Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

[Storm Bringer]

don't be too hasty to discount wood as a trade commodity. certian woods can be a trade good, if they provide something native woods cannot. for example, most of the Masts in the napoleonic era for all of europe were made form conifer trees cut in the Baltic, where a good supply of big, tall, straight trees could be found.

also, furs alone could justify a small port. you can make a lot of money on luxery goods.

also having a harbour is a rescorce in and of itself, if the coast is unsuitable for ships to land. a vaiable port can make money by being the only stop off point on a trade port.

[hymer]

Good points, Stormy, thanks.
The reason I didn't like furs much, is precisely because it is luxury. But I guess if there was a big drop in fur output elsewhere, it would be reason enough to go to these lengths and build a harbour. When things got back to normal, the harbour pays for itself as a trading point, and so it stays.

[Yora]

Almost everything that is traded long distance is a luxury. Basics things that are required in large quantities have to be produced very close to the consumer. To make it worth to trade something over long distance, people have to be willing to pay the transportation cost, which they usually do for things they can't get cheaper from a nearby source. Trade goods either have to be things that are unavailable otherwise, or of very high quality. An example for the later would be timber and iron from sweden, which really isn't easy to transport and substitutes of lesser quality are not hard to come by.
If you pay for imported goods, it's either for luxury or because you need the highest quality you can get.

[hymer]

This being a harbour, things like grain, bars of metal and dried/salted/smoked meat is perfectly movable from there to civilized ports. None of these need be considered luxuries.
Rome for example was entirely dependent on grain supplies from Egypt for centuries.

Edit: But all of that is actually talking a bit besides the purpose. I was hoping to find some commodity which was not essential, nor a matter of luxury. Tar as was mentioned is a good example, as you can build ships without it, but your ships will last a lot longer if you tar them regularly (disregarding copper bottoms as an alternative for now).

[Storm Bringer]

while snooping around wiki, i ran into this passage

...trading with towns overseas, especially in the economically less-developed eastern Baltic. This area was a source of timber, wax, amber, resins, furs, along with rye and wheat brought down on barges from the hinterland to port markets.....

amber and resins in particular are two goods we didn't think about. amber is mostly a luxury good, but resins are used a lot in things like varnishes, as well as luxury uses as incense (the bibical frankincense was a made form resin).

i'd say they'd suit your purposes perfectly.

[hymer]

Thank you once again! Most kind of you to think of me.

[Yora]

To give some cultures added individuality, I am considering what animals they are domesticating and hunting. The wildlife would resemble northern Europe, East Asia, and India.

Any ideas beyond the basic cattle, sheep, goat, horse, dog, and boars? And also, how could such animals be found to contribute to the local peoples culture?

[hymer]

If a nation is sufficiently badass, they'll have dire bears around. They can do most of what elephants can, and most of what dogs can. Useful for pulling huge treetrunks around, as mounts (you know the picture) and as ways to get raiders to steer clear of your settlement.

Snails (don't laugh, this happens; snails may be the first domesticated animal) can be herded. Closer to cultivated, maybe, but your players would remember the nation that had a Royal Snail Farm.

Next to the ocean, maybe have some dolphins, seals or such to help much as dogs help hunters. They could help with fishing, whaling, or keeping an eye out for seaward trouble.

I don't remember where, but someone domesticated flying fishing birds (I want to say pelicans, but I always want to say pelicans). Put something around their neck so they couldn't swallow the fish. Very useful if you live in a rocky area where putting out a boat is dangerous.

Suppose swarms of (say) locusts is a real threat? Maybe some big spiders to construct nets to keep them away from important things. Or just keep the spiders for their silk. Other cases of weird threats making weird friends could be come up with, I guess. If some big birds eat all your fish/molluscs/snails/apricots/whatever, some being that scares them off but doesn't go for your bounty.

Guinea pigs? Not native to the area you describe, but not impossible to write in. If you've got some unsavoury types and you want to emphasize this aspect, have them breed rats and eat them, same thing basically.

[Wyntonian]

I don't remember where, but someone domesticated flying fishing birds (I want to say pelicans, but I always want to say pelicans). Put something around their neck so they couldn't swallow the fish. Very useful if you live in a rocky area where putting out a boat is dangerous.

An albatross?

Also, I love the image of dire (or brown, really) bears being resident tree-pullers and face-wreckers.

I don't think they can hunt like dogs do, in a team with others and by smell, and they don't have the same pack instinct that canines have. We made wolves part of our pack, and horses part of our herds, but bears don't have an equivalent social order to fit ourselves into.

[headwarpage]

An albatross?

Also, I love the image of dire (or brown, really) bears being resident tree-pullers and face-wreckers.

I don't think they can hunt like dogs do, in a team with others and by smell, and they don't have the same pack instinct that canines have. We made wolves part of our pack, and horses part of our herds, but bears don't have an equivalent social order to fit ourselves into.

Are you really going to let a little thing like that get in the way of pet bears?

Also, reindeer. Or, to take it in another direction, yoked moose.

[Yanagi]

To give some cultures added individuality, I am considering what animals they are domesticating and hunting. The wildlife would resemble northern Europe, East Asia, and India.

Any ideas beyond the basic cattle, sheep, goat, horse, dog, and boars? And also, how could such animals be found to contribute to the local peoples culture?

From real life:

Rabbits. Useful because they take inedible greens and turn it into meat just like big grazing animals, but are fun-size and thus easy to "herd." Quite important as a poor man's meat.

Raptor avians. Falconry may not be the most practical of hunting methods, but as a sport (and a status-marking hobby) it's both wide-spread and ancient. Unrelated but reminiscent is the use of cormorants in river fishing in China (or, with a bit creative license, the same technique applied to gulls or other dive-fishing sea birds).

In both ancient Egypt and India you can see images of cheetah kept--by the very wealthy and high-status--and used as hunting hounds. I've never encountered an account of how effective they were, though.

The Egyptians also kept baboons and trained them to pick fruit from high trees. In India, langur-type monkeys (which are generally more chill around people) are kept semi-domesticated in urban areas because they deter the smaller, more aggressive macaque monkeys, who won't encroach on langur's territory. Since urban macaques are a real threat, this has led to an odd niche in which public facilities will pay "langur men" to bring monkeys to their buildings to...mark...everything.

In any area with long cold winters fur will be not just a luxury: everybody needs insulation. Fox, ermine, and mink are very warm, but beaver is prized for both its insulation and its resistance to water. Speaking of fox...there's the odd case of attempts to domesticate smaller varieties, sort of like dogs: one ancient case in the Near East (which apparently didn't take), and the current, decades-long attempt at domestication of the silver fox by Russian zoologists and ethologists.

Camels. Ship of the desert and all that. Pretty much the ideal critter for long-distance portage and caravans. In tundra/taiga conditions, the reindeer serves a similar niche.

Messenger pigeons are much more ancient than you might think. And squab is mighty tasty.

Dormice: well, the Romans thought they were especially tasty. Rich Romans were also prone to aquaculture as a hobby, raising uncommon fish for their tables in vastly expensive, high-maintenance tank systems on their estates. There are some wonderfully acid descriptions of how ridiculously affectionate these patricians could get about their mullets and lampreys.

While they don't domesticate them, Indians in rural areas will encourage snakes to take up residence near their house because of how effective they are as rat catchers. Geckos are such good mosquito-catchers that in Southeast Asia they're seen as a benefit to the household...even if one has to put up with them occasionally dropping on you in middle of a night's sleep....

Also: silk worms, maggots (for cleaning wounds); leeches; and a bunch of insects raised for eating: giant water bugs, kosher locusts, crickets, meal worms, mopane caterpillars. And while not exactly "animals," a very important adaptation of humans has been the domestication of microorganisms such as yeast, lactobacteria, and koji--all of which are used to process foods in ways that increase and variegate their nutrition as well as preserve them. Fermentation--not just of booze and cheese, but old-school pickling and even stuff like fermenting meat--has been incredibly important in human food culture.

[awa]

remember their are huge varieties of cows, sheep, goat ect.
you could differentiate nations based on what kind of animals they have particularly if you select some of the more more extreme examples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat-tailed_sheep
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merino

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Nobody's been able to domesticate the Cheetah because their mating requires huge open spaces, so it's almost impossible to breed them in captivity.

[ShadowFireLance]

What would be the most value-able trade object in a word ruled by Dragons, If Every Thing that could have material value (Gold, Sliver, ETC) is in the Dragons Hoards?

[awa]

in a world where good conductors are not valuable. gold and silver only have value becuase people want to trade it. its value is already arbitrary with out that assigned value all it is is shiny metal to soft to be useful.

any other somewhat rare material could just as easily be assigned a value and then used as money i vaguely recall some group of native Americans using sea shells as currency.

of course if your looking for trade goods with real value live stock such cows and horses work well.

[Storm Bringer]

What would be the most value-able trade object in a word ruled by Dragons, If Every Thing that could have material value (Gold, Sliver, ETC) is in the Dragons Hoards?

as pointed out, while most precious metals can be taken taken away, you can't really remove the value of a sheep, or a cow, or a stack of wood. my suggestion is that you use a base unit defined by value agianst a simple, agrcultural good.

for example, the japanese used to mesure the value of their noble estates by Koku, which was defined as a volume of rice sufficent to feed one man for one year. So, for example, a 10,000 koku estate had enough arable land to feed aproximatly 10,000 people.

now, say the base unit of value is defined as having the same value as a pile of grain big enough to feed one man for one day. we can then define other items value in relation to this (so a newborn sheep may be worth, say a month worth of grain-days, while a new sword might be worth a years worth of grain-days).

now, once we have an accepted exchange rate for items, based on the number of grain-days they are worth, then we can start using any suitable token (stamped iorn coins, carved wood, leaves off a tree) as a form of coinage.


only trouble is, this means that all that silver and gold sat in the dragons hoards has....not that much value anymore. gold and sivler are valueable in a pre-electice civilsation becuase people said they were. as soon as the unit of currency stops being gold and silver coinage, then the coins are just shiney metals not much good for anything.

[hymer]

To continue Storm_Bringer's thought, now everything but the dragons' treasures are valuable. Time to lug all those useless pieces of rock out and start getting the new stamped iorn coins, carved wood, leaves off a tree into the hoards!

"If Every Thing that could have material value (Gold, Sliver, ETC) is in the Dragons Hoards"

If this happens, everyone else is dead. Food and water have great material value. People themselves have material value as slaves.

[Storm Bringer]

well, that line of reasoning is not very conductive to a good campgain setting, so i suggest we rephase the objective a little:

dragons have a natural urge to collect gold/silver/gems/etc that leads to their hoarding. now, in a world where all extractable gold/silver and gems have been sunk into the hoards, what would the common man do?

the answer is carry on as normal. gold has no real value to him, just the value socity puts in it. what he needs is a unit he can mesure the effective worth of a object he wants or is offering, to enable a meaning trade system beyond straight barter.

so long as everyone aggrees to the value of the unit , then you can trade in that unit.

The base value can be defined as anything, be it "grain for one man for one day", or "one ounce of gold". the unit's face vaule is not really relevant, so long as everyone agrees Item X is worth A units and Item Y is worth B units (not counting heckling over price).


i think the key thing to understand is gold silver and gems hold most of thier value becuase they are rare and people desire them becuase they are rare. they have almost no intrinsic value, unlike, say, a cow, which have a value independant of how much a person want it (because it can make milk, or give you meat, or even more cows). what gold gives us is a convientent, small and portable baseline to define other objects wealth agianst. we can say a cow is worth 1 ounce of gold, and that 7 ounces of silver is worth 1 ounce of gold, or that 1 new sword is worth 3 ounces of gold.

once we have done that, we can trade silver for cows, or cows for swords, or something for something else, using their gold value as a baseline for the exchange. Gold does not have to actaully change hands, it just provides a aribtary frame of reference to mesure worth.

understanding this, you can realise that you don't need gold for coinage. you just need a token that can act in the same way as gold did, by providing a mesure of worth. the token doesn't need any intrinsic value, just the faith of both parties that it represents a good baseline for thier trade. this is called fiat money, and is the major form of currency in use today. A US dollar note, in and of itself, is pretty useless. you can use it as kindling, or maybe snort some drugs with it. but you can also go into a shop and get a drink, becuase the shopkeeper thinks the note has a value of one dollar.


now a lot of what i have just said it starting to delve into economic theory and things modern economics still does not have a good answer for, so i make no apologies for it being a little disjointed.

[Craft (Cheese)]

in a world where good conductors are not valuable. gold and silver only have value becuase people want to trade it. its value is already arbitrary with out that assigned value all it is is shiny metal to soft to be useful.

any other somewhat rare material could just as easily be assigned a value and then used as money i vaguely recall some group of native Americans using sea shells as currency.

of course if your looking for trade goods with real value live stock such cows and horses work well.

This is misguided on two levels.

First of all, gold and silver have plenty of value outside of their use as conductors: Decorative uses. This is probably the original reason why gold and silver became valued commodities in the first place before they started being used for trade, people just like shiny things.

You can argue that decorative uses aren't "real value" but this brings us to the second problem: There's no such thing as "real value." The value of everything, not just aesthetic items, is whatever we say it is.

If you're looking for alternative currencies then there's 3 easy guidelines to judge whether something is viable:

1. It needs to have a value high enough such that you can easily trade with it. Pennies alone make a crap currency because if you wanted to buy your groceries for the week you'd need to lug around a massive amount of them.

2. It needs to be common enough such that people who want it can more or less easily get their hands on it. If something costs in the millions of dollars an ounce, then only very few people could ever get any of it, and thus it won't have sufficient penetration to be widely accepted.

3. It needs to be stable in its value. If its prevailing price shoots up and down every day, then it's something good for speculating in but not for keeping your long-term savings in. Furthermore if its value could very quickly (and permanently) go down, it's not good for keeping as savings unless you intend to spend it relatively quickly. Eggs would make a crap currency because they go rotten in a few days, and they break easily (after which no one wants them).

An optional guideline is divisibility is generally better than non-divisibility. If you can't usefully divide a good into small parts, then it's difficult to trade that good for other goods. For example, horses can't be cut up and turned into smaller horses. You can trade the meat and organs but they're significantly less valuable than a whole horse. If you want to trade it for something less valuable than a whole horse, you have a bit of a problem!

Gold and silver make useful currencies because they meet all of these requirements, though they're not the only ones. Keep in mind that some of these requirements are culture-dependent: Many cultures once traded with salt, for example, but this was in an era where salt was much harder to come by. In our society salt is so ridiculously cheap it'd be impractical to use it as a currency.

[awa]

a cow has real value in it's meat it's milk and it's ability to work.
an objects decorative value is subjective do you find gold pretty not every one does. a good milk cow makes milk that's not subjective.

gold is only valuable becuase a society say it is even when your sticking it in jewelry (except for use as conductors that is a non subjective use for gold).

otherwise glass beads, pretty shells, and semi precious stones would all be worth as much as gold becuase all can be used to decorate things.

the penny example is flawed becuase if we as a society decided a penny was worth 1 dollar or that 1 cent was worth a useful amount of goods then it becomes a viable tool of exchange the pennies value is not based on it's intrinsic worth but on the value people give it.

[Storm Bringer]

like i said, we're getting into enconimic theory here, and thier are not any hard answers. a cows "real value" only holds true for as long as people still want milk and beef. a vegan wants neither.

I get the feeling Craft (Cheese) has rather more knowledge about proper economics than i do.

[Craft (Cheese)]

a cow has real value in it's meat it's milk and it's ability to work.
an objects decorative value is subjective do you find gold pretty not every one does. a good milk cow makes milk that's not subjective.

Cows make milk, but why do we value milk? Why do we want it?

And when you think you have an answer like "Because milk has nutrients" or "Because milk makes various tasty baked goods" or "Because you can use the curd to make cheese" then why do we want those?

There are things we want for their own sake, and there are things we want because they're useful to get other things we want. But there's no such thing as something with value independent of the people who desire it. If no one wants it, it has no value.

[Crazyfailure13]

What would be a way to make a black metal (Gold, silver, nickel, whatever else...) for a weapon, and still have it be useful as a weapon?

And of any methods suggested, would they be able to be done in a medieval setting?
Also would they be do able in enough time to make such weapons practical (Time-wise) in anyway?

[awa]

now do you want to make the weapon out of a black metal or would you accept a way of painting the weapon black so its less visible

[Crazyfailure13]

I was looking for an actual black metal, using some sort of science or smithing etc.

[Yora]

An alloy of lead, tin, and I believe copper gets completely black, but that almost certainly is not usable for weapons.

[Jacob.Tyr]

Obsidian was used for weaponry in some parts of the world. Brittle, but sharp.

[Stray]

Steel can be blackened by the process called bluing or black oxide coating. Weapon coated like that would be as functional as ever and corrosion resistant as a bonus, but frequent uses of such weapon could rub away the thin layer. Also sharpened edge would not be black, but regular steel color.

[Yora]

Obsidian was used for weaponry in some parts of the world. Brittle, but sharp.

And not a metal.

[Ksheep]

What sort of weapon? You could easily make a bludgeoning weapon out of cast iron.