Cacophonous Interlude is NOT active
(the QMPC does NOT hear what you write right now)
Next story update : Sometime in July would be nice
Next vote closing : TBD
Progress toward next update : 3,146 words
Code:
Anything I post that's not in text blocks or in spoilers
may be understood to be said by the QMPC, with the
exception of the Collaboration Post
(see Collaboration Post for details on itself)
Code:
Players do not need to use code blocks or spoilers
outside of cacophonous interludes
If you use code blocks, please limit yourself to 32 lines
and your lines to 57 characters, so that people on mobile
can read them without scrolling within the code block
Code:
This is not meant to be Plagiarism Quest.
You're not discouraged from using outside reference
material or quoting other sources. When you do, please
cite your sources in spoilers or a code box.
Code:
I have added some players who contributed a fair amount
the last two times as thread collaborators who can update
the collaboration post. If you'd like to update the
collaboration post too, contact me by PM and we'll talk
about it.
Check the Collaboration Post and read the latest story post in the Threadmarks to get a rough idea of where things are at.
If you're not already involved in the game, portions of either of these may be difficult to follow. But you can skip to the line that says "B R E A K" in the latest threadmarked story post and skim from there to get an idea of what's going on.
If there's no corresponding Closing The Vote post in the Informational threadmarks for the latest story post in (normal?) Threadmarks, then the game is in a cacophonous interlude and the QMPC will hear what you post, unless you do so with spoilers or code boxes. The NOTICES portion at the top of this post should also tell you if the game is in a cacophonous interlude.
So you can engage with other players, make suggestions, ask questions, and propose plans and you can compose a message to the QMPC all whether or not the game is in a cacophonous interlude. And once it is, you can vote and/or send a message to the QMPC by creating a post in the thread.
If you want to vote, simply do so as you would in other quests on this board. You may look at other players' votes to see how yours should be formatted. And you may check the tally to see that yours are counted as you intend them.
If you want to send a message to the QMPC, though, keep in mind that they are a creature of their time. They may not understand what you mean if you don't take the time to make it clear. This game rewards and demands work from its players. When a player wants to introduce a concept or tool or technology to the QMPC, that player will probably need to expend effort to explain it carefully, and take into consideration the limits of the QMPC's understanding of the world.
I think this is similar enough to Graeber's 'interpretive labor' that we can use the term colloquially to describe what is being asked of players. Put yourself in the mind of the QMPC and ask yourself how such a person can be made to understand what you want to tell them.
The QMPC has different values than we do. They have different assumptions about the world and objects and forces within it. Their goals may not align directly with number-go-up or color-get-big gaming agendas. But they want something, and will listen most attentively to players that tell them how to get more of or closer to what they want.
The Quest Master posts story updates that have 3 parts.
Quest Master Player Character responses to player posts made during the last cacophonous interlude
An update by the QMPC following a break of varying length but usually some number of years, covering what the character believes is worth mentioning
Requests by the QMPC for direction on a number of issues, which the players will provide in the form of votes
Following each story update, players posts are audible to the QMPC until voting is closed.
This is the cacophonous interlude.
Players may convey any information they can represent in text.
No images, sounds, or hyperlinks will get through (this is my limitation, not a limitation of the game, so please do not try to transcend it with clever protocol tricks).
Players may use spoilers or code blocks to communicate with each other without doing so in ways the QMPC can hear.
When votes are tallied, the QM collects player posts so that it may be known what the QMPC heard.
Votes are tallied in the conventional fashion. So only votes in the most recent post by each player are counted. [X] marks what the player is voting. And only identical write-ins accumulate.
Some votes are querying the players for their preference, in which case the only suboptimal answer is that which does not accurately reflect the preference of the players who nonetheless chose it (I don't think these kinds of misunderstandings can be helped).
Other votes are intended as puzzles where there is a choice the QM believes would best meet what they believe to be the goals of the players.
However, in these sorts of votes the QM has in mind a choice that would provide the players with what the QM thinks they most want, but which is not listed in the available votes.
In this way, clever write-ins are encouraged.
QM reads player posts, researches their suggestions, checks notes for precedent, determines what the QMPC thinks they already know on the topic, what they're right or wrong about, how likely they are to engage with the topic, how likely the QMPC's followers are to follow-through in the matter, and finally what the result is going to be later on.
QM composes QMPC's responses to player posts made during the cacophonous interlude and updates their notes.
When narrative benefits from uncertainty and chance, QM devises tests for QMPC or other characters and makes those tests using die rolls on a post made just for that purpose.
Skill or attribute tests will be made with a largely undocumented homebrew modification of the Burning Wheel system, mangled to suit the format of this game. (The Burning Wheelis a good system and I encourage you to check it out.)
Tests may be a contest between two characters or against a static target with tiered results.
The rules being used and followed will be described in each post in which tests are made by die rolls.
Normal mortals count 7s and better as successes.
Heroic characters and characters who are otherwise innately magical count 6s and better as successes.
Demigod characters and characters who otherwise possess some spark of divinity count 5s and better as successes.
New gods and characters who have otherwise stolen the power of Old Gods count 4s and better as successes.
Old Gods count 3s and better as successes.
Sorcery and other magic skills lower the threshold of success by 1 to a minimum of 3 only when they are the skill being tested, not when they provide a bonus to other skills. Players may note that Old Gods' threshold of success does not improve when they use magic.
Bonus dice provided by Kahl's Warhorses and any incendiary devices more complicated than a burning arrow reroll 9s & 10s and keeps successes. These same bonus dice cancels successes on 1s & 2s, rerolls those, and additional 1s & 2s cancel additional successes. More 1s, 2, 9, or 10s mean more rerolling and more successes or cancelations, but only in the manner of the original die. That is, a 1 or 2 that comes up when a 9 on a bonus die is rerolled don't cancel successes or lead to further rerolling.
Research project results are determined by percentile dice with results falling into 5 tiers.
Uh oh: something has gone horribly wrong
Nuh uh: failure, but the boring kind
Huh: partial success
Uh huh: full success
Whoa: superior special case success
When players expect a test to be coming up -- for example if they vote for an invasion or to send a diplomat to manipulate a foreign leader -- they can improve the odds of the test turning out the way they want by providing the QMPC with advice specific to that matter. If the advice is not mistaken or outright bad, there will be at least a chance it will help. That is, decent advice adds dice.
QM composes the QMPC's post-break update, player vote questions, and player vote options.
GOTO 1
The QMPC is intended to be the only character the players will interact with in this game. (It's kind of possible that the players could maneuver the QMPC to surrender control of the Astute Cacophony to another character, but unlikely.)
The QMPC is a small, evil woman who knows magic and has not died, despite looking like she probably should have at some point. She goes by the name Bianca the Undying. Her early life took place in the Paleolithic, in which she has said that she traveled around quite a bit and came to understand the malleable nature of populations of people and animals and even the land itself. At some point she was trapped underground, to her displeasure. She remained trapped for a very long time.
When Bianca got out, she found her way to a community of eight tribes living pastoral and agrarian lifestyles in the local Copper Age. She made these people hers and they relied on her for magically enriching their fields so that they did not need to slash, burn, and move around a bit, unlike their neighbors. Bianca and her followers formalized their relationships into the Eight Ways Pact. Later, another tribe joined Bianca's followers bringing small horses and the Bronze Age and their pact was updated with a ninth directive.
Bianca has an agenda that requires her to have more power than she does right now. She believes that achieving divinity will get her that power.
Would it be reasonable to pm people who have previously participated in case they missed the alert?
Anyway, based on the new information we have, I think the most likely location of the Pact Nations is Lithuania. Mainly because the Buraghm flows to the south while we are near the north coast. I think that the Buraghm is what we know as the Dnieper. Also from Bianca's description of the coast which to the east slopes north, folds in on itself, and then continues east. While to the west, the coast curves north before turning west-south-west.
If I am correct, the one who follows the coast to the east will eventually curve back west.
I thought that this may be the case, different world than our visions, but the same basic shape of land. Lithuania, yes, probably. This version of the world, and in particular Europe, seems to be slightly more developed than what we can see from our Visions of the Bronze Age. This was the case even before our meddling, I mean, a few cities, that we couldn't see. Not all things seem to be consistent with our visions, we were able to see how world would look without any visible magic present. So no Gods, no Bianca, no Nine Nations, no immortals or monsters, these things we were unable to see. But mostly it seems to be right, we may know the shape of the land. Sadly, we cannot show a map to Bianca.
It's no wonder that Bianca knows nothing about walnuts. These grow in the North America, on the other side of the world, far far far far far West. And no, even keeled ships are nowhere good enough to sail that far, not yet.
