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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    Hey everyone, this is my first post on the website.

    I am also starting a new campaign with D&D 5e. I have played it some as a player but never as a DM. But I do have 10+ years experience DM:ing Star Wars RPG so I am familiar with being in this role.

    So my biggest obstacle is adapting to a world I usually fill with science fictional pieces into medieval pieces. The level of technology, fashion sense and level of medicine is a bit of a challenge to adapt.

    So I'm wondering: how do you handle things like health, disease, body hygiene and oral hygiene, etc?
    Do the people of Faerūn know about virus and bacteria? Do they understand why diseases happen or are they always blaming it on superstition? What about oral hygiene; does everyone have bad teeth? According to artworks glasses seem to be invented but how common is that?

    Most of this might be obvious. Or can be solved by "magic". But in my upcoming campaign there has been a span of 30 year of non-magic in the world so much of that dependency will be lost and the inhabitants are forced to adapt.

    New technology?
    I am also thinking that without magic for so long, people will turn to alternative methods and start inventing new things.
    What would be considered an advancement in technology without going too crazy? Would steam-power be logical or is it too far ahead? Anything else?
    Last edited by SSB_Shadow; 2019-03-23 at 11:52 AM.

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    Librarian in the Playground Moderator
     
    LibraryOgre's Avatar

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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    This is one of my favorite topics.

    30 years isn't that long. It's a human generation (and a half), but it's a long weekend to elves, and a hard week to dwarves.

    That said, I tend to peg their medical knowledge as about equivalent to their other physical technologies... 14th or 15th centuries. While the gods may have gone (and taken their magic), you're still going to have a couple of big forces that already hoard knowledge, and will leverage that knowledge in the absence of magic... the Churches of Oghma and Gond (and their related churches, Denier, especially). While I don't know if they necessarily have germ theory of disease, I do think they're likely to have a basic understanding of hygiene (esp. handwashing), and know a lot about medicine divorced from magic. I DO think you'd see decline in overall health during this period, but that's partially because healing spells are so hugely efficient. Sure, it may not be HP damage, but spells are going to mend the skin in ways that bandages do not. They're going to prevent cavities in their quest to bring you up to full health. Getting a Cure Light Wounds spell every few months will lead to some fairly effortless health, if your nutrition is decent.

    You're also going to see some decline in nutrition, because a lot of farmers likely get a boost from plant-priests using Plant Growth and such. There's still going to be knowledge... they might know the advantages of a three or four field farming system... but it's not going to match up to magically making things right.

    As for general technology? Maybe. Lantan is already moving in a technological direction, and there will be a lot of interest in their exports. You may see an increase in power of certain guilds, as their ways of doing things become more necessary. But 30 years isn't very long to build the infrastructure necessary to move towards a high tech society... you're going to have several years where a lot of people are figuring magic will be back any time now, after all.

    Where it will get interesting is the societies that rely heavily on magic. Thay is gonna spend most of this time on fire. Halruaa is gonna be a ruin. The Anauroch might get smaller, since it's magically maintained. What's gonna happen to dragons, or undead, or even races like the genasi or aasimar (consider that they're supposed to be prevalent in Mulhorand)?
    The Cranky Gamer
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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    So I'm wondering: how do you handle things like health, disease, body hygiene and oral hygiene, etc?
    Do the people of Faerūn know about virus and bacteria? Do they understand why diseases happen or are they always blaming it on superstition? What about oral hygiene; does everyone have bad teeth? According to artworks glasses seem to be invented but how common is that?
    Diseases happen because of the machination of Talona or her agents directly working to undermine the wellbeing of sentient people, an active malevolent force that is constantly trying to undo you but for the efforts of other gods and their servants.
    FR is such a gods heavy realm that it's easier to assume that everywhere has more of a pre-humanist way of thinking about the world. Someone dies of smallpox? They clearly had the misfortune of crossing the goddess of plagues. "Had they but boiled their water to do her proper honor (or in the honor of whatever protector god, probably Ilmater) they might have stood a chance," as their neighbor makes the gesture to ward off evil, signifying the vigilance of Helm.

    There are probably instances of humanist (demi-humanist?) thought throughout the setting, but I'd assume that to be the exception rather than the rule. Apply that even to things like glasses. They aren't the result of years of study on optics and glass cutting by Beauregard Lemont, published physicist and inventor. They are a blessing bestowed by the wonder of Gond to his chosen, to demonstrate his power to heal the vision that may otherwise wane under the strain of reading his scriptures by candlelight. As such, they'd probably be a religious artifact reserved for the worthy, as integral a part of their identity as monks of Gond as the tonsure is in European medieval monks.
    Or gnomes did it, and market them at a reasonable price.
    Or both; could be a source of great friction between the gnome inventors and the Gondian monestaries. Might even be an adventure hook there.

    New technology?
    I am also thinking that without magic for so long, people will turn to alternative methods and start inventing new things.
    What would be considered an advancement in technology without going too crazy? Would steam-power be logical or is it too far ahead? Anything else?
    Gond's going to get a lot more followers, for one.

