Song Of The Fallen WIP: Yet another Codex Entry posted for opinion

Lol! Well, when you put it like that, it does sound a bit silly…but I like to think it’ll make a lot more sense when you’re given the context of the situation.

Left4Bed: Well, as long as you keep it bittersweet and don’t keep clobbering the PC/main character with the club called tragedy repeatedly, I think I’m going to have few to no complaints, at any rate :smile: . And it’s good that you want to tell a good story, but don’t forget that it’s also supposed to be a game :wink: .

idonotlikeusernames: Lol. Well, at least there’s the option to make that promise, which nets an actual gold coin for the PC/Main Character, which might well help making things easier for us in that regard. Althrough that would, I guess, depend on just how much a gold coin is worth in this setting - I mean, in stories with a gold-silver-copper/bronze standard, a gold coin is usually woth a lot, but just how much varies, and in some settings, not even a gold coin is worth that much <_<.

If I had to guess from games like Dragon Age and such, a single gold coin buys a commoner a couple months of food and supplies. However since we’re going to be on the run and traveling we’ll have much more expenses to worry about then just food and keeping the roof over our head from leaking. We’ll need to pay for more suitable traveling clothes and gear for one, unless we really want to set out barefoot and in rags (which is an option of last resort, I suppose), traveling rations (again somewhat more expensive than regular food) and perhaps the occasional stay at an inn. All of this burns through money much faster than normal and as long as the MC is still a minor he can’t very easily get that much more coin. Begging as a child or juvenile is much more risky than begging as an adult, for one.

You’ve got a point there - travelling gear, supplies and maybe a horse/pony to make things easier - could quite a bit more than a gold coin. But I guess we’ll see… Also, on the plus side, maybe Bella can cast something like the equivalent of the ‘Create Food and Water’ spell from D&D, meaning it’ll turn out that we don’t need to pay as much in terms of travelling supplies as we feared? :smiley: . As for the worth of a gold coin in this setting - well only Left4Bed can say for sure, I guess…

I don’t think our character would even know how to (properly) ride a horse. A mule to carry the gear and maybe Bella as well, while we walk would make much more sense and provided it can graze wouldn’t cost all that much, unlike good riding and war horses who need special fodder to keep in good condition, which can be expensive.
But really, the main problem is that the MC is only 15 years old, which for most guys is 1-2 years too young to really be able to pass as an adult in society and severely limits our options, unless we can get Ehren or someone else who is or can pass as an adult to come with us.

Don’t worry, that’s something I’m constantly reminding myself.

Well the internal economics of all Four Nations and the way they interweave is something (on the long and growing list of things) I need to refine and fully work out. What I can say is that Temian currency plays the role of the US dollar in terms of the dominant or driving currency of the Unified Realm, although it doesn’t really operate on a fiat system. There is a variance however as some currencies are worth more than others (there’s a very brief allusion to that in an early part of the demo), but obviously macro economics isn’t something that most people care about or want to deal with, so most of that nitty gritty is mostly for me as I iron out the internal logic and the way it drives the plot. For those who care about that kind of thing, I’ll probably sprinkle hints as to the way it all runs, but for the rest you can just gloss over most of that without any ill effect.

In terms of the value of a gold shill, to put it into perspective I’ll use the price of a good loaf of bread. One loaf, well baked and of good quality, would likely go for around 20 drats (the lowest Temian coin). A hard, cheaply made loaf could be bought for half that, maybe a drat or two less if you were a really scraping the barrel and a good bargainer. A loaf, if you were only feeding one person, could probably last you 3 or so days, if you were rationing and really stretched yourself you might go as high as 4 or 5.
100 drats = 1 silver egot
10 silver egots = 1 gold shill
So at 20 drats (for a good quality loaf) you could buy around 50 (with a shill), and at a rate of one loaf every three days, that would feed you for around 150 days. Of course that doesn’t account for other expenses you accrue during travel, or how that might divide with companions, but I hope that’s a decent base line?

That’s just my very basic thinking as of right now, the specific values are very much subject to change as I think about it more and pin down the details and how it all comes together.