To the North there also should be lands beyond the sea, but even colder and less pleasant than the Ten Nations. South is warmer and warmer - up to the middle of the world sphere surface at least, only then climate starts to be colder again. While the north is colder and colder up to the North Pole (South Pole is also cold, but it's enormously far away). On the North Pole of the world sphere there is forever frozen ice. North is far less interesting than the south, but north you should have more furs, hides, seals and whales; and less people not more. Terrible places during winter, and the North Pole is always terrible.
If we are right and your world is indeed only slightly different than world of our dreams and memories.
I think engaging other players or people you'd like to invite to play would be governed by normal rules of courtesy: don't be rude and leave people alone if you have reason to believe they don't want to hear from you.
Also also, Voices, I think that it would be helpful to identify where our areas of expertise could provide the most benefits for the least cost.
For example. We provided advice for more and safer heat, with chimneys and coal, now it's a time for ways to retain heat inside of a house.
Once we mentioned glass in windows (windows are small holes in the walls that supply daylight to the building). Bianca probably dismissed this as madness - for her glass is still pretty precious and rare.
Overcomplicated devices to produce glass cheaply are imaginable, so we see glass constantly everywhere, buuut... Like I said, let's try "the most benefits for the least cost". No overcomplicated devices before simpler solution is in use.
I believe that, for the vast majority of her people and maybe outside of a few richest men of cities, semi-transparent pieces of hide in a wooden frame could be much more possible than glass. I also know about nations that used flattened animal horn. Of course, glass and especially flat transparent glass would be more ideal, but also so expensive.
The wooden frame would need to fit into a window hole neatly, without any holes remaining. I imagine that cement or concrete could be maybe used for that, to fill out imperfections.
Also, it's possible to build windows in a way that would make them possible to open and close easily, without complicated removal of a whole window, but maybe someone else could explain that. I'm not sure that I see and understand these parts clearly.
My apologies, Bianca, if your people figured this stuff about windows already on their own. Without glass and with a semi-transparent hide it sounds pretty common-sense.
Of course, if we assume wealth unlimited, then glass would be ideal, and preferably two pieces of glass with some empty space in the middle. When air is trapped, instead of moving, it's a surprisingly good barrier to heat transfer/escape.
Ventilation. Some fresh outdoor air is needed inside of a building, of course, but for that well-designed one small hole is much better and save more heat than open holes in all windows. While fireplaces that connect with chimneys are obviously on the ground, such a hole should be up high, and preferably open into a small chimney-style channel.
As with many things, wise balance is needed. Excessive openings and unintentional holes cause dangerous heat loss during winter, while utter lack of fresh air could cause illness or death.
Not only that is an issue with heat. There is also the fact, that materials transfer heat even when there is no movement of air. Some materials, lIke metals, transfer heat faster, while others, like fortunately bricks or earth or wood, slower. Still, external walls should be probably made two-bricks wide, not one-brick wide.
In comparison with many other pieces of advice, this stuff about heat should be pretty easy to test. As you know, some caves are so well insulated from heat transfer, that without any heating there is never hot nor freezing inside. Houses are impossible to isolate that well, but the basic principle is maybe now more clear.
I wonder how a wall out of bricks, then compressed earth, and then again bricks would work to reduce heat transfer... With some small amount of cement added... Probably could be pretty heavy, though.
Oh, and mold inside of a house is very unhealthy for mortals. Too much moisture in the air. Maybe a small ventilation hole above places with boiled or wet stuff needed. Humph. Experiment.
A very wise balance of various concerns is needed.
Pretty smooth walls without any holes can be made by covering bricks or stone with a thin layer of plaster: a mixture of clay, sand, water and sometimes cement.
Or lime plaster? Lime plaster can better prevent mold. Sand, water, and lime.
Back to glass windows, so unpractical and so costly but also so efficient at preventing the escape of heat, so tempting... You can join smaller pieces of glass into bigger structure with some lead metal...
Lead is a slow poison for mortals, lead can cause children to be stupid, aggressive and old people to die slightly faster, but mainly when they breathe around hot lead or when lead is touching water or food... Manufacturing uses are much safer. Wise balance needed. Simply never make water pipes or cups out of lead, never ever. Never try to make redewing devices out of lead, never ever.
Things like glass-lead windows of the wealthy should be reasonably safe. Balls of lead for small weapons of bursting dust should be nice.
Lead, lead... Gray and silvery ore, often with silver around, but much more weighty than silver. Much more common and cheaper than silver, if you have ore around. Dull grey. Metal with a very low melting temperature, you could melt lead in a campfire.
There is also mercury, a dangerous and pretty useless for now wonder, the only metal liquid at normal everyday heat levels, no heating needed... Even more, much more toxic than lead. I can see, unwise people that tried to use mercury as a medicine; bad idea, very bad idea. Some complicated devices can use mercury, but there is no need for these, not yet.
Oil of vitrol (Sulfuric acid)
Burning sulfur together with saltpeter in the presence of steam can produce mildly interesting substance, oil of vitrol, also called sulfuric acid. This liquid can literally melt human body and many other things, but can be stored safely in glass containers. Mostly unpractical as a weapon, unless for pure terror, but may be needed in the future for more of our advice. As you know, pretty often our future advice depends on past advice. Also, you sometimes like terrible stuff.
Sweet oil of vitriol (diethyl ether)
Redewing oil of vitrol together with pure alcohol cause the creation of diethyl ether, also called sweet oil of vitriol. This is no longer a terrible substance when properly made, and in fact, can be used to ease pain during surgery!
Back to buildings... Anybody, maybe in cities, tried to build two-story buildings? I mean, like one room that is directly above another. This saves space when, as in the city center, space is in the short supply; but of course foundation and walls and ceiling (that doubles as a floor for the next level) need to be properly strong. When design of everything is perfected, even four-story buildings are imaginable with wise use of bricks, concrete, etc, and can be reasonably safe.
I can imagine a city... Traders have their goods and haggle with buyers on the first floor, while they sleep - and probably store parts of their small hoard that are not for trade - above. Ladders or stone stairs are used...
Roman Empire... There I can see even 7-story buildings in their capital, but that starts to be highly dangerous even with absolutely perfect use of bricks, and not to mention, a fire hazard and a chore to climb that high. But 2 levels are useful for cities.
Do you know that even if most of the building is build out of bricks or stone, a ceiling can be held up with solid wooden beams? Though I remember that Burgeck tried to solve their problems with curved ceilings, that's also a solution, and cunning development of our arch idea, but less ideal if somebody wants to have two usable floors, one over another.
Sewage system. For a small city, it may be more beneficial to bury most of their feces and other waste for two or three years, and then afterward when time passes and waste starts to be safer, dig that out and send to villages for use as compost. But a truly big city will probably need some channels for removal at least some of human waste, wastewater and rainwater. I do not need to add, as we talked about this again and again and again, that such unpleasant wastewater should be isolated from the fresh water used for drinking and even washing, isolated as much as imaginable. Dumping wastewater downstream is a decent enough for a city itself, but tend to contaminate water downstream. It's better to have a pretty big useless field around. Wetlands, including artificially created small wetlands, are very decent at eating dangerous human waste - for that to work ideally, some plants and things from a wetland would need to be transplanted.
I know about some unwise cities where people simply dumped their feces outside their homes, terrible, terrible cities full of disease and preventable deaths. Terrible.
Aqueduct.
Some great cities build channels to supply a city with fresh water from mountain or hill streams. Sometimes even bridges specially build for such a water channel were used! That's of course pretty costly in resources and labor, but can be done.
Cat feedback to you. I think that maybs add Supreme Court over all nations to complain about bad village court before case going to bianca or inquisitors. Inquisition replace Biancas for small stupid mess but limits: like no killing without reasons and no mutilation and no torturing people ever and discipline and not working drunk(like guard or inquisitors or judges etc etc only drink after job done).So more like police not meme Spanish Inquisition. Add some stuff to guard roads and river traffic trade like XIX century river police
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
[X] [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders for yourself
Oh Bianca the undying, some years ago you asked us how you could know the size of the earth.
Fear not for the answer can be deduced without walking to the west or east for years on end.
First you must find two spots in your realm that are around six or ten days of walking apart in the north to south axis and plant a stick in these two spots, then measure the distance between these two points in what ever units you wish to use.
Now that you know the distance between these two points and the sticks have been erected you must find out the angles that the sun makes the sticks cast shadows at the same day of the year when the sun is at it's highest. I would recommend the summer solar equinox as a good marker for this.