    That said, gnomes are going to get a lot more customers, too.


    It depends on what you want to do; most "technology" in the realms reads like different magic. Some of it exists for sure, but a lot of the things that people do would probably be bolstered by some form of magic or another. When, for instance, disease *is* the manifestation of an evil force that seeks to destroy the living, how much of basic hygiene winds up being rituals to placate the gods, and how much do they have to discover through trial and error will protect them in this new environment?
    It's difficult to predict how things change in a world where magic and divine intervention are a given; would they have steam technology, or would society completely fall apart without one of the givens underpinning existence itself falls away?
    The answer is simple.
    Which do you think is awesome?

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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    Thanks for your reply!

    I know 30 years isn't a lot of time but there is a reason for it. I didn't want to bring up the setting of my campaign but I could shed some more light into it in order to give more context.

    It's set 30 years after the dreaded Spellplague which is the reason why magic doesn't work properly anymore. It caused the lands of all realities to literally erupt and break. In this case so bad that most of the major cities, villages and ruling classes cannot do anything and civilizations collapse. With blue firestorms burning every hamlet and forest, and chaos waves causing earthquakes, it becomes very difficult for the remaining people to survive. People have died, wizards have gone mad and/or vanished, and many races and magical beings have vanished for mysterious reasons (or randomly appeared, such as the Dragonborns!). Gods no longer answer prayers either.

    So I thought 30 years of misery (barbarism, lack of food and water due to random burning farms, disrupted trade, etc), it could be considered a long time for humans. And sure, it's still not a long time for elves or dwarves but even they cannot ignore their crumbling mines, burning forest or the rise of monsters. Even they would be affected; especially if no magic can solve the problem. Although compared to the short-lived humans, they could be looking at the bigger picture and understand the long-term problem better.
    So 30 years later, the hero party emerged and can, hopefully, help to solve it. :)

    The effects of the Spellplague has diminished quite enough for civilizations to build up again but there are rampant problem with taking lands and maintaining order from brigands and self-proclaimed sorcerer kings who wield magic people now fear. The firestorm still rampages even though the source have been fixed and nobody knows why. The gods (and ambitious patrons) are struggling to reconnect but are also coming back. Magic works again but only for some. Old wizards (such as elves) cannot wield it anymore for unknown reason.

    But yeah, now thinking about it, maybe 30 years is too little time to make any technological advancements; especially during post-apocalyptic living conditions in medieval time... Just thought maybe it made sense since magic can no longer solve every, single problem anymore which it used to do 31 years ago. :) It's not meant to be a big theme anyway so I don't feel I need to add more hundred of years. I am just trying to get a better understanding of the tech level and health in a normal setting and to adapt.

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    Librarian in the Playground Moderator
     
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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    Quote Originally Posted by SSB_Shadow View Post
    Thanks for your reply!

    I know 30 years isn't a lot of time but there is a reason for it. I didn't want to bring up the setting of my campaign but I could shed some more light into it in order to give more context.
    Nah, you're cool. If the duration is 30 years, the duration is 30 years.

    One thing I touched on, though, that needs to be considered in your 30 years of barbarism, is how various societies are going to survive. Cormyr, for example, MIGHT do ok... they have a largely mundane army, and while they organize their wizards, that going away won't affect them as much as it would, say, Thay. If the deities withdrew, then how's that going to affect Mulhurond? And if Thay goes to fire and pieces (suddenly, the magic keeping the slaves in check doesn't work and the wizards are faced with a bunch of people they beat down suddenly having relative power), how does its disintegration affect nearby nations?
    The Cranky Gamer
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    Titan in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    It's entirely up to you as a DM of course, but this is a fantasy world. It's possible that none of our modern medicines would work on disease there. It might be that illness is the direct result of spirits attaching themselves to the sufferer and that a plague is the result of these spirits gathering or multiplying.

    Just thought you should consider that horrific thought.
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    ClericGuy

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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    For Faerun I generally accept a very advanced level of medical knowledge. Magic can do everything modern science can do (plus a whole lot more) including regenerating limbs, curing any disease (viral or bacterial) and even bringing people back from the dead.

    Cities like Sigil and so forth have travelers from all over the planes (including technologically advanced species). There is literally a portal to Stardock in undermountain.

    Id presume advanced centers of medical knowledge (Waterdeep) would know about bacteria, viruses and so forth, but have never taken that next step of penicillin etc due to any cleric of 3rd level or higher being able to simply cure all disease via lesser restoration (and a Paladin using 5 points of LoH to do the same).

    Got HIV, Malaria, Zeka, a bacterial infection or even cancer? Nothing a rank and file cleric of your local faith cant fix for you.

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    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    I'd decide how the world works and extrapolate from there.

    Basically it boils down to whether your world has a lot of magic (think Asgard from the Marvel franchise) or very little (think Lord of the Rings where casting a fireball is a big deal).
    When comparing the two, magic is basically a replacement for our technology in the high magic world. I think knowing about bacteria and the "details" would require a high magic world (how else would you see them?) but I'd think that actually delving this far into the subject is something only a very small handful of archmages would do.

