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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Tobtorp said:
Boy... Trying to explain cookie clicker to whf inhabitants would be a dozy... Or just regular medieval people...
"We made rocks think and now we are hitting imaginary bakery goods to gain more of them."
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"What? That sounds insa-" gets kicked
"Shut your mouth you idiot these are obviously fae! Ahem. Thank you for explaining your workings to our humble selves, but we seek nothing but a path out of this forest. We shall just leave you to it then, if that does not displease you? Please don't curse us…"
 
Halil said:
In medieval times, the people who wanted to buy a book paid someone to copy it from a library or private collection. [1] There wasn't much circulating availability.

All nontrivial libraries were costly organizations, and their basic income was whatever the founding organization gave them. In the case of monastic libraries, this was the Church. In the case of private libraries, this was generally the nobility and, in some cases, notable burghers.

However, these libraries also had a variable income opportunity in selling people access to books for scribing.

For any library that cares about making money beyond what basic income their owner/patron grants them:

The book seller I initially mentioned isn't going to conjure the prior copies from thin air and make loads of money. The library is aware of book prices. The library can therefore charge people who want to copy books. As allowing those copies increasingly decreases the exclusivity they enjoy for future scribing, this will not be pocket change. As the price of books is well known to libraries, this will not be cheap.

That is what I imagine the business model of contemporary libraries caring to do business to be.

1.https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/medieval-book/making-medieval-book/a/making-books-for-profit-in-medieval-times
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It seems to be less like that and more like both libraries allowing the other's scribes to make a copy of their corpus, here.
 
Burned_Cookie said:
"What? That sounds insa-" gets kicked
"Shut your mouth you idiot these are obviously fae! Ahem. Thank you for explaining your workings to our humble selves, but we seek nothing but a path out of this forest. We shall just leave you to it then, if that does not displease you? Please don't curse us…"
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Come to think of, pretending to be a fae, or better yet someone kidnapped by the fae and kept in their world for years, would be a good explanation for a time traveler
 
StormySky said:
It seems to be less like that and more like both libraries allowing the other's scribes to make a copy of their corpus, here.
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You're right. I am focusing strongly on possible hostile responses to Mathilde rather than possible cooperation.
Because, you know, other libraries might also be interested in increasing their own collections massively (if we do have relatively unique books), instead of focusing obsessively on the spiders slooooowly eroding their local monopoly.

Honestly, I don't know how we got to the economics of monastic libraries. My initial idea was that a greater number of books in circulation would be more transformative to both the local and ~global community.
 
Halil said:
In medieval times, the people who wanted to buy a book paid someone to copy it from a library or private collection. [1] There wasn't much circulating availability.

All nontrivial libraries were costly organizations, and their basic income was whatever the founding organization gave them. In the case of monastic libraries, this was the Church. In the case of private libraries, this was generally the nobility and, in some cases, notable burghers.

However, these libraries also had a variable income opportunity in selling people access to books for scribing.

For any library that cares about making money beyond what basic income their owner/patron grants them:

The book seller I initially mentioned isn't going to conjure the prior copies from thin air and make loads of money. The library is aware of book prices. The library can therefore charge people who want to copy books. As allowing those copies increasingly decreases the exclusivity they enjoy for future scribing, this will not be pocket change. As the price of books is well known to libraries, this will not be cheap.

That is what I imagine the business model of contemporary libraries caring to do business to be.

1.https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/medieval-book/making-medieval-book/a/making-books-for-profit-in-medieval-times
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This dynamic might exist for some libraries, but it certainly isn't the central business model of the library and it does not dictate their decision making. These libraries exist to fulfil the purpose their patron requires of them, and if Mathilde offers them something that helps them in that in exchange for allowing for the copying of their books, they are not going to be stopped by the concern that their side hustle of taking a cut from local scribes might be undercut by an institution half a continent away.

And the citation you used outright said that scribes were heavily reliant on proximity to their customers, so I don't see how a scribe in Karak Eight Peaks might be able to take business away from scribes in Altdorf in the first place.
 
Halil said:
In medieval times, the people who wanted to buy a book paid someone to copy it from a library or private collection. [1] There wasn't much circulating availability.

All nontrivial libraries were costly organizations, and their basic income was whatever the founding organization gave them. In the case of monastic libraries, this was the Church. In the case of private libraries, this was generally the nobility and, in some cases, notable burghers.

However, these libraries also had a variable income opportunity in selling people access to books for scribing.