You can find the angle's degree by using string that you pull from the tip of the stick to the shadows tip and using a disc that has been divided trough it's center to form 360 equal parts.
Now you must count how many of these parts are between the string and the pole when the center of the disk is is at the sticks tip and one of the division lines goes along the stick.
Now you subtract the angle of the southern stick from the northern stick if the result is negative do not panic for it will still work you just need to consider it to be a positive number.
Now you have all the number needed to calculate the worlds circumference.
The formula is quite easy to be honest.
The result of the subtraction is divided by 360 is equal to the distance between the points divided by the worlds circumference, which is in this case marked as an X.
now you must multiply both sides of the equation with both 360 and the worlds circumference creating a situation in which.
X multiplied by the result of the subtraction is equal to the distance multiplied by 360.
Now you must divide by the result of the subtraction.
creating a situation in which X is equal to distance multiplied by 360 which is then divided by the result of the subtraction.
Thus you have calculated the approximated size of the earth.
If you wish to know how long a meter of which we voices have mentioned before is you just take a quarter of the circumference and divide it by 10,000,000.
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
Or
[X] [Shrine] Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
[X] [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders for yourself
Paper, paper, paper...
I rember that you were very interested in paper, Bianca, but my wisdom of papermaking is very incomplete, so you may need to wait for other voices. I shall say what I can remember, I'm not able to say more.
I know that making paper out of wood is very hard and may need overcomplicated devices, and that it's much easier to use old rags.
I can dimly recall that you need to boil highly fragmented pieces of rags for a long time, then pound that to form a pulp - a soft, wet, shapeless mass of material. Then strain pulp, maybe though cloth, to form a very thin layer that, when dried, should be a sheet of paper. My apologies, Bianca, the above may be incomplete or insufficient, but at least shows you a way for experimentation.
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
[X] [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders for yourself
Once more tis' I; The great and procrastinative Millwright!
Via communion with the Lost Three whom channel Our power, I can confirm the provenance and potency of that Mad Magician's potion.
K-UwU-zt has regained his youthful vigor for a period of six hundred and sixty six moons, which likely began shortly after the fall of Enonl. Similar results hath the Mad Magician. The Devicer though, could prove quite the boon, for she has become truly unaging, if not undying.
Which sparks the question: Did you gather observe enough of the Mad Magician's rituals to eventually reproduce his formula? To create a new breed of immortals could prove both a boon and a curse... Be warned, all three who imbibed the potion had some measure of luck, for the possibility of a monstrous transformation was not so unlikely as one would like.
Now to answer a few questions:
The amount of water in the air is (called [Humidity]) is measured by a [Hygrometer], which takes advantage of the fact that the length of hair changes in direct proportion with the water in air. To construct a hygrometer you must first cleanse grease from the hair by washing in water and strong alcohol. Then you need some mechanism to magnify the change in length of the hair and compare with a fixed scale. Perhaps a good task for your new Devicer eh?
As to humidities affects upon bursting dust, it generally causes the dust to burst "slower", but just generally makes it harder to predict how much boom you get.
The best you can do is try to keep your bursting dust as dry as possible and make sure to swab out your cannon between shots. The residue of bursting dust will foul things quickly otherwise.
Speaking of cannon, yet another reason to build them in one place and carry to battle is that you can achieve better quality with a dedicated building, cannon tools,and cannon-wrights that don't have to risk death or disease to practice their craft. For instance a large table that rotates the entire cannon about its long axis, while a sturdy cutting tool is lowered through guides that keep it perfectly straight from the floor above.
Have you tried making smaller cannon? You may need a ball the size of a head to bring down a wall, but a fist could scythe through an entire line of warriors if you got them at the right angle and skipped the round off the ground like a rock over water. Such a cannon could also be relatively mobile on the field of battle if hitched like a chariot.
As for your question about weeds, I suppose you want a ground cover that will cannot survive when tilled as well as weeds can. Some plants are simply better at growing in up through recently overturned dirt. A really good plow can let you completely overturn the top layer of dirt to more completely prevent intrusions from previous ground cover. And as I mentioned with winter wheat, so long as you have seed to spare it is not to bad a plan to put down a crop in the fall that will die in the winter. Since the dead wheat can be tilled back into the land and helps prevent weeds from taking hold.
I believe that was all the questions you had for me. Next up are a few things I have stumbled across that you might find helpful.
[Bearing Bronze] is a bronze alloy consisting of eight parts copper, one part tin, and one part lead that is an excellent material for the interface between moving parts of many a machine. By it's nature, lead does no truly alloy with copper, but as the molten mixture cools the lead precipitates into a great many tiny beads. When in use the bronze is slowly worn down, beads of soft lead are released to act like a layer of grease. Increasing the proportion of lead increases the alloys lubricating properties, but reduces its strength and ease of casting such that more than two parts in ten of lead is generally considered unusable. This alloy is additionally useful because it strikes a good balance between durability and the ability for small imperfections to be worn away in use. Often it will be cast inside a casing of a more durable metal to act a a sacrificial layer that can be more easily replaced when the part wears out in several years.
[War Drums] are large drums that make a loud deep noise. When in battle you can have those to young to be useful fighters play the drums from the back. They need only be trained to keep a steady beat that to which the warriors can time their advance. Perhaps introduce some form of [Line Dancing] as a form of entertainment that will also subtly train your people to march to the beat of a drum. You can also use the drummers as a way of battlefield communication. One beat may tell the warriors at that point in the line that they are falling behind and must push the advance. Another might tell them to hold their position. In this way you could better maintain your warriors as a cohesive whole in battle. It could help you pull off tactics like having the edges of your force curve in to envelop the enemy without leaving any gaps for them to exploit to break out. Another good signal would be one telling the foremost warriors it is time to swap places with the man behind them so that they can rest a bit and thus battle longer.
The [Chicken] is perhaps the single most useful form of livestock ever domesticated in human history. I am sorry to say that I only just realized you have never hinted at having them. They originate in the jungles of the land of storms across the southern sea and twice a far east past a land and of endless sands. The chicken is a bird that can only fly short distances and is raised for it's meat, feathers, and prodigious supply of eggs. They mainly feed off bugs and seeds, but some places will feed them directly off grain because of any animal they produce the most edible meat for a given amount of grain.
To my knowledge the chicken has spread far from it's ancestral homeland, and your expeditions to the southern sea may be able to trade for some if they follow the coast to the east or even make for the lands to the south of the southern sea. As a warning, the southern sea is known to be the most mild of the worlds seas in terms of weather, but it is also well known for it's many monsters. And I hear there is at least one god who hangs out down there and is particularly fond of seducing mortals whilst in the guise of a beast.
Votes:
The Lost Three have imparted to us the fate of the Greater Haunted Forest. It's foul energies shall not be amenable to defeat for at least a thousand years. The forest shall continue it's expansion until such time as tis' rebuffed by those natural magics of the lands around.
That in mind,
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
Long have we spake: You cannot be a god without worshipers. It is sort of a package deal. There is even some reason to believe that gods directly gain some power from being worshiped (beyond people listening to them). And you cannot hope to have worshipers without some authority (like a priesthood) telling them why you are to be worshiped in lieu of other gods.
However, your objections in mind, I suggest
[X] [Shrine] Bianca should be venerated in shared temples maintained by priesthoods of other gods
Because putting yourself on the same level as gods is less likely to make them personally affronted than elevating yourself above them.
As for judges, I would say that the one who is "in charge" should only have the slightest extra privilege.
[X] [Judiciary] Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another
[X] [Tributary] Let them gamble each spring for who should take tributary from these disputed outsiders in that year
Not sure I really understand the problem here?
While we rarely know magic, we now have good reasons to think that Kuwuzt and the evil magician will be unaging for a fifty years from the moments of drinking their potions, and then shall age normally; while your maker of devices is unaging forever, but I believe that she could die from violence. But better to not test that, as she is useful and should try to make better reapers. She should be used to make better devices for at least a few more decades, and she may gradually become much better at this task. Design of complicated devices was not something done before, after all, thus it's hard.
I hope that you can replicate the potion without the evil magician? While too many unaging people could be dangerous, and the manufacturing of the potion is terrible, in a few cases of exceptional people benefits may be better than risks.
The matter of the Great Haunted Forest is unpleasant, as I feel ashamed that we caused this mess. While we rarely know magic, we now have reasons to believe that the forest may grow for many hundreds of years. But you have more and more resources than it was the case before. Could you use your magicians and the tribute of labor to slow this terrible process?
If the forest is truly impossible to stop, relocation of not only lesser giants but of everything may be very slowly needed. Very slowly, but you are undying... I would then advise retreat west, south-west and south.