    Losing the magic would have similar results to an EM burst killing all our electronics: we might know that a person is dying because a flesh eating bacteria is killing them but our options to help them aren't going to improve; I think only a small number of medical conditions will be able to be fixed simply just by having the knowledge.

    In a low magic world, none of this is going to matter. Magic is gone, boo hoo, aunty Petunia is going to die to Pneumonia anyway.

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    ElfPirate

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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    I'd take a step backward and ask whether there are viruses and bacteria to know about. In a fantasy world, maybe disease really is caused by an imbalance of bodily fluids, or breathing night air, or divine punishment, or the patient's soul wandering away while they were sleeping, or an invisible poisoned object being shot into the patient's body by a witch, or anything else that you can imagine.
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    Pixie in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    Nah, you're cool. If the duration is 30 years, the duration is 30 years.

    One thing I touched on, though, that needs to be considered in your 30 years of barbarism, is how various societies are going to survive. Cormyr, for example, MIGHT do ok... they have a largely mundane army, and while they organize their wizards, that going away won't affect them as much as it would, say, Thay. If the deities withdrew, then how's that going to affect Mulhurond? And if Thay goes to fire and pieces (suddenly, the magic keeping the slaves in check doesn't work and the wizards are faced with a bunch of people they beat down suddenly having relative power), how does its disintegration affect nearby nations?
    I don't know.
    One of the major reasons why I chose Spellplague is to be able to "reset" the world because I don't have much knowledge from the multitude of books. Heck, I am struggling to understand who is in charge in Faerūn (a king? Many kings?) and the noble houses. A friend of mine gave me this idea and I kinda liked it. So the existing monarchs in canon might not even be alive anymore or have a different positions and I am free to handle the noble houses and merchants however I wish.
    It was that or create a fresh, new world from nothing (which I tried. And failed).
    So all the things you mentioned (except Cormyr!), I have no idea. I don't know what Muhurond is. And it sure sounds like it would be an awful time for the wizards of Thay to try keeping revolting slaves in check. And I think I would be okay with that since not many of my players are too into the D&D lore to be picky if I break canon.
    But yes, I did imagine revolts of these kind would occur everywhere and trouble would threaten the borders. :) That could be a problem the heroes and their allies would have to handle.

    It's entirely up to you as a DM of course, but this is a fantasy world. It's possible that none of our modern medicines would work on disease there. It might be that illness is the direct result of spirits attaching themselves to the sufferer and that a plague is the result of these spirits gathering or multiplying.
    That sounds like a very interesting idea, and a good potential plot hook. :D

    I'd decide how the world works and extrapolate from there.
    I'd take a step backward and ask whether there are viruses and bacteria to know about. In a fantasy world, maybe disease really is caused by an imbalance of bodily fluids, or breathing night air, or divine punishment, or the patient's soul wandering away while they were sleeping, or an invisible poisoned object being shot into the patient's body by a witch, or anything else that you can imagine.
    Absolutely! You guys are right on point! I'm just... not sure. I can't decide. D:

    So the world, in the past, had magic that could cure people from diseases prior to the Spellplague. I imagine most didn't worry too much about these things back then. Then suddenly magic stops working and gods don't answer your calls and everyone are forced to adapt or die.
    So I ask myself: what do they do then?

    I like the idea of bacteria being generally known at prosperous areas and less so in poorer areas. I imagine the educated being aware and those places with vast libraries, whom could have conducted studies long before the apocalypse, just knows better; while poorer areas are still superstitious and closed-minded to modern medicine. Having skills in Medicine would really shine at certain areas when people just don't know what to do when their children are ill and their go-to treatment is bloodletting.
    So... I might go with that? Smart people = there are viruses. Uneducated people = evil spirits. With some exceptions. And neither stance are wholeheartedly accepted. There are risks of being branded as an idiot or being branded as a heretic, depending on where you are. .
    You guys think that's fair? Or should I just take one thing and stick to that?

    Also, I just don't like the idea of heroes and people having bad teeth or being smelly all the time. It's realistic in medieval setting but not so heroic. (A friend told me that noble people are more prone to bad oral hygiene since they have more openly access to sugary treats).
    Imagine Elrond, the proud High Elf from Rivendell, smiling with rows of plaque-filled teeth.
    Maybe not a big thing, really. Just like in-game bathroom breaks aren't a thing that is brought up; I can perhaps just handwave this. Cleaning your clothes and eating normal food is enough for normal teeth, and that's it.
    (This might be a stupid thing but it is gnawing on me on how to handle it. >.<)

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    Titan in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Healthcare and techlevel in a medieval setting

    My best advice is to take what you have, use the pieces you like as locations and toss out or change anything you dont care for. Make it your world even if you're using other people's pieces.
    I am the flush of excitement. The blush on the cheek. I am the Rouge!

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