SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Dreamer: "Do you want an even bigger curse? Because this is how you get an even bigger curse."
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It's not wrong to make Friends in the Dungeon (Danmachi / Sanctioned [Worm])
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Don't forget MAD, Dreamer admitted to being incapable of bringing people gods killed from the dead, so while a god doing so will be sent straight to heaven, it doesn't exactly stop them having killed someone.
Admittedly, her turning close friends to god shards is going to get around that problem.
- Location
- Strange Aeons
Mmm...not quite. They often differ by an order of magnitude (as that's the incentive to take the license in the first place), and paying the fine may involve lawyers, which can easily hike the price even further.
A not insignificant portion of me job involves determining if the risk of the latter makes the former worth it for clients, so I can assure you, it's a practical matter.
Evil Atlas
Inspector of Details
- Location
- Denial
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I can no longer read this post in anything but a pirate accent.
- Location
- Finland
Sure there may be some differences.
But then there are differences between different licenses as well.
The point of the joke is that if all you need to do to get away with doing something is to pay a fine, then that fine is effectively just a license fee.
- Location
- Strange Aeons
A license fee would let you keep doing something, while a fine comes with the subtext "...and if you don't stop doing this, I'll hit you with more fines."
For instance, if Hestia applies for a permit for adopting two baby crystal space whales, she pays the fee for the permit, and it's probably a one time thing.
If she doesn't get the permit, she'll get slapped with a fine for harboring illegal aliens. So long as she doesn't get rid of them, she'll keep incurring fines.
But your point is made: some fines really operate as defacto licensing fees.
Yar, that be a fair response.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I remember reading about a country where buying a license for a firearm costed way more then the fine for illegally having a firearm. I can't remember the details.
- Location
- Strange Aeons
I presume that fine is accompanied by losing the gun.
In such a case you'd have pissed money, having paid for something you no longer get to have, AND having to pay more on top.
In any event, not exactly sure how this topic even came up in the first place, but I just couldn't resist chiming in.
tarrangar
Fat arctic chicken
Orario probably import everything, as it can easily afford to do that, what with the fact it's the worlds only exporter of magic stones, and it most certainly has laws, but most of those laws probably only deal with civilians, with adventurers only being subject to what laws the gods have decided on.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
...Did you not see the part where I mentioned that entering Orario is easy and that leaving's tied up in red tape? There is a fair amount of trade coming through even with all that, as Orario is also very rich, as you mention. But the Dungeon also produces a lot of raw materials that are superior in quality to almost anything found outside it, and that's going to attract craftsmen. Smiths and pharmacists might be the only ones we see frequently, but they'd also need woodworkers, specifically bowyers and...staff makers, I guess. Also weavers/tailors, leatherworkers, and likely jewelers, to create all the different sorts of equipment we see. Blacksmiths might be trained to handle aspects of those sorts of work, but likely not to the degree a specialist would.
Another thing to think about is just how lavish the lifestyle of the Gods is, or at least can be. The size of their mansions, the fine, almost certainly tailored clothes, the bands for their fancy parties, the massive statues. You can't really "import" those things. Or, rather, you'd need to import both the materials (which, given that horse carts seem to be the main form of transit, is not easy when it comes to blocks of stone) and the artisan(s)/artist(s), and local talent will be cheaper and easier if there's a lot of red tape with asking them to come to you. And it really does stand to reason that, if there are agricultural Familia dedicated to feeding the city and even fishing Familia not far outside Orario who provide them with seafood, there are probably Familia that deal with just about every other necessary aspect of life there too. Mostly because anyone with a Falna is going to do most things better than someone who doesn't. (Edit: Side note, I wonder which poor bastard runs the Familia in charge of the sewers?)
And no, that part about it being hard to exit the city definitely applies to Adventurers, and may even primarily apply to them, because Orario is likely really adverse to allowing talented Adventurers to exit the city en-masse. Mostly because Orario produces high Level Adventurers far faster and more consistently than anywhere else, to the point where they can regularly kick Rakia's ass. Also, we see in the series that both Adventurers and Gods have to deal with the rules the Guild established, and that those rules do have various complexities. I really doubt the Gods actually enjoy being taxed or paying fines, and we see both of those things happening canonically. We also know that Familia are graded based on their strength, and different grades have different requirements, including a requirement to go on expeditions every once in a while. The Guild clearly does have power, even if that power comes from the implication that getting caught breaking their rules (or at least the big ones) and refusing to pay up will result in every other Familia in Orario coming down on you like a fucking piano.