Lenses are great, but some germs are even smaller than most, viruses in particular, and thus not all germs are visible when this tool is used.
While lenses can be useful, it's better to test medicines on dogs, pigs, and prisoners.
I feel interested about advances in surgery made by you or your servants. Let's start with the basic question: Any patient managed to live through something more complicated than cutting off a hand? And preferably not only "managed to live through" but benefited from the procedure.
The great limitation on survival is the blood loss. I can imagine methods to replace blood, but these methods are so enormously complicated, that I don't want to waste your time now - for now you must work with this limitation in mind. Methods and tool to slow inevitable loss of blood during surgery were mentioned previously.
I advise for training wise healers and surgeons on dead bodies and pigs. Pigs have surprisingly similar size and function of internal organs to humans, despite obviously different external apperance.
Also, advances in painkillers and method to make people sleep during surgery are needed. You mentioned once, a long time ago, that you may know a proper plant for this task. Without methods to ease pain, even bold people may want to die instead of suffering through surgery, especially while methods are not yet perfected and death is still highly possible. Survival rates should rise with more developed details of surgery, as is the case with quality of any art.
Surgeons, after their initial training, could also learn much from helping Armed Forces of your servant cities, especially after battles. Many, many terribly wounded people. Most would die anyway, so no great loss if surgery may be often not good enough.
Simple stethoscope.
There is a tool that allow healers and surgeons to hear internal sounds of the human body, for example heartbeat, or sounds of lungs, or bowels. These sounds often differ between healthy and ill people, and between various types of diseases and wounds. Healer or surgeon could of course press their ear to the body of the patient, but such closeness is often unadvisable, germs and stuff. Use of a wooden, funnel-shaped tube with an ending on the ear side is better and safer. You press one end to the body of your patient, and other to your ear.
By the way, do you know what sound is? Vibrations of air, basically. Extremely subtle with comparision to serious movement of air like wind, but human and animal ears can somehow detect these subtle and invisible sound waves. In airless place, though only far up from the ground such places exist, there would be no sound.
This also can explain what echo is, reflection of sound waves produced sometimes in empty caves, bottom of the well, etc...
Sound waves travel through the air, bounce off the cave walls and can be heard again by your ears.
Basic psychology: dreams.
Do you know what dreams are? Many unlearned people in many simple nations thought that all dreams are magical, but this belief is untrue and unwise. Surely, one dream out of many may be magical somehow, as magic in your world exist, but mostly... The vast majority of dreams simply help mortals "to store important memories and things they learned, get rid of unimportant memories, and sort through complicated thoughts and feelings." This wisdom may be slightly helpful to people who talk with these of troubled minds.
What influences our dreams? Learn about the possible causes of dreams and how to better remember them.
www.healthline.com
Psilocybin mushroom, also known as magic mushroom.
There are mushrooms that cause vivid, dream-like visions when a mortal is awake. As is the case with dreams, there is no shortage of people who see magic in effects of these mushrooms, even though there is no magic, but only mundane (but weird) reaction of the mortal mind. Some research suggest that moderate and responsible use, under strict control of a wise person, can help warriors with mind damaged by battle, and adults who were overbeaten or otherwise abused as children. These mushrooms are small, with size of about one up to two human fingertips, often light brown. Most often grows in groups, in grasslands not forests, especially wetter areas. It is often found in pastures that have been fertilized with sheep or cow dung, although it does not typically grow directly on the dung. It varies in shape from sharply conical to bell-shaped. On the underside of the mushroom's cap, there are between 15 and 27 individual narrow gills that are moderately crowded together.
Source, Wikipedia, also, this mushroom stuff is illegal, do not use in the real world, etc, etc, etc, etc
Priesthood.
A long time ago you asked what a benefit, if any, may be there from having priests. I then called priests "useless parasites", but after these decades of thinking and looking at things, I see some mild benefits and I started to understand why many gods decided to have priests. Why priests exist? Priests, who usually know how to read and write, are much more useful for these cities and nations and gods that lack table-rulers and singers. As you have table-rulers and singers, that already do many things done for other gods by their priests, this is less essential for you.
Spreading useful ways of thinking - your Singers do that for you. Writing - your Singers and Table-Rulers do that for you. Table-Rulers are good at numbers.
Priests also maintain temples and show respect to their god with rituals. Rituals that besides showing respect are often useless. With more wisdom, mildly useful things could be done as rituals instead: maybe washing of hands and bodies, boiling water and drinking herbal tea, proper care for the sick, making devices for you, practicing ways of discovery for you, talking with people of troubled minds... But as I said, many useful things that for other gods are done by priests - are already done for you, simply outside of temples and by singers and table-rulers instead of priests.
Priesthood could be perhaps a way of life for these youths who are too bad with numbers to be great table-rulers, and too bad at singing to be great Singers, but love you much more than most youth. Such people could be priests. Such people could help singers when no ability to sing is needed and table-rulers when there is no need to be excellent with numbers.
Even a priest cannot be a complete idiot with love for you as their only useful thing. Even priests need to do their duties somewhat properly. Boldness not really needed, nor great talents with numbers, but reading, and writing, and some basic thinking ability are useful.
I know about the priests of the Catholic religion that were allowed to be meek but despite that were respected for their wise, polite and nice, very nice advice. Somewhat like singers, but without boldness and singing...
To summarize. There may be some small benefits to have people who love you and constantly encourage others to show respect for you, but many things usually done by Priests are already done for you by your Singers and Table-Rulers, so your need for priests is indeed much lesser than it's usual for gods.
But there is no reason to hate the idea too much! That is my opinion after many, many years of considering this matter carefully and, I hope, without any madness.
If you decide to allow some few people to be priests, simply make sure that singers and table-rulers are more important, above priests.
Equality of opportunity and Priesthood.
I can see nations where priests were like a separate tribe of people, yes, but I generally consider that as the bad way of doing things. As you know, I'm one of these voices that believe in some inequality between people as more beneficial than risks of discord, but at the same time, I believe that riches and position above others should come out of cunning and talents of the individual person - instead of benefiting forever their whole family. A possibility that one person may be better than most people - always exists. But a possibility that everyone in the family, and their descendants, will be better than others - is slim. So I support having some of such people outside of their families, as is the case with your Singers.
That's called equality of opportunity. People under such a system are not equal, but riches come to the individual person only because of cunning, hard work, and usefulness to you, not because the whole family is above others forever.
Simple inheritance tax.
I can see nations that tried to create some sort of a wise balance: they valued some inequality as more useful than discord and allowed a whole family of an exceptional person to benefit for a while: if the exceptional person very much wanted that to happen instead of being drawn out of their family. But at the same time, they were against raising some families above others forever. They tried to solve this problem by taking most of the family wealth in tribute after their exceptional member died.
Simple welfare state.
Poor people can ofter tolerate rich people better and hate them much less when some wealth is taken out of the rich families and given to the poor. Well, obviously. The Ten Nations are doing this. But the Ten Nations are doing this so strongly that there are no rich families or people at all, and the cities are not doing this in any way or shape. Two unbalanced extremes. A wise balance could be possible instead: the rich must share, but not always everything. Truly exceptional people and families could retain more than others, at least for some time, as a just gift for their service to you, Great Bianca. For example, you could say that anybody allowed to be rich must share with poor families 10% of his wealth after every ten years. And you could give to the poor some part of a tribute taken after death of a rich person. Make poor believe that riches are temporary gifts that would after some time return to everyone, even if not as fast as now.
Riches as gifts for serving you well, and for doing other desirable things, producing more than others, working smarter than others, introducing new productive innovations...
People allowed to be rich could be also encouraged, in songs for example, to be humble and responsible: to use their wealth mainly for productive and healthy things, like buying more diverse healthy food, and more soap, and washing more often than poor people can afford; instead of using wealth mainly for colorful clothes. Many simple grey clothes washed often are much more healthy than one rich-looking but dirty robe, and it's the rich-looking robe that create the most hate from the poor. Encourage rich to buy better plows, useful devices or horses, to increase useful production, and to experiment with complicated devices and innovations. Not to walk around with golden jewellery. This is a matter for customs not laws of course.
A few more words about some inequality.
Surely you can understand that it could be sometimes useful for you to have people doing work for you not only out of labor tribute or respect but also in exchange for baubles that 50 years later would mostly return to you. There are many types of people, some better motivated by respect or virtue or honor, but others better motivated by greed. A wise balance of incentives is often useful.
I can see nations that used small things of equal weight made out of gold, silver, and copper. Well, coins were mentioned a long time ago.
About judges and tests of judgment.