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Hmmm…interesting, but my main concern isn’t the relative value of money so much as the fact that that our character, being as young and unskilled as he is, has no reliable way of procuring more money at the moment.
The gold money is about the value I thought it would be, in that it would probably feed clothe and house a commoner for 1-2 months.

Well in that case, playing the game would be the best way to answer those questions, so I’ll try to write as quickly as I can. Hopefully the next update will have at least the opening of chapter 3.

[quote=“Left4Bed, post:166, topic:10550, full:true”]
Don’t worry, that’s something I’m constantly reminding myself.[/quote]

Good - wouldn’t be fun if things ended up like this, now would it?:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1144
(And in case someone points it out - yeah, I know that a computer game presents you with more limiting options than a tabletop RPG would, but the point still kinda stands :stuck_out_tongue: )

True, macro economy isn’t something the casual player or reader would find interesting to deal with, so keeping things simple in that regard isn’t, I think, a problem :smile: . Might still want to give it some thought though, as that setup doens’t - in my opinion at least - make the gold coin sound quite as valuable as it should be, but… Your story, your call :wink: . Andso far, it’s not a problem if you haven’t worked out the fine details of the economy yet - it’s only when you intend the PC/main character to spend some money that you should have the details worked out - but so far, none of the options available has the player spending any money yet.

You must also remember that in the pre-industrial economy a lot of the day to day “trade” between commoners is largely conducted as barter, outside the monetary economy. So while the value of average commoner’s yearly economic output might vary between 8-15 gold said commoner may never actually see or hold a gold coin in his life, especially in the more agrarian parts of the country where the MC grows up and taxes are likely paid in goods and (mandatory) services. But @Left4Bed can make certainly make gold or other currency as valuable as he wishes. It might be possible that there are gold mines in the country comparable to Game of Thrones Westerlands or perhaps even ones that put them to shame.
On the other hand gold might be very,very rare although the loaf of bread example does not seem to support that theory.
The last and most likely possibility is that “gold coins” in this setting are simply not very pure.

ay yo, i’m happy to shed a small amount of light on currency and trade in Olden Times (specifically in europe, though some of this refers to practices in other countries), since i’ve done a bit of research on the subject. sorry if this is a bit scatterbrained! d:

coins originated as a representation for wealth (early currency was mostly cattle, animal products derived from them, and grain) or the value of physical items which could be bartered, rather than things that were valuable on their own. there were, of course, other forms of currency used at the time coins became commonplace, coming in the form of objects that, while not useful on their own, were ascribed monetary value. these alternative forms of currency were also in use when, even if the community did have coins, they were not seen as having any value, similar to the situation with the tinkers. during wartime or economic crises, ‘tokens’ that represented the value of an actual coin but were worth less than the coin were issued in order to combat the short supply of actual coins due to people hoarding them. unlike real coins, tokens were commonly made of lower quality metals like lead and pewter.

earlier forms of metallic currency were not specifically coins, but utensils of standard quality made of metal–at that point in time, gold and silver were also largely equivalent in value–and engraved ingots (the engravings, by the way, contributed to the origin of the word ‘shilling’, as it is derived from ‘skilja’, meaning ‘cut’).

although using pieces of metal was a good deal more convenient than lugging around an entire field’s worth of wheat all the time, it wasn’t convenient to weigh lumps of metal out at every transaction, so to mitigate the need, more uniform lumps of metal with a guaranteed weight were minted, with a mark to signify who issued the metal and its weight (measured by the grain, in some parts of the world)and purity, later inspiring coins more like the ones we have today.

i also believe that it is interesting to note that, in regards to trading, it did not matter where the coins were issued so long as the metal was pure (though not fully so, of course; most coins are a made of combined metals, so as to not sacrifice durability), so currency from many different places were accepted regardless of the country or era they were minted in, although coins from larger nations understandably had wider spread.

the coinage in older times were largely inconsistent and quite thick, mostly due to the fact they were formed from lumps and hammered into shape by a smithy (despite this, the engravings and portraiture turned out gorgeous after the fact), though moulding using casts and dies became a more common way to do it later.