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You know, it's possible that limiting adventurers from leaving Orario is an imposition from external nations. Aka:
"Don't let your potential warlords run roughshod over the countryside and we will continue to ship you food."
"Don't let your potential warlords run roughshod over the countryside and we will continue to ship you food."
- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
That's a non issue, all you need to do is punish them less that what returning back to Heaven (and *gasp* work!) would be.
And if you fear the God/dess blowing up regardless then use an intermediary or two.
For example, what if you star spreading the rumours that <random god #17> enjoys the sexual company of goat and horses? Add some explicit posters all around the city of you feel particularly vicious.
What is s/he going to do? Blow the City up? I think not...
Heck, considering grec mythology it might not even be a rumour at all!
On a derail from this derail, how do gods in heaven interact with the mortal world? Can they see it? Can they see all of it?
If so, can they remember what they saw when they descend?
I mean, if it's the case where they've got panopticon-esque information gathering, I can't see how any non-dungeon intrigue is going to hold up in the long run.
If so, can they remember what they saw when they descend?
I mean, if it's the case where they've got panopticon-esque information gathering, I can't see how any non-dungeon intrigue is going to hold up in the long run.
tarrangar
Fat arctic chicken
The whole hard to leave Orario probably applies only to adventurers and permanent residents, I doubt they're keeping traders from entering and leaving.
And you're really underestimating the wealth that come out of Orario, Orario is basically the equal of an oil producing nation, in a world where it's the only oil producing nation, 98% or more of all fuel in the world come from Orario, in the rest of the world, the only source that's not buying from Orario, is the sparse and weak monsters still surviving on the surface.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Looking at it that way adventures really are getting ripped off when it comes to magic stone prices. Even a first level adventurer should not even consider the price of a meal a blip compared to income.
They must be resold at huge markups.
tarrangar
Fat arctic chicken
They're resold at huge markups yes, but it's also the difference in price between the levels of monsters, and the fact that everything is expensive in Orario.
A magic stone from a goblin sell for a few hundred Valis to the guild, a magic stone from a Minotaur sell for over ten thousand Valis, a magic stone from a level 3 monster probably sell for at least fifty thousand, and it just keep going up like that.
And even then, the only adventurers that aren't wealthy, are either those in big debt(Lili sort under this, with the 10 millions she has to save up to leave Soma's Familia) the newbies(a single goblin kill might pay for cheap food and lodging for a day, but a total newbie is lucky to manage to kill 5 goblins a day, and they have equipment expenses) and the ones who are pushing themselves(it don't matter that you're making enough money to live a middleclass life for a month each day, if you're investing 95% of it into your next trip into the dungeon.)
Career level 1s are wealthy if not rich, but they aren't interesting to read a story about, as the way to get wealthy as a level 1, is to always farm monsters a few floors higher than you are able to go, as if you're strong and skilled enough to challenge floor number 8, then if you stay on floor number 6, you can finish off the monsters cleanly with minimal wear on your weapon, your armor rarely take a hit, and so need little maintenance, and you almost never need to use even a low grade potion.
That's not the way to grow quick of course, but it is the way to get wealthy as a level 1, as an adventurers biggest expense are equipment and consumables by far, as while food and lodging can be provided by normal mortals, even level 1 equipment need either someone with a Falna to make it, or a genius that for some reason refuse the Falna.
In canon when Bell went to the Hostess of Fertility for the first time, I don't think the bill was more than his average daily income, and the Hostess of Fertility, is a high class bar that cater to adventurers, the reason it was expensive to Bell, is that he was pushing himself, and pushing yourself mean investing at least 80% of your income into gear.
I would not be surprised if gods do occasionally pay to have a statue shipped in from some remote corner of the world, and may well import much of their clothing from the far reaches. Any moderately wealthy famiia will be absurdly wealthy, and these things are status symbols, being absurdly impractical to purchase is actually a boon, on account of demonstrating that the buyer is capable of doing so, thus elevating their status. It is exactly the same as spending twice as much for half the quality because it is an exclusive brand that will only be worn once.
It's the gods' Hotel California?
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
...But why would they import their own gear, when the Dungeon generally produces better materials than most other places? What you responded to was me talking about the sorts of skill sets people would need to either work with various Drop Items, or to make various pieces of equipment we've seen. We've seen things like cut crystals, bows, staves, leather armor, etc. And you can't import tailored clothing. That's not how tailoring works. Also, I forgot glassblowers to make the vials for potions, though those could conceivably be imported. Still, due to breakage concerns, I could also see someone making them locally.