It would be best to test potential new judges in your Great Home.
To avoid wasting your valuable time for that, you can create 5 people Table-Rulers Council to do such tests. Then you could be reasonably sure that the Judgment of Merit is as sensible as possible for mortals.
5 is a nice number for small councils: when there is any vote, then there is always a sensible majority and no tie. At least when there is a reasonable law that nobody can abstain.
Regardless of such details, there is also another benefit, as all candidates for judges would be forced to see the greatness of your Great Home and, during their travel, how the Ten Nations live. That's more important than it sounds: with passing time, memories about your conquest will feel more distant, so important but distant people need to be reminded strongly that you exist.
Heading to a place for the sake of visiting, The Hajj, also called حَجّ Ḥaǧǧ.
Many people of the Ten Nations and many of your servants currently live far away from the Ten Nations. They may have children far away from the Ten Nations. This can create division among your currently loyal people, this can cause them to grow very distant, or maybe even cause their descendants to forget about you after a few generations. I can see a partial solution for such a problem, The Hajj. Your Singers could promote a way of thinking that would emphasize that all people of the Ten Nations, even those who live in distant cities, should travel to the lands of the Ten Nations once during their lives. Why? Because this show that a person is virtuous and loves their Nation properly. Maybe create a pillar of stone that should be visited or something like that.
Or maybe simply enforce tribute of labor even on distant youths, but this could be harder than a promotion of a new way for thinking. It's easy to assemble these youths that live inside of the Ten Nations lands, but it must be harder in the case of these far away. It may be better if they could be politely persuaded to visit.
Capital City.
A "capital" is the main city of an Empire, where the Great House of the ruler and their numerous servants and table-rulers live and where they receive the tribute from less important parts of an Empire.
Your Great Home is slightly like your capital, but it's not a city, so not exactly.
But I imagine that you constantly receive more and more tribute, not only goods but also tribute in labor. So in the future, you may have not only Biancvint as your city but also a city of craftsmen and servants and table-rulers around your Great Home.
This may be beneficial as long as the labor of craftsmen, magicians, servants, and other people is used well. Now, after so many conquests, you certainly can afford to take enough food in tribute. During harder times, food can be taken not out of the Ten Nations, but from outsiders.
A good capital should be well-defensible, have a great road network around, and river great enough for keeled ships is nice, or sea, or lake. A few wide roads should extend even inside of the city as firebreaks and for easier transportation of goods, when possible houses should be made mainly out of brick and stone, and clean water and careful removal of harmful waste are very beneficial for health.
Identification sign (seal).
That's a somewhat similar idea to printing, but perhaps more useful now. In addition to using fingerprints for identification of important writing, an unique and complicated sign may be carved from a small piece of wood. Such a sign could be then used to make an impression with ink or wax on a parchment, to mark thIs parchment as something important, or written by a very important servant.
Wax seal can also show whether parchment with message or a package was opened or not. Apply wax and unique seal in a way that would always cause destruction of the wax seal before package is opened.
Unique names and maybe numbers for all villages with a table-ruler.
Maybe table-rulers already use something like that for writing and messages, but if not, then such idea could often prevent confusion and mistakes. Unnamed places are like people without names: surely you can describe these with their apperance or location, but it can be impractical and cause weird mistakes.
Boats? Rudder maybe.
I don't know much about boats, but I know that you can steer a boat or a bigger ship with a rudder: underwater (wooden and wide) blade that is positioned at the back of a boat or ship and controlled by its helm (handle) and that when turned causes the vessel's head to turn.
an underwater blade that is positioned at the stern of a boat or ship and controlled by its helm and that when turned causes the vessel's head to turn in the same direction… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
The tiller is a type of helm, the handle attached to the rudder.
If you want the bow of the boat to go right, for example, you need to move the tiller to the left.
Rapid back and forth movement on the tiller helps create drag and slows the boat.
The tiller is what steers a boat — specifically, the handle attached to the rudder. Tillers are generally found on smaller boats because it would take too much force to steer larger ships with hand tillers.
www.vocabulary.com
Like wooden and wide blade that "cuts" water at the back of the boat. Test this on various small models first. Testing on toy models is often great and cheap, even though bigger real stuff sometimes act slightly differently.
As is usual, my words are probably not enough and heavy experimentation is needed to figure out many, many details.
I can confirm what another has said. Our glimpse of fate has revealed to us that the king and the magician will be youthful for fifty years since they drank their potions, but the inventor is now entirely unaging. They may well have died or become monsters or simply not been healed at all by the potions, but luck and fate has turned so that all the potions were effective to some degrees.
The purpose of mortars is not to hit a wall, but to hit what is behind the wall. If you wish to batter down a city's walls and take it intact perhaps they are not useful, then.
[x][Judiciary] Send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint until the next spring
Judging disputes between judges is not quite as simple as judging disputes between ordinary people. Whatever judgement is ultimately reached when two judges argue, other judges will often look to it and say 'it was decided thus last time this issue came up', and cling to the decision made by whoever you appoint to resolve disputes... I think that if the judges themselves pick a superior judge they will squabble and argue among themselves for who gets to be superior judge and cause trouble. You should pick the superior judge.
I would say you should send either a table-ruler or a singer - and more likely a singer, as the singers are more loyal to you. Anyone asked to pick worthy people ends up picking their friends and family -- better to have one who has few friends and family in Biancvint keep the judges in line. I would suggest a singer over a table-ruler for this because the singers know more of what you consider important and fair and orderly, even if a table-ruler's job is closer to what a judge does in some ways. The fine details of each case that a table-ruler might grasp can be presented by the arguing judges to a singer just fine.
[x][Shrine] Bianca should be venerated in shared temples maintained by priesthoods of other gods
As to the monuments, I am not sure forbidding worship would actually work. Priesthoods can be strangely stubborn and it would not surprise me if they venerated you despite you forbidding it and then became all the more bothersome because they developed with strange ideas. However by making you one of many and only venerated in temples to other gods, without real priestesses or temples of your own, the giantess may be satisfied without generating a priesthood that would cause trouble in the future. I may be swayed on this advice if other voices have arguments about it, though.
...The cursed woodlands worry me but I have no clever suggestions regarding driving them back besides attempting to discern how the spirits of that place think and how the woodland plants spread. If that is understood, something can be came up with to stop it.
Some thoughts on Naumo and Gawdtha, I think any division where they divide the loot or gamble for the right to take tribute will perhaps cause fighting between the two tribes and lead to resentment and anger. However, it does seem to me that Naumo is overstepping themselves if Gawdtha already had a relationship with these outsider. I am not sure what my judgement on this is quite yet, I will think on it more. I will also think on all the other matters you ask for advice on.
What trouble could priests cause? If there is no additional raising one tribe above another, at least? As I said, many usual things that priests do for cities of outsiders are already done by either singers or table-rulers, but if the priesthood is done wisely - so certainly not like the Burgeck wanted that done - I fail to see great dangers.
And humph, if temples are shared with other gods, then the Free People of Ten Nations wouldn't be able to worship in these if I understand customs right.
I have no great love for priests, but if people want temples, let's give them temples.
I feel, by the way, slightly troubled by the fact that the Ten Nations are so much above over others. Bianca should be above others, as well as some great and loyal people as I explained during my talk about equality of opportunity, but... The current situation sounds unstable, like sooner or later cities and tribes of outsiders that pay tribute may rebel. Any ideas on how to slowly change that without irritating the Ten Nations? Humph.
Maybe draw some of the best, exceptional outsiders out of their conquered cities and tribes and encourage people from the Ten Nations to marry these or use them as table-rulers? Not unprecedented, the son of the King of Wrul managed to join Ten Nations by marriage.
Tribes of the Ten Nations, with exeption of lesser giants, believe that there is no need for bigger numbers, you say. Humph. Tribes as a whole, yes. But what about small families and individuals? Let's imagine, a bold young man or woman want to create their own new family. But two people, or even a few people, are too few to do that properly. Surely they could benefit from more pretty and hard-working wives or husbands, even if drawn out of outsiders, humph.
Or imagine a village where people share many common ancestors. It's only proper and healthy for quality of their instructions of life to search for wives and husbands pretty far away.
And it could be nice to promote a way of thinking that could argue as follows: conquests benefit not only the Ten Nations and Bianca, but even the conquered, despite their need to pay tribute and serve. After all, the conquered are savages that know nothing about the proper ways of living, while the people of the Ten Nations know how to wash, heal wounds more often, respect Bianca, prosper... Such a way of thinking sounds entirely sensible. There should be some hope, maybe false or maybe true, that the conquered people may be also raised if they start to love Bianca enough and learn proper ways of living.
While without "magical industry" it's not possible to deal with the forest permanently, it may be possible to significantly slow down the forest expansion, I believe.
The New Justice System.
I want to propose, and I would appreciate also discussion with other Voices about the matter, a new model for judging crimes and disputes, for use in big villages of the Ten Nations, that could be advised for voluntary adoption by villagers.
In big villages, for example, these with over 300 people, Free People of a village who are older than 14 and widely considered sane, would assembly to vote whether they want to change to this New System or remain with their current system. This voluntary decision would ensure less discord and allow the Free People to freely remain with alternative systems when alternatives work well, and enforce change in these villages where changes are desired.
The Free People know how to vote? There are many systems. Raise hands for YES. Or throw a stone into a bucket for YES. When there are many different options, not only YES and NO, then they can use many separate buckets for these, or use obviously different stones. Whatever. Whatever the method. If the majority decide to vote for YES, then the new proposed system is as follows.
They would elect a 5 person Council of Justice, to serve for a 5 years before the next election. The council would act to judge disputes.
The Council would select a Chief among themselves, and also two or three Village Guards to ensure that criminals would always obey the Council. Guards would usually live like normal people and do their duties of protecting the Council and helping to enforce judgments only when a crime is seriously suspected in the village. Hopefully, they would be rarely needed, as regularly elected Council obviously judges in the name of the Free People, not tyrannically. Still, it's better to have Guards selected, just in case.
During future judgments, the Council of Justice would at first hear words of the accused and of the victims (if there are living victims), see evidence if any, hear witnesses if any, and ask Table-Ruler or Singer (if there are any in the village) for advice about laws.
Then the Council would vote to determine whether an accused person is guilty of a crime. If 3 among them vote YES, then the Chief of the Council would determine punishment, after, again, asking either Table-Ruler or Singer for advice (if there are any in the village).
If Table-Ruler or Singer would be present and felt that their expert law advice was completely ignored by the Council, or that the judgment was gravely unjust, then they could protest, but not to you, but to the First Singer or the First Table-Ruler.
Only if the First Singer or the First Table-Ruler decides that the situation indeed warrants your attention, only then you would be bothered.
This system is designed to still offer Free People much more freedom than in cities, but at the same time enforce more order than now.
An alternative way is to elect the Council only to determine whether the accused is guilty and for details of a dispute or punishment have a Judge selected according to tests done in your Great House, instead of electing Chief for the Council. Such a way may offer your Servants more direct control but may feel to the Free People like less free and more tyrannical system.
Inquisition of the Ten Nations.
Even if sentences of the village authority - either the new one or the various currently existing systems - are strongly suspected to be unlawful, it may be NOT necessary to bother you if you create also the Inquisition of the Ten Nations. 20 or 50 Inquisitors, under command of a First Inquisitor, could be raised above others, armed well, and march to villages suspected of unlawful judgments, to investigate the matter in your name. Hopefully, this would be needed only very rarely. If needed only very rarely, even such a small number of men could be often enough to replace your harsh attention.
This whole system may sound complicated but should waste less of your time when implemented well, not more.
A piece of small advice about law enforcement and proportionate force needed to enforce order.
Village Guards, City Guards and to a lesser extent even Inquisitors, differ from the Armed Forces and warparties in their main duty: they mainly enforce laws, instead of battling with outsiders or raiding outsiders.
This means, that during "fighting" against one drunk criminal of the Free People - like during a Festival, for example - Guards or Inquisitors should often try to use non-lethal force. For example, wooden clubs instead of deadly metal weapons. They should also own deadly weapons, but these deadly weapons should be used only against outsiders, obvious traitors, and greatly dangerous criminals.
That's still mixed elements of local democracy with tyranny and pure barbarism, and any lawyer would be disgusted and shocked, but you know, the Bronze Age.
The 'eye' which I referred to last time is a small protrusion along the side of a boat that an oar can be rested against and pushes against the oar when it is rowed. If the boat holds an oar in place instead of the one rowing, a man can wield two oars at once, or use both arms on a longer and heavier oar, and thus put more effort into their movement. I have heard tell of huge, long, low, and flat keeled ships driven with speed and power by forty men driving twenty large oars on each side through the water. Such ships could be very nimble and quick, and carry warriors near enough other boats to throw stones and arrows, or even jump to other boats. I think sailing ships are generally regarded as better if you know how to make very good sailing ships... Though a ship of many oars can still carry sails has the advantage that a lack of wind does not leave it stuck.
More complicated and advanced sailing ships often carried cannons and fired at each other with them. A big enough ship can carry many cannons around on the water without sinking. You turn the ship to aim the cannons at another ship or at foes on land, and then try to fire them in time with the rise and fall of the boat. I think there are improved ways of firing a cannon more quickly that would make this easier? Of course, this is horribly dangerous with the cannons you have now, which are inconsistent with each other and prone to exploding.
It should be known that lodestones, small pieces of grey stone which sometimes naturally form shapes like cubes and pyramids and attract iron to themselves and attract to each other in some directions but are repelled in others, are magnetic. 'Magnetic' and 'magnetism' is the name of the property that attracts iron and attracts and repels other magnetic things. Magnets are objects which are magnetic. Anyway, a useful device called a Compass can be constructed by taking an iron needle and rubbing it on a lodestone many times in the same direction, or possibly by striking it with the lodestone. This should impart a little bit of magnetism to the iron needle. By driving the needle through a piece of cork or light wood and then putting the cork in a bowl of water so that the needle is horizontal with the surface of the water, the needle will slowly come to point in one direction no matter how it is placed in the water.
This is because the whole earth is like an enormous but very, very weak magnet - another magnet will be pulled ever so lightly to align with it. The force is so small that you can only tell by letting a magnetic needle turn freely so it is pulled into alignment. One point of the needle should come to face north and the other south. Which end points north will be the same each time. You can paint one end of the needle to tell north and south apart. This can be used to help ships and travelers find their way, and while the sun's rising and setting also tells you which way north is, a compass can do so more precisely - and can do so at any time of day without stopping to view the sun's procession or even at night if you have light enough to see, which might be handy.
Lodestones are usually grey and silvery or brownish-black and are only found on the surface of the world, very rarely deep in caves. It is said that they are created by lightning, but I am not completely sure this is true. As I said before, they sometimes fall into pointy shapes like cubes or pyramids, but not always. Another telling sign of lodestones is that they can sometimes attract magnetite dust, which clings lightly to it as that stone is heavy with iron. Compasses are good for helping boats find their way, though it would take quite calm seas to use a still bowl of water to find your way. By putting a tiny hole in the center of the magnetized needle and placing it on another needle with a small amount of oil so it can turn freely, a compass that does not need to float on still water can possibly be made. The best compasses are made this way, though it would take careful craftsmanship indeed.
Magnets also interact with electricity and lightning in complicated ways that aren't obviously helpful to make something useful with what you have now. A magnet that is moved relative to coils of copper wire generates a little bit of electricity. If you fixed a magnet in place and spun around it some copper wire tightly coiled into a tube shape no wider than a fist, as if the tube were a very long wheel, you could create a small and controlled piece of lightning in those wires. The wire might grow warm as if by magic, and if the ends of the coiled wire were put near each other they might produce a spark or give a shock to one who touched it. It would be much trouble to put this to actual use except as a curiosity, though. Perhaps bits of this have been explained before but I forget.
After some thought, I feel that I'm ready to adjust my votes. Discussion with other Voices is welcome.
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
[X] [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders for yourself
Hope that Bianca dont know this cause I'm proud of myself XD
Do you know oak tree Bianca? Do you know acorns? Acorns are great great food but people need to know how to prepare acorns properly otherwise badly prepared acorns good only for pigs. And thats a waste I tell you. Acorns are better for humans when done good. There are mild poisons in acorns how to remove poisons?Easy. Only use acorns when brown. But even with brown ripe acorns we have a problem. Bitter terrible taste and mild poison if eaten too much by people and good only for pigs. How solve that? Easy. Smply leaching it out of acorns in a pot of boiling water, pouring out the hot water and having repeated changes of water. Continue doing this until the water does not turn brown after you have strained and replaced it. There is also method without boiling: this method is bagging the nuts and allowing them to soak in a clean, flowing stream for a few days until no brown-colored water is seen when checking their progress. Remove the acorns once leached and leave to simply dry or to make roasted nuts after drying, as desired. Raw acorns can be stored for months without spoiling; this dramatically increases their value, being a "process as needed food resource", however, they must be dry or otherwise they can get moldy and mildewed. But only when leached are they ready to use! Its possible to make many stuff from acorns. Acorn flour. Or add to stews. Or many many methods but remove damn bitter stuff before.
Oak trees are good very good for ships. Good to have oak trees. Warning. "The leaves and acorns of the oak tree are poisonous to cattle" bitter stuff like acorns. Pigs are immune but when done better acorns are too good for damn pigs! Share this wisdom and without bitter stuff acorns great for people better than many foods. Healthy. Some tribes may LACK WISDOM and think: acorns are food of pigs poor starved losers... but NO simply do acorns properly! And then excellent stuff
Useful windbreaks maybe? Oaks. Not only oaks but thats one idea. Maybe we will have more ideas
And do you know how to eat stinging nettles? Nasty nasty plant but people need to only boil it and then its great for health! WARNING use leather gloves or something raw nettles are yes stinging. "Believe it or not, however, nettles can be a delicious, nutritious, non-stinging food." Your goal here is to "blanch" the nettles — boil them for a short time — so that their stingers are inactivated.
wikihow.com/Eat-Stinging-Nettles
When people farm. Teach people to use cunning not only hard work. Someone lack wisdom and plant only apple trees. Apple trees suffer from disease. Better: "one apple tree is planted with one plum, and one pear, and one hazelnut, and one peach, and five gooseberries, and ten blackberries, and ten blueberries, and dozens of non-fruit plants that return nitrogen and minerals and mulch to the soil and produce flowers and nectar that attract beneficial predatory insects and birds that eat the bugs that prey on our fruit. "
My fellow Voices, are many among you offended that Bianca was not fascinated by overcomplicated devices last time? Or that we were forced to wait for more years than it was usual before? I ask because I feel your presence and yet not many among you try to say things, much fewer Voices than years ago.
I'm a cat, and cats can be evil, black ones especially, intelligent cats doubly so, but seriously, advising is fun.
Vote on our main decisions at least, so that we can progress properly.
Anyway. When I think about matters of evil, I'm now reminded about something.
Bianca, you say that people of the Ten Nations are equal, and yet you already used some small inequality to enforce better customs. At least i think so. Let me explain. You once said, that these among the free people who refused to use your black soil, were deprived of your magical blessing, and then experienced "ruin" when their land was depleted by their farming idiocy.
I understand that in this one case other families of the Free People refused to help and share WITH OBVIOUS IDIOTS, at least in numbers needed to fully feed these obvious idiots, at least in numbers needed for idiots to prosper equally to intelligent and decent servants of Bianca. See? Inequality is decent sometimes.
Well I, for one, likely don't have time to do anything in this quest for at least two weeks due to an impending exam period.
Also, Bianca, if you're hearing us discuss here about voting periods the way we're doing right now, I can tell you right now that it's a brand of madness you're better off not trying to understand.
Maybe we could actually have Bianca reply to a few quick questions?
I am a bit confused about the problem of the tributaries. Seems to me that if you want to lay claim to all the tribute from a people, then you aught treat them the same as a herd of sheep or a particularly fertile field.
Well, I think that I understand the problem. One among the Ten Nations tribes, Gawdtha, believes tributary tribe of outsiders ("Friends of Gawdtha") to be their ekhm... property (or at least vassal), and another tribe of the Ten Nations (so equals to Gawdtha), the Naumo, raids "Friends of Gawdtha" anyway without recognizing such a relationship.
I would be tempted to take these "Friends of Gawdtha" outsiders directly under the authority of Bianca, if these outsiders are so friendly, obedient and hungry for protection.
If that is the case, then I would say that the metaphor of a flock of sheep or herd of cattle works well. There is little honor in herding cattle, but there is honor in protecting the herd from those who would steal it.
Would it be reasonable to pm people who have previously participated in case they missed the alert?
Anyway, based on the new information we have, I think the most likely location of the Pact Nations is Lithuania. Mainly because the Buraghm flows to the south while we are near the north coast. I think that the Buraghm is what we know as the Dnieper. Also from Bianca's description of the coast which to the east slopes north, folds in on itself, and then continues east. While to the west, the coast curves north before turning west-south-west.
If I am correct, the one who follows the coast to the east will eventually curve back west.
I thought that this may be the case, different world than our visions, but the same basic shape of land. Lithuania, yes, probably. This version of the world, and in particular Europe, seems to be slightly more developed than what we can see from our Visions of the Bronze Age. This was the case even before our meddling, I mean, a few cities, that we couldn't see. Not all things seem to be consistent with our visions, we were able to see how world would look without any visible magic present. So no Gods, no Bianca, no Nine Nations, no immortals or monsters, these things we were unable to see. But mostly it seems to be right, we may know the shape of the land. Sadly, we cannot show a map to Bianca.
It's no wonder that Bianca knows nothing about walnuts. These grow in the North America, on the other side of the world, far far far far far West. And no, even keeled ships are nowhere good enough to sail that far, not yet.
To the North there also should be lands beyond the sea, but even colder and less pleasant than the Ten Nations. South is warmer and warmer - up to the middle of the world sphere surface at least, only then climate starts to be colder again. While the north is colder and colder up to the North Pole (South Pole is also cold, but it's enormously far away). On the North Pole of the world sphere there is forever frozen ice. North is far less interesting than the south, but north you should have more furs, hides, seals and whales; and less people not more. Terrible places during winter, and the North Pole is always terrible.
If we are right and your world is indeed only slightly different than world of our dreams and memories.
Also also, Voices, I think that it would be helpful to identify where our areas of expertise could provide the most benefits for the least cost.
For example. We provided advice for more and safer heat, with chimneys and coal, now it's a time for ways to retain heat inside of a house.
Once we mentioned glass in windows (windows are small holes in the walls that supply daylight to the building). Bianca probably dismissed this as madness - for her glass is still pretty precious and rare.
Overcomplicated devices to produce glass cheaply are imaginable, so we see glass constantly everywhere, buuut... Like I said, let's try "the most benefits for the least cost". No overcomplicated devices before simpler solution is in use.
I believe that, for the vast majority of her people and maybe outside of a few richest men of cities, semi-transparent pieces of hide in a wooden frame could be much more possible than glass. I also know about nations that used flattened animal horn. Of course, glass and especially flat transparent glass would be more ideal, but also so expensive.
The wooden frame would need to fit into a window hole neatly, without any holes remaining. I imagine that cement or concrete could be maybe used for that, to fill out imperfections.
Also, it's possible to build windows in a way that would make them possible to open and close easily, without complicated removal of a whole window, but maybe someone else could explain that. I'm not sure that I see and understand these parts clearly.
My apologies, Bianca, if your people figured this stuff about windows already on their own. Without glass and with a semi-transparent hide it sounds pretty common-sense.
Of course, if we assume wealth unlimited, then glass would be ideal, and preferably two pieces of glass with some empty space in the middle. When air is trapped, instead of moving, it's a surprisingly good barrier to heat transfer/escape.
Ventilation. Some fresh outdoor air is needed inside of a building, of course, but for that well-designed one small hole is much better and save more heat than open holes in all windows. While fireplaces that connect with chimneys are obviously on the ground, such a hole should be up high, and preferably open into a small chimney-style channel.
As with many things, wise balance is needed. Excessive openings and unintentional holes cause dangerous heat loss during winter, while utter lack of fresh air could cause illness or death.
Not only that is an issue with heat. There is also the fact, that materials transfer heat even when there is no movement of air. Some materials, lIke metals, transfer heat faster, while others, like fortunately bricks or earth or wood, slower. Still, external walls should be probably made two-bricks wide, not one-brick wide.
In comparison with many other pieces of advice, this stuff about heat should be pretty easy to test. As you know, some caves are so well insulated from heat transfer, that without any heating there is never hot nor freezing inside. Houses are impossible to isolate that well, but the basic principle is maybe now more clear.
I wonder how a wall out of bricks, then compressed earth, and then again bricks would work to reduce heat transfer... With some small amount of cement added... Probably could be pretty heavy, though.
Oh, and mold inside of a house is very unhealthy for mortals. Too much moisture in the air. Maybe a small ventilation hole above places with boiled or wet stuff needed. Humph. Experiment.
A very wise balance of various concerns is needed.
Pretty smooth walls without any holes can be made by covering bricks or stone with a thin layer of plaster: a mixture of clay, sand, water and sometimes cement.
Or lime plaster? Lime plaster can better prevent mold. Sand, water, and lime.
Back to glass windows, so unpractical and so costly but also so efficient at preventing the escape of heat, so tempting... You can join smaller pieces of glass into bigger structure with some lead metal...