i hope this was at least somewhat informative–post’s getting a bit too long, so i cut out some information (i haven’t even gotten to engravings and such!). plus reading the book is murder on my eyes. d:

i have these theories after applying what i know of the history of coinage in real life (i sound like a HUGE NERD) to the story–

  • the ratio of shilling-egot-drat is actually somewhat close to the old standard for gold-silver-copper: 1:13:3000. one would assume copper is much less common in temia!
  • a lot of tinkers, along with using foreign coins, most likely also use pre-war/mid-war coinage or tokens in the present day.
  • it’s likely that temic coinage is accepted some other parts, but coins issued from outside aren’t usable within temia.
  • as @idonotlikeusernames says, taxes were paid in services and goods (i believe it was more common to be goods). barter also worked similarly, of course. and, indeed, 50 loaves of bread would be about a hundred dollars, and the cost of a small gold coin is around two hundred dollars at the lowest, in real life.
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Honestly I think the MCs finances would actually improve on the road. Providing for a little girl and a pet requires a lot lot less demanding than providing for a sick mother and specially tending for a home and land with crops and tools and taxes etc
Also I don’t think that being 15 and not accepted as an adult would be that much of a limitation. I myself even with all that human/child rights crap have been working for money since I was 10 and when I was 12 I would travel about 300 km (190 miles) every month on foot and alone, although it’s true I didn’t have anyone chasing after me.

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[quote=“Guhik, post:172, topic:10550, full:true”]
Also I don’t think that being 15 and not accepted as an adult would be that much of a limitation.[/quote]

That would depend on two factors: First, how society in general in this setting views such things. I mean, in mediveal society, what a youth not yet turned adult was expected to be able to do or not do was vastly different from how such things are viewed today, for back then, youths could be given work burdens or shares of responsibility that they would today be seen as not ready for. Secondly, it would depend on whether the times are good/prosperous or bad, because if it’s the earlier, people are more willing to pay attention to what the proper or lawful thing to do, whereas in later cases they would be more prone to ignore such things (to illustrate: were it illegal or at least seen as improper to sell a sword to someone not yet of a certain age, then during good/prosperous times, a blacksmith would likely refuse to sell a sword to someone not of the peoper age, but during bad times, the blacksmith would be more concered with making ends meet/keeping himself feed, and so be more willing to ignore the fact that it’s illegal/improper to sell a sword to someone not yet of the right age).

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Or they’d sell things they’re not supposed to sell to teenagers and other inappropriate classes of people but at an extortionate marked-up price.
There’s also the fact that even when it is seen as acceptable for a child or teenager to perform certain labour and duties, the compensation they receive for it is typically far less than what an adult might receive for the exact same thing. All of this also discounts the fact that children, teenagers and old people need far more resources to live a healthy life (Presuming we do want our character to develop into a handsome young man, instead of someone who looks like they just got out of a concentration camp. In addition to providing the same for Bella and taking care of the pet).

This is true, but for the sake of convenience many fantasy world cultures go with a definition of adulthood close to our own so as not to offend the sensibilities of too many readers, sometimes justified by magical or magitek labour saving devices.
There’s also the physical aspect I’ve described, a majority of guys (discounting early birds and late-bloomers) can only begin to physically pass as adults between 16-18 years old, a point our MC has not quite reached yet. In addition if the MC has been (slightly)malnourished for a longer time and only begins to somehow, magically eat properly when on the run with Bella, you can chalk him up with the late bloomers and add 1-2 extra years to becoming physically comparable to your adult peers.