As the thing about leaving Orario, I'd imagine that one could get permits for free travel...but that still costs money and time. Which will drive prices up. Not that they aren't likely inflated out the ass already, specifically because Orario's so rich and the Gods are infamous spendthrifts.
It's not shipping the statue that's the hard, it's getting it there intact and putting it into place. Clothes, food, jewelry, even furniture and smaller statues, that stuff's usually easy enough, especially if it's not custom ordered, but rather one of many alike pieces. Anything large, such as massive blocks of stone, timber, though? That gets more tricky. Big stuff usually requires a lot of logistics, and money isn't always enough to overcome the issues involved. Especially if boats and horses are your primary means of transport.
Commerce in a mostly medieval world with monsters attacking humanity is going to be chase, time consuming, and dangerous. Traveling of any sort, be it people or goods, used to be risky and expensive in ways people today have a lot of trouble truly grasping. Shitty roads and bad terrain weren't just an inconvience for horse-drawn modes of transit: in some cases they formed entirely impassable barriers to the transportation of large goods. Larger, more heavily laden carts have fewer viable routes, as they have it much harder on subpar roads. They're hurt even worse by dirt roads turned to mud, ice, and snow drifts, which can render large chunks of the year non-viable for travel, or at least make it a risky proposition. And a wise merchant doesn't gamble thst recklessly with expensive products. If they transporting something fragile, like marble statues, they need it be still more cautious, as jostling, if extreme enough, may damage the good in question.
Even if the terrain and/or weather isn't an issue, horse-drawn modes of transporting goods suck. They generally have no mechanical brakes able to stop them in time to avoid collisions, assuming they have any at all, the "engines" have their own minds and take a lot of food to operate, and the axles and wheels are often very fragile. And that's without considering bandits and monsters. Water travel doesn't share in many of those issues, but it requires a navigable waterway that's wide enough and deep enough to accommodate the object in question, plus the boat. Which is true of land transport, too, only you also have to account for teams of horses, too.
Throw in the fact that a very large statue would have to be the result of a lot of man hours, likely from multiple individuals, possibly weeks or months of work, and you run into another issue: losing it isn't just expensive in terms of money, but time. If it gets dropped into the ocean or thrown off a cliff, or even majorly damaged, that news has to reach the god who ordered it, who then has to reorder it, wait for that request to reach the manufacturers/artisans...it could become a huge waste of time and resources, though that obviously depends on the exact level of impracticality.
Trying to import things that really aren't suited for it might, on some level, be an impressive display...but it likely also means you flushed money away on a product that simply wasn't worth however much you spent, and that you waited a long time for it reach you successfully, when you could have gotten something as good, or probably better, from the sculpting (or maybe general stoneworking) Familia that probably exists somewhere in Orario. Given why they came down from Heaven was basically to have a vacation, most Gods would likely quickly get irritated enough by shitty logistics chains to just go with the locals. Unless they have extreme monomania for the object in question, of course.
Glad to see I'm not alone in making that association. I was sorely tempted to make that joke.
shepsquared
Erratic Aussie
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
Of course, a god that enjoys travelling might end up with a familia devoted to finding and delivering hard to find ingredients and such.
I have vague feeling of a remembering a psychological horror film related to some sort of Friendship House, or House of Friendship or something along those lines... the kind of thing that gives you cold shivers 3 weeks after watching it for no discernible reason. I may have blocked the memory for my own piece of mind.
tarrangar
Fat arctic chicken
Yeah adventuring gear is rarely imported, sorry I didn't quite get you were talking about that, I was talking about everything but adventuring gear, the stone and wood for houses and mansions, the food, the every day clothes, everything that isn't directly used in the dungeon, is likely to be imported.
Sure for clothes that get tailored, as opposed to the cheaper clothes that you just have to find something that roughly fits you, the tailor live in Orario, but unless they're making clothes that are meant to withstand the rigors of the deeper floors, they are likely using imported cloth.
For the dungeon, they probably only import things for use on the first few floors, as adventurers on the first few floors, can't afford dungeon materials.
You're once again underestimating, how much richer Orario is compared to everywhere else, Orario is literally the equivalent, of if 1 single nation on Earth, had a monopoly on producing fuel(not just oil, any fuel used for technology.)
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- Location
- Somewhere over the Rainbow
I was doing a reread and noticed this instance of 2nd Person Perspective...