For any library that cares about making money beyond what basic income their owner/patron grants them:

The book seller I initially mentioned isn't going to conjure the prior copies from thin air and make loads of money. The library is aware of book prices. The library can therefore charge people who want to copy books. As allowing those copies increasingly decreases the exclusivity they enjoy for future scribing, this will not be pocket change. As the price of books is well known to libraries, this will not be cheap.

That is what I imagine the business model of contemporary libraries caring to do business to be.

1.https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/medieval-book/making-medieval-book/a/making-books-for-profit-in-medieval-times
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Okay. Sure. If we were some random wizard asking to copy their books they'd probably make us pay through the nose. But offering for them to copy *our* books in return gives them the opportunity both to have a wider selection, which is more prestigious and useful for their patron, and have more things that someone might want to pay them to copy by that business model. I highly doubt that the library in the dwarf karak hundreds of miles away is going to be a significant competitor to their local book copying business. *Especially* if we don't have We scribes producing arbitrary extra copies to ship everywhere for some reason.
 
Boney said:
This dynamic might exist for some libraries, but it certainly isn't the central business model of the library and it does not dictate their decision making. These libraries exist to fulfil the purpose their patron requires of them, and if Mathilde offers them something that helps them in that in exchange for allowing for the copying of their books, they are not going to be stopped by the concern that their side hustle of taking a cut from local scribes might be undercut by an institution half a continent away.

And the citation you used outright said that scribes were heavily reliant on proximity to their customers, so I don't see how a scribe in Karak Eight Peaks might be able to take business away from scribes in Altdorf.
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Alright, that's fair. I don't think biblio-economics will actually be a problem in the quest.

But on the scribe proximity point: by increasing the circulated supply of some books to the point where scribes don't matter for those books. If I can be allowed an ounce of hyperbole: It's how the printing press back out in the middle of nowhere competes with my local library.
 
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I think that one of the big things to keep in mind is that libraries are much more secretive than IRL medieval ones, this is a world where the wrong book can quite literally kill or worse. I do not just mean magic books, consider the books of cults and guilds, the secrets they would kill for, consider as well the mysteries of a history that is filled with all sorts of strife and intrigue. Are you sure you want to let those strangers into your library? For money?

Many will answer no, hence why we need to get creative to get their cooperation.
 
DragonParadox said:
I think that one of the big things to keep in mind is that libraries are much more secretive than IRL medieval ones, this is a world where the wrong book can quite literally kill or worse. I do not just mean magic books, consider the books of cults and guilds, the secrets they would kill for, consider as well the mysteries of a history that is filled with all sorts of strife and intrigue. Are you sure you want to let those strangers into your library? For money?

Many will answer no, hence why we need to get creative to get their cooperation.
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I think most of that will actually not that big of a problem. I doubt the libraries we make deals with will not ask us to not copy certain books that we don't even get shown. Books are fairly mobile within a library so them screening the books we copy should not be a problem.
 
NavySeel said:
More importantly if the We begin to understand fiction, how long until Mathilde gets to add Spider "Romance" to her collection?
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…How would the spider romance even work? The We are a self-perpetuating singular entity that only really reproduces by splitting themselves.

Hmm, maybe what happened with the Karak will become their model for romance? Finding a nice, stable civilization to support you that needs whatever large-scale function you decide to fulfill.
 
Ericwinter said:
…How would the spider romance even work? The We are a self-perpetuating singular entity that only really reproduces by splitting themselves.

Hmm, maybe what happened with the Karak will become their model for romance? Finding a nice, stable civilization to support you that needs whatever large-scale function you decide to fulfill.
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I-it's not like I want to revolutionize your textile industry with my silk or anything B-baka.
 
Wiggy said:
Clearly our scribes need to be trained up as randald worshipping ninja scribes that can sneak in and copy books undetected if other libraries prove recalcitrant.
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…Does it really count as stealing if they still possess their copy of it? Actually, better question, do copyright laws exist?
Wiggy said:
I-it's not like I want to revolutionize your textile industry with my silk or anything B-baka.
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…Wow that was quick. The sad thing is I'm not even surprised someone jumped straight to tsundere spider hiveminds.
 
Wiggy said:
As I recall, that option is less, "Man, that library has a really cool book I want, go get it for me guys," and more, "100 GOLD A BOOK! OPEN SEASON EVERYBODY!" lol
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No, it's a bounty system for specific books.

They aquire the elusive misprint " Magda Wesen in an adventure to EASTERN STIRLAND?!" and we give them a preagreed amount for it.
 
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