enclaves of other races, such as man-apes, high orcs, and ogres, to name a few. Goblins and elves mutually consider themselves to be separate races, though many outside of that strange relationship consider them to be kin.  

King of the Wood Elves, from the 1977 animated Hobbit
Source: Olde School Wizardry Blog

Relations between elves and the other dominant races are often strained. Elves keep to themselves, being out of step with the mortal affairs and mindsets of the other races, because they are ageless. Almost all elven settlements keep slaves, which is fundamentally opposed by any of the Good alignments. Though there are non-Good aligned City States or Holdings that legally allow slavery scattered throughout Adralel, elves are the only race in the four to view slavery as a cultural mainstay. As they predominantly keep their own offspring, goblins, as slaves, the other races have not intervened.

Elves rarely breed true, and the majority of their offspring are goblins. Goblins share an affinity for both magic and combat with their elven progenitors, though they are generally weaker and lacking in the strange grace of the elves. An elf often leaves their goblin child out in the open, to be taken in as a slave by a neighbor or die from exposure to the elements.

Goblins, when they manage to extricate themselves from slavery in elven society, can be bold adventurers. Free goblin societies spring up around an accomplished goblin adventurer, when he or she decides to build a Labyrinth.

A goblin, Big Ears, talking about his values as a Good-aligned character
Source: Goblins the Webcomic

The social structure and wealth division of Labyrinths is most often fiercely communist, in rejection of elven society. Typical goblin Labyrinths turn no one away when they seek aid or shelter, and they can be very good neighbors.  

Despite this, goblins are sometimes viewed with a mixture of suspicion and pity by other races. Humans in particular can be very suspicious of goblins. There have long been tales of free goblins stealing human babies and using dire magics to transform the babes into goblins.

Elves often do what they can to sow seeds of distrust between goblins and other races. They in particular make a show of wiping out the occasional goblin Labyrinth to “save” the surrounding countryside from goblin mischief. As they are out of step with the rest of the world, it is difficult to predict when they will take such action.

Goblins, unlike, elves, do have souls and age at a rate similar to halflings. How it is possible that a soulless being is able to produce offspring that is in firm possession of a soul is a matter hotly debated in academic and religious circles.

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Adralel Calendar System and Passage of Time In-Game

Age – 1,000 years. The current age is referred to as the “Modern Age”. Past ages are named based on great events that took place during that age. The names of recent past ages are mildly contested, and often vary by culture.

Year – 50 weeks, noted by number, such as “Week 19”.

Week – 10 days, referred to as first-day, second-day1 and so on.

The first day of the Adralel new year is the Spring Equinox, celebrating the fulfilled promise of the return of life after long winter.

It is currently seventh-day of Week 20 in Adralel.

Time in the world of Adralel passes whenever games are in session. The O’ahu play sessions, for example, often take place over three or four days. Up to several weeks may pass in-game between play sessions for the more sporadic adventuring troupes. This is either treated as time in town, which can be spent on economic or research pursuits, or hand-waved if a troupe is mid dungeon crawl.

1. Based on the Faerunian The Calendar of Harptos tenday naming system, from Forgotten Realms.

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A Brief History of Adralel

Map of Adralel

“In the beginning was the Singer and the Song. The Song and the Singer wound around one another, inseparable. Our world, and every speck in the night sky, was Sung into existence. Pure notes coalesced into mist that sighed over the land and the jeweled dew drops that followed after.

“With time creatures came to roam the land as well. Some of these found their ways of being compatible. Some of them did not. This struggle went on for years uncounted, until the days of the Halflings, who came to make peace. Nimble of finger and quick of wit, the first Halflings brokered –“

“It weren’t the halflings that broker’d anythin’,” a human interrupted. He had paused in the marketplace to listen to the storyteller. Seated halfling children craned their necks to look back at the tall visitor as he continued to speak, oblivious to the glares from all around. “It’s the dwarves that sued fer peace, in’it. On account of they were dwindlin’ and afeared a’ dying out.”

 “It’s certainly true that no one can outbreed you humans,” the irritated storyteller snapped, before she thought better of it. More babies than brains. She clicked her teeth shut before that thought had a chance to escape out of her mouth.       

“I’m jus’ sayin’ you should tell the chil’en right,” the human countered, before moving prudently off into the crowd. The crowd being mostly halflings, it didn’t hide him. It did, however, provide a convenient reason for he and the storyteller to let their argument drop. 

“Why did he say it was dwarves, Mama Valda? Didn’t he have a Storyteller to tell him right?” one of the older children asked, watching the visitor disappear among the stalls of the marketplace.

“There are no surviving written records from that time, Riton. So much was lost when the first peace broke and the world burned. Even recorded oral traditions from that time are centuries distant from the time they report.” Storyteller Valda replied, trying to regain her composure and rhythm. “And humans live such short lives. Their oral traditions had to pass through the most heads before it was recorded, so it is the most distorted.”

The children stared up at Valda, uncomprehending. At such a young age, it was difficult to conceive of the practical difference between 60 and 100 years. Both seemed equally distant. Thinking for a moment, the Storyteller remembered a game from her childhood that might be useful now.

“Here, I’ll show you. Everyone sit in a circle. Riton, you sit here next to me. Now think of two words. Got them? Good. You are going to whisper them to Ziri sitting next to you. She’ll whisper it to Rosula and so on until it gets all the way to me. Does everyone understand?” Each child nodded when she made brief eye contact. She nodded at Riton to begin.