And I'm never sure if I got an answer - what would the end but have been, to rhyme with the first part?
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
I feel like that goes without saying.
Mostly reasonable, though I assume you mean "foodstuffs" rather than "cooked food". Although that's...actually contradicted by canon, since Demeter Familia literally operates farms either just outside or just inside the bounds of the city. Which makes sense, since food rots pretty fast, and medieval transit is slow.
And you're underestimating the physical limitations that exist for engaging in trade. All the money in Orario isn't going to move a mountain range or make unnavigable waters suddenly navigable. Even upgrading roads and building canals isn't always enough to make shipping physically possible. Nor is money going to make roads magically appear instantaneously, without need for materials, workers, or time.
Also, while they talk about how magic stones are used to power all sorts of inventions, even in Orario itself, those devices seem to be uncommon, beyond perhaps lighting. Maybe that's due to the whole "written medium" thing. But I'm struggling to recall if even basic, useful camping gadgets are shown in passing. There are probably a fair number of implied uses when it comes to amenities and utilities, but not much that's explicit. Most notably, there's no indication that any sort of equivalent to the steam engine has been produced, much less a steam engine. They're still using horses for transit. So...what exactly are all those tons of magic stones going towards powering? It feels like the whole thing is a bit of throw-away world-building, and a way to explain both modern-ish technology and why Adventurers constantly grind like they're in an RPG,
Honestly, the more I think about it, the sillier Orario's prices and Adventurer's salaries become. One reason I figured on there being a lot of local craftsfolk was because Orario feels like closed-loop economy. Adventurers make money off the Dungeon and either live in luxury (despite the story never really showing this) or pay absurd prices for gear. But...what exactly do the people up the chain spend it all on? What do the blacksmiths spend it all on, for example? More materials to make more weapons? That would cycle the cash back to Adventurers, or to the Guild. Buy luxuries? Which ones, exactly? They already have Familia homes, and few of the people we in the series are decked out in gold and jewels, so it must be either furniture or ephemeral pleasures. Food and the entertain Red Light district are obvious examples, but they don't seem to be charging inflated prices, for the most part. Same applies to Adventurers themselves. Alternatively, for the smiths, they might be working for the joy of it, and thus their prices are mostly at cost. And, for the Adventurers, they may sacrifice gathering magic stones to focus on killing fast and grinding excellia.
Then you have the Guild, which is apparently making money hand-over-fist by selling magic stone devices, which only they know how to make in the first place, to the world, and so they basically own the economy. Let's grant for the sake of argument. But...what are they doing with that money? Is it all going back to Adventurers, is it just accumulating, what? Is the Guild a non-profit? Honestly, it's starting to seem like Ouranos might some sort of Bond villain or secret economic overlord. And they're also taxing the Familia, too, which gives them even more cash. Much of which come from their Adventurers, and thus the Guild. Round and round the money goes...
To be clear, this isn't me saying that the author should necessarily have spent to time to totally work out the economics here. Not everyone enjoys thinking about the topic, and they don't have to account for it in their story if they don't want to. But it is something for anyone writing in the universe should consider. Personally, I'd prefer for the economic powerhouse and center of the story to feel like the center of the world. To be the place where everyone wants to be, but where few can prosper due to the cutthroat competition. A place where all the rarities of the world can be bought, thus attracting masters of every sort of trade and art you can name. The corollary being that only masters stand a chance of thriving there. But that's just me.
Then you have the Guild, which is apparently making money hand-over-fist by selling magic stone devices, which only they know how to make in the first place, to the world, and so they basically own the economy. Let's grant for the sake of argument. But...what are they doing with that money? Is it all going back to Adventurers, is it just accumulating, what? Is the Guild a non-profit? Honestly, it's starting to seem like Ouranos might some sort of Bond villain or secret economic overlord. And they're also taxing the Familia, too, which gives them even more cash. Much of which come from their Adventurers, and thus the Guild. Round and round the money goes...
To be clear, this isn't me saying that the author should necessarily have spent to time to totally work out the economics here. Not everyone enjoys thinking about the topic, and they don't have to account for it in their story if they don't want to. But it is something for anyone writing in the universe should consider. Personally, I'd prefer for the economic powerhouse and center of the story to feel like the center of the world. To be the place where everyone wants to be, but where few can prosper due to the cutthroat competition. A place where all the rarities of the world can be bought, thus attracting masters of every sort of trade and art you can name. The corollary being that only masters stand a chance of thriving there. But that's just me.
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