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[quote=“idonotlikeusernames, post:174, topic:10550, full:true”]
Or they’d sell things they’re not supposed to sell to teenagers and other inappropriate classes of people but at an extortionate marked-up price.[/quote]

That’s also a possibility of course, especially if the seller in question was a shady/blackmarket-y guy to begin with…

[quote=“idonotlikeusernames, post:174, topic:10550, full:true”]
There’s also the fact that even when it is seen as acceptable for a child or teenager to perform certain labour and duties, the compensation they receive for it is typically far less than what an adult might receive for the exact same thing. All of this also discounts the fact that children, teenagers and old people need far more resources to live a healthy life (Presuming we do want our character to develop into a handsome young man, instead of someone who looks like they just got out of a concentration camp. In addition to providing the same for Bella and taking care of the pet)[/quote]

True, which I guess is another potential drain on whatever resources we’ll end up having in the end. Still, we’ve yet to see where exactly that leads - and it could end up being not about what resources we (or to be exact, the PC/main character) has, not for now at least…

[quote=“idonotlikeusernames, post:174, topic:10550, full:true”]
This is true, but for the sake of convenience many fantasy world cultures go with a definition of adulthood close to our own so as not to offend the sensibilities of too many readers, sometimes justified by magical or magitek labour saving devices.[/quote]

… Or they simply pretty much ignore tackling the topic, at least head-on XD .

[quote=“idonotlikeusernames, post:174, topic:10550, full:true”]
There’s also the physical aspect I’ve described, a majority of guys (discounting early birds and late-bloomers) can only begin to physically pass as adults between 16-18 years old, a point our MC has not quite reached yet. In addition if the MC has been (slightly)malnourished for a longer time and only begins to somehow, magically eat properly when on the run with Bella, you can chalk him up with the late bloomers and add 1-2 extra years to becoming physically comparable to your adult peers.[/quote]´

“Magically eat properly when on the run with Bella”, lol XD . Well, maybe Bella’s presence and/or the bond the PC/Main character has with her has certain ‘health effects’ that makes him develop into a fully fit and healthy indvidual whether he eats properly or not? :stuck_out_tongue: .

By the way, a question for Left4Bed: Are you going to ‘lock’ the traits of the PC/Main character at some point? Because the way, I see it, I’m not sure if there’s much point in having the dominant trait keep changing constantly as the story goes onwards; at least not if you’re thinking of keying or having certain events or conversations play out differently depending on which trait is the dominant one…

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I agree with you there, but I also think that with a bit of tenacity he could arrange some good deals for himself. And lets not forget that in the end the market will have last say.

You are exaggerating the effects of malnourishment a bit. Malnourishment during childhood has little noticeable effect on short term and usually does not hinder development but hasten decay after maturity, so that it might, in fact, make people look older, unless someone outright starves for a long period that is.

Btw, macro economics, nutrition, labor, coinage… I think we are starting to overthink things a little too much.

@Left4Bed I really hope you let the MC and Bella grow closer together(or farther apart if we choose) through out the story. Also I was thinking maybe we could just sell the rest of our land since we have sold some before and also since no one will be occupying the house while we are on the “run”; just thought it would make better since/fit the story better.

@Left4Bed -just another one of my random ideas. Maybe we could have a choice to influence Bella to use her power for “good” or corrupt and influence her to use her power for “evil”.

I’ll be toying with a few options on how best to utilise the trait system, so in future updates there’ll be a bit of experimentation when it comes to that as I try to gauge what people positively respond to. Regardless of the system I choose though, after the 2nd Chapter you won’t have as much freedom to change those traits moving forward. My thinking there is that you will have already established your core character and everything else is just adding layers.

Story of my life.

That’s a huge part of the story, the relationship you establish with her will be important in multiple ways.

I don’t really see it as simply as good or evil, but the personality of your MC does rub off on her.

[quote=“Left4Bed, post:179, topic:10550, full:true”]
I’ll be toying with a few options on how best to utilise the trait system, so in future updates there’ll be a bit of experimentation when it comes to that as I try to gauge what people positively respond to. Regardless of the system I choose though, after the 2nd Chapter you won’t have as much freedom to change those traits moving forward. My thinking there is that you will have already established your core character and everything else is just adding layers.[/quote]

Sounds good :smile:

[quote=“Left4Bed, post:179, topic:10550, full:true”]
That’s a huge part of the story, the relationship you establish with her will be important in multiple ways.[/quote]

Which makes me wonder exactly what out relationship with her can turn into - something like acquintances/friends/siblings? Or maybe she’s supposed to become romanceable at a later point? Considering she can end up giving us a ring, we’ve perhaps already ended up engaged to her in that case? :laughing: