Upon first seeing the book option for Ithilmar my initial thought was, urghhh another book option. But after some thought it actually seems pretty solid.
Mathilde will personally get some bonuses to her magic research. Since we no doubt will want to do some research in the future and make more spells that's quite useful.
The Colleges will presumably be sent (or sold) copies of the magic books so they get a big win that might result in nice returns later on.
The EIC will be given a bunch of books (it's an EIC action so I assume they get them) which will then be I assume sold onto Belegar. I expect less profit from this than being allowed to get whatever they want from the Laurelorn market but I hardly expect that they'll make a loss.
Full access to the magical lore that we otherwise can only get extremely narrow access to, and only that for the Waystone project? Unique and ancient magical lore that can't be had anywhere else in the world? That's more valuable than anything else. More valuable than whatever we could trade for in Ulthuan with mere money. I don't even care about the other books, I want our wizard hands on those magic books now.
[ ] [ITHILMAR] Books, primarily restricted books on magic with everything else secondary.
[ ] [ITHILMAR] Books
Edit: I was rather blinkered in my focus. The trade is for practically all of the Library of Mournings, not just the juicy magic books:
I do think the fact that the 8 acre for a small family farm persists between 14th century France, pre-empire Rome, and 1st century North East China (where wet rice doesn't grow great, wet rice being the single greatest crop on the planet), which is a wide range of frankly everything is indicative that it's at least a decent baseline. The 4569 seterees seems to be everything attributed to the town, btw, we know that in the 14th century that there are several "great estates" which I imagine are the local nobility and churchlands you're talking about and are included in Le Roy's figure:
Article:
The category of great estates (of over 100 seterees), far from breaking up to the advantage of the small peasants and landless laborers, carved itself out a bigger share of the cake between theage of Louis XI and that of Louis XIV. Holdings of over 100 seterees in 1460 comprised nine great landed estates which covered 1,490 seterees and accounted for 30 percent of the village lands.
Was the definition of seterees in these figures from defined in the same sources that the Peasants of Langueloc is pulling from? I tried to google it and got the amount of land that can be sown with a setier of wheat, and looking for a figure for that gave me numbers between half a liter and twelve bushels, which is quite a variance.
At best, given it's a few miles away from the sea there might be some fishing going on unattributed, but it's not so close as to be an actual port, and it'd be a fair two hours walk each way to get to the nearest bit of beach (going by google), so I think that's not going to account for any significant fraction. (maybe faster if you took a boat down the river, but france is hardly known for currachs or coracles, and you'd need to row three miles back up stream)
Preserved saltwater fish started becoming a universal staple in coastal areas in the 1000s, supplanting freshwater fish even when they were locally available, and by the 1200s was the case even in rural inland France. The presence of oceans have a distorting effect everywhere the economic dominos reach.
That said, while I am not an expert in the field either, but I do know there's more than a thousand year long "feudalism" blob, I'm here quibbling over technical details of a 1970s french language book on the subject after all, and the implication that is what I was proposing is a bit unwarranted in my opinion.
My apologies. The post did indicate a reply to you but it wasn't intended to be directed at you, rather it was you prompted a topic that I couldn't and generally can't not pontificate on, directed at the world at large and the Fantasy understanding of the Middle Ages in general.
All that said, if we were talking about peasantry anywhere else I'd be willing to budge on these numbers for the same reason that the average land ownership of the peasantry got shaved down, but this situation specifically would seem to demand that the village be self-sufficient even in the worst years, and would be likely to have unobliging conditions to work with, so the village collectively (if not the average family in it) would have the much larger figure of one 'hide' per household associated with it - dating back to an era lacking an interwoven economy and agriculturally 'unproductive' households focused on subsistence.
So my thinking on the matter as it stands now is that for somewhere economically interwoven and with greater estates and industries nearby to supply off-farm income and allow a focus on the most profitable crops to trade for less profitable foodstuffs and the ability to buy food with savings during years of poor harvest, then you'd be in the vague area of 10-ish acres per household. But when a community can't rely on exports and imports and needs to be able to be completely locally self-sufficient even during the bad years, then you'd be looking at the larger 100-ish acres per household. Which rings true to me - that set of numbers is exactly the sort of thing that would get the number maximizers having Ideas and leading to things like enclosure acts.
A lot of it stems from the fact that we keep spending gold from our own pocket when we already got infinite gold from the initial boon. It is practically why we are broke and needed to do ithilmar action in the first place and here we are about to repeat that.
Only reason that I don't consider this a trap option is that there is military books on offer but lets face the fact that thread has a problem and I wish that problem was blackjack then there would be a chance for Mathilde to win gold for once.
I several times in the past argued against spending gold for books with the argument that we would need it in case we got repeat of Uzkulak market at Lothern but was assured that it would not be a problem but here are people talking about getting in to debt for even more books, the thing is I don't want to do that.
I'm not super delighted with the framing of a preference that the thread has that you don't share as being akin to a gambling addiction. That seems beyond you stating and arguing for your preference and into the realm of inflammatory.
Not enthused here, either. I really don't want this sort of thing getting normalized, it seems like a short and slippery slope towards the thread splitting into camps that actively demonize and provoke each other.
If you don't like the thread doing X with the protagonist's resources, the way to change that isn't to denigrate X, it's to find and espouse a more compelling Y. Or sometimes it's just to accept that not every part of a piece of writing will be to your tastes.
Full access to the magical lore that we otherwise can only get extremely narrow access to, and only that for the Waystone project? Unique and ancient magical lore that can't be had anywhere else in the world? That's more valuable than anything else. More valuable than whatever we could trade for in Ulthuan with mere money. I don't even care about the other books, I want our wizard hands on those magic books now.
Ehhhhhhhhhhh. It'll be good no doubt, but we already have a bunch of promising avenues of development that simply haven't been taken all that far. Bokk and elementalism, windherding, and apparitions which it feels like we've only dipped our toes into possibility wise.
Whereas something like mail armor would be an extremely serious boost to our survivability that would otherwise also be totally inaccessible because no other armor plays nicely with mages.
Weren't the Waystones a life or death thing for the Eonir? That's the whole reason why they attacked Nordland's village, because they didn't stop cutting their Waystone trees and considered that was the only possible action to not end up dead.
That's the thing Caedeth focused the most on since it's the most socially palatable for Mathilde. It's hardly false, but just one small part of the larger issue that Laurelorn had a large batch of trespassers in their sovereign territory, both permanently settled and temporary, who were going around destroying significant parts of said sovereign territory. Even if the Waytrees weren't a thing, humans sitting around chopping down the forest is an existential threat.
Ehhhhhhhhhhh. It'll be good no doubt, but we already have a bunch of promising avenues of development that simply haven't been taken all that far. Bokk and elementalism, windherding, and apparitions which it feels like we've only dipped our toes into possibility wise.
Whereas something like mail armor would be an extremely serious boost to our survivability that would otherwise also be totally inaccessible because no other armor plays nicely with mages.
Those are topics that the Library of Mournings probably has unique insight into. And there might be magical lore that we simply wouldn't be able to pursue without those books.
As for the armor, I'm heavily in favor of both a unique reward and something that boosts Mathilde's survivability, but that really depends on how Ithilmar interacts with Mage Armor. I am going to approval vote for the armor, at least at the start of the vote, but I'm not as excited about it as for magic books.
All that said, if we were talking about peasantry anywhere else I'd be willing to budge on these numbers for the same reason that the average land ownership of the peasantry got shaved down, but this situation specifically would seem to demand that the village be self-sufficient even in the worst years, and would be likely to have unobliging conditions to work with, so the village collectively (if not the average family in it) would have the much larger figure of one 'hide' per household associated with it - dating back to an era lacking an interwoven economy and agriculturally 'unproductive' households focused on subsistence.
So my thinking on the matter as it stands now is that for somewhere economically interwoven and with greater estates and industries nearby to supply off-farm income and allow a focus on the most profitable crops to trade for less profitable foodstuffs and the ability to buy food with savings during years of poor harvest, then you'd be in the vague area of 10-ish acres per household. But when a community can't rely on exports and imports and needs to be able to be completely locally self-sufficient even during the bad years, then you'd be looking at the larger 100-ish acres per household. Which rings true to me - that set of numbers is exactly the sort of thing that would get the number maximizers having Ideas and leading to things like enclosure acts.
Ehhhhhhhhhhh. It'll be good no doubt, but we already have a bunch of promising avenues of development that simply haven't been taken all that far. Bokk and elementalism, windherding, and apparitions which it feels like we've only dipped our toes into possibility wise.
Whereas something like mail armor would be an extremely serious boost to our survivability that would otherwise also be totally inaccessible because no other armor plays nicely with mages.
Personally I feel getting one would be possible in Ulthuan, by killing Druuchi or something else, while the opposite (access to books from Hoeth) seems far more unlikely. So I prefer books as of right now. Also I am really not sure how much the armor would boost our survivability in comparison to what we have so hard to judge for my part on that front
Those are topics that the Library of Mournings probably has unique insight into. And there might be magical lore that we simply wouldn't be able or know about to pursue without those books.
As for the armor, I'm heavily in favor of both a unique reward and something that boosts Mathilde's survivability, but that really depends on how Ithilmar interacts with Mage Armor. I am probably going to approval vote for the armor, but I'm not as excited about it as for magic books.
I didn't articulate my original point well at all; book bonuses to these various subjects are very nice and very welcome, but we have to actually shake loose the AP to pursue any of them through to the point that they yield some real actionable, deployable results. I'm not sure I foresee that process accelerating anytime soon. Getting some armor out of this deal would be of immediate and practical (potential) use, and the only future investment that might be involved would be enchanting it. It doesn't nearly so much hinge upon future investment to bear fruit as book might, as even if it went unenchanted it would still be useful.
I'm sure this next point has already been made but; if we took the money and went to Lothern, and bumped into someone willing to sell us Ithilmar armor, that seems like exactly the sort of thing which we had hoped to purchase on the trip in the first place except it's right here and right now.
Also, do we have a word of Boney yet on how it interacts with mage armor?
[X] [ITHILMAR] Precious Stones
I argued for this action for the cash monies, so I feel honor-bound to vote for the cash monies. But if this isn't doing well in the voting, I'll look at the frontrunners and take my pick.
Now for the social options, because good God there are so fucking many awesome one. First, the ones I feel are mandatory:
[X] Initiate
This is something I've been excited for ever since we started living at K8P: the local humans reacting to the discovery of magic in their children with pride and excitement rather than fire and sword. We made that happen. This is a sweeter coin than headpats.
[X] Dooming and Quickening
[X] Entrance Examination
The two Mandred options. This is where our duty to our oldest friend meets our duty to the Empire meets our duty to magic itself. We've chosen to involve ourself in this boy's life, and here is an important turning point in that life.
Now for some other stuff that I think is great but will modulate my vote strategically:
[X] Sarvoi
Sarvoi is great and Boney magical theory is always fun to read.
[X] Middenland
I'd like to see how the cult of Ulric is adapting, given the givens.
[X] Witch Hunter
I expect it will just be a random witch hunter, but I want it to be another Van Hal kid.
[X] Skull River Ambush
Because I love @mathymancer and want him to be happy (also because I personally really would like to close the book on this nonsense).
EDIT: For complicated making-the-tally-work reasons:
[X] [ITHILMAR] A copy of the Library of Mournings, including most restricted texts.
@Boney
A doubt about the magic books. Would they be written in the Eonir language (sorry can't remember its name), or directly in Anoqenyan since that's the language they use for magic and describing it?
[ ] [ITHILMAR] Trade Goods
The more presence the EIC has in the northern Empire, the more we can use it to poke around. We don't have any solid leads on how to resolve the Nordland issue, so having a stronger presence in the area seems like a good first step. It's not quite what we were looking for when we took the action, but I'm down to trade some money for influence.
[ ] Witch Hunter
Duckling social action is an auto-pick for me, and I like the idea of messing with the Witch Hunters.
[ ] Initiate
[ ] Dooming and Quickening
[ ] Entrance Examination
New Wizards, 'nuff said.
[ ] Orb Reveal
I'd prefer to have it done sooner rather than later, and I don't think a delay is going to be all that important in gigaflexing. Not the end of the world if it doesn't go through though.
[X] [ITHILMAR] Books, primarily restricted books on magic with everything else secondary.
[X] [ITHILMAR] A copy of the Library of Mournings, including most restricted texts.
[X] Initiate
[X] Dooming and Quickening
[X] Entrance Examination
[X] Witch Hunter
[X] The Festival Lord
I didn't articulate my original point well at all; book bonuses to these various subjects are very nice and very welcome, but we have to actually shake loose the AP to pursue any of them through to the point that they yield some real actionable, deployable results. I'm not sure I foresee that process accelerating anytime soon. Getting some armor out of this deal would be of immediate and practical (potential) use, and the only future investment that might be involved would be enchanting it. It doesn't nearly so much hinge upon future investment to bear fruit as book might, as even if it went unenchanted it would still be useful.
I'm sure this next point has already been made but; if we took the money and went to Lothern, and bumped into someone willing to sell us Ithilmar armor, that seems like exactly the sort of thing which we had hoped to purchase on the trip in the first place except it's right here and right now.
Also, do we have a word of Boney yet on how it interacts with mage armor?
Ithilmar armor is only of immediate use if it stacks with our robes or we forego enchanting it. Otherwise it is also an AP sink.
[X] [ITHILMAR] A copy of the Library of Mournings, including most restricted texts.
[x] [ITHILMAR] Books, primarily restricted books on magic with everything else secondary.
[x] Dooming and Quickening
[x] Witch Hunter
[x] Initiate
[x] Entrance Examination
[x] Sarvoi
[x] Amber College
[x] Okri
[x] Swordplay
[X] The Festival Lord