Lead is a slow poison for mortals, lead can cause children to be stupid, aggressive and old people to die slightly faster, but mainly when they breathe around hot lead or when lead is touching water or food... Manufacturing uses are much safer. Wise balance needed. Simply never make water pipes or cups out of lead, never ever. Never try to make redewing devices out of lead, never ever.
Things like glass-lead windows of the wealthy should be reasonably safe. Balls of lead for small weapons of bursting dust should be nice.
Lead, lead... Gray and silvery ore, often with silver around, but much more weighty than silver. Much more common and cheaper than silver, if you have ore around. Dull grey. Metal with a very low melting temperature, you could melt lead in a campfire.
There is also mercury, a dangerous and pretty useless for now wonder, the only metal liquid at normal everyday heat levels, no heating needed... Even more, much more toxic than lead. I can see, unwise people that tried to use mercury as a medicine; bad idea, very bad idea. Some complicated devices can use mercury, but there is no need for these, not yet.
Oil of vitrol (Sulfuric acid)
Burning sulfur together with saltpeter in the presence of steam can produce mildly interesting substance, oil of vitrol, also called sulfuric acid. This liquid can literally melt human body and many other things, but can be stored safely in glass containers. Mostly unpractical as a weapon, unless for pure terror, but may be needed in the future for more of our advice. As you know, pretty often our future advice depends on past advice. Also, you sometimes like terrible stuff.
Sweet oil of vitriol (diethyl ether)
Redewing oil of vitrol together with pure alcohol cause the creation of diethyl ether, also called sweet oil of vitriol. This is no longer a terrible substance when properly made, and in fact, can be used to ease pain during surgery!
Back to buildings... Anybody, maybe in cities, tried to build two-story buildings? I mean, like one room that is directly above another. This saves space when, as in the city center, space is in the short supply; but of course foundation and walls and ceiling (that doubles as a floor for the next level) need to be properly strong. When design of everything is perfected, even four-story buildings are imaginable with wise use of bricks, concrete, etc, and can be reasonably safe.
I can imagine a city... Traders have their goods and haggle with buyers on the first floor, while they sleep - and probably store parts of their small hoard that are not for trade - above. Ladders or stone stairs are used...
Roman Empire... There I can see even 7-story buildings in their capital, but that starts to be highly dangerous even with absolutely perfect use of bricks, and not to mention, a fire hazard and a chore to climb that high. But 2 levels are useful for cities.
Do you know that even if most of the building is build out of bricks or stone, a ceiling can be held up with solid wooden beams? Though I remember that Burgeck tried to solve their problems with curved ceilings, that's also a solution, and cunning development of our arch idea, but less ideal if somebody wants to have two usable floors, one over another.
Sewage system. For a small city, it may be more beneficial to bury most of their feces and other waste for two or three years, and then afterward when time passes and waste starts to be safer, dig that out and send to villages for use as compost. But a truly big city will probably need some channels for removal at least some of human waste, wastewater and rainwater. I do not need to add, as we talked about this again and again and again, that such unpleasant wastewater should be isolated from the fresh water used for drinking and even washing, isolated as much as imaginable. Dumping wastewater downstream is a decent enough for a city itself, but tend to contaminate water downstream. It's better to have a pretty big useless field around. Wetlands, including artificially created small wetlands, are very decent at eating dangerous human waste - for that to work ideally, some plants and things from a wetland would need to be transplanted.
I know about some unwise cities where people simply dumped their feces outside their homes, terrible, terrible cities full of disease and preventable deaths. Terrible.
Aqueduct.
Some great cities build channels to supply a city with fresh water from mountain or hill streams. Sometimes even bridges specially build for such a water channel were used! That's of course pretty costly in resources and labor, but can be done.
Cat feedback to you. I think that maybs add Supreme Court over all nations to complain about bad village court before case going to bianca or inquisitors. Inquisition replace Biancas for small stupid mess but limits: like no killing without reasons and no mutilation and no torturing people ever and discipline and not working drunk(like guard or inquisitors or judges etc etc only drink after job done).So more like police not meme Spanish Inquisition. Add some stuff to guard roads and river traffic trade like XIX century river police
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
[X] [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders for yourself
Oh Bianca the undying, some years ago you asked us how you could know the size of the earth.
Fear not for the answer can be deduced without walking to the west or east for years on end.
First you must find two spots in your realm that are around six or ten days of walking apart in the north to south axis and plant a stick in these two spots, then measure the distance between these two points in what ever units you wish to use.
Now that you know the distance between these two points and the sticks have been erected you must find out the angles that the sun makes the sticks cast shadows at the same day of the year when the sun is at it's highest. I would recommend the summer solar equinox as a good marker for this.
You can find the angle's degree by using string that you pull from the tip of the stick to the shadows tip and using a disc that has been divided trough it's center to form 360 equal parts.
Now you must count how many of these parts are between the string and the pole when the center of the disk is is at the sticks tip and one of the division lines goes along the stick.
Now you subtract the angle of the southern stick from the northern stick if the result is negative do not panic for it will still work you just need to consider it to be a positive number.
Now you have all the number needed to calculate the worlds circumference.
The formula is quite easy to be honest.
The result of the subtraction is divided by 360 is equal to the distance between the points divided by the worlds circumference, which is in this case marked as an X.
now you must multiply both sides of the equation with both 360 and the worlds circumference creating a situation in which.
X multiplied by the result of the subtraction is equal to the distance multiplied by 360.
Now you must divide by the result of the subtraction.
creating a situation in which X is equal to distance multiplied by 360 which is then divided by the result of the subtraction.
Thus you have calculated the approximated size of the earth.
If you wish to know how long a meter of which we voices have mentioned before is you just take a quarter of the circumference and divide it by 10,000,000.
Paper, paper, paper...
I rember that you were very interested in paper, Bianca, but my wisdom of papermaking is very incomplete, so you may need to wait for other voices. I shall say what I can remember, I'm not able to say more.
I know that making paper out of wood is very hard and may need overcomplicated devices, and that it's much easier to use old rags.
I can dimly recall that you need to boil highly fragmented pieces of rags for a long time, then pound that to form a pulp - a soft, wet, shapeless mass of material. Then strain pulp, maybe though cloth, to form a very thin layer that, when dried, should be a sheet of paper. My apologies, Bianca, the above may be incomplete or insufficient, but at least shows you a way for experimentation.
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
[X] [Judiciary] Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another
So I have been thinking about the Artificer. Right now they are working on the logistics of spreading reaping machines to the whole Ten Nations. But skill in logistics is very different from skill in artificing, so I think it might be best to come up with a lesson plan of sorts to hopefully train them in the necessary skills. Or more likely, train them to recognize if reaping machines are even the best choice for improving the nations agricultural productivity.
My first idea is that the Artificer should spend at least a year being taught by the best among the singers and table rulers each. No longer than that because we do not want her to become a heroic table ruler or singer. Afterwards she should go on a tour of all the large villages and cities of the nation. Try to figure out what little differences each place has in the ways they farm, hunt, gather, and fish. Note down where metal is mined, where it is smelted, forged, and ultimately used. Observe differences in the crops grown in different places. Maybe figure check up on how beekeeping is going, as I recall Bianca only knows that they figured it out, not exactly how they are doing it.
After that, we could have the Artificer try to make various small mechanical trinkets as practice. I happen to own a book called 507 mechanical movements, and I think that figuring out that sort of thing would be excellent training. I would also like her to learn the art of lifelike drawing & drafting. Not just her designs, but real things like people, animals, and plants. Detailed drawings of bones and organs made during dissections. The ability to accurately draft & dimension parts is vital in communicating their construction, especially for replaceable parts.
Finally, I think that Bianca needs to have a frank and truthful discussion about their mutual goals with the Artificer because you cannot really expect that gratefulness or honor shall last past one or two mortal lifetimes.
I believe that artificer is unaging, not undying. There is always a small chance of dying from unfortunate accidents.
Certainly, to spread our advances widely is an important task. I thought that maybe some sort of a trade school could be estabilished around Bianca's Great House, to spread new crafts better. Some youth work on roads for the tribute of labor, a few are educated as table-rulers, so to have a few(dozens) learning crafts and production methods - should be doable.
I think maybe you are misunderstanding. I mean to have the Artificer travel the Nation for several years so that she might learn the skills necessary for maximizing the nations agricultural productivity.
No, no. What I am saying is that at the Artificer's current level of skill the reaper will not happen in a way that actually impacts the entire Nation. If we want to use the Artificer then we need to level her up via training & travel.
6 [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul
and the currently fallow croplands and pastures
around it
5 [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this
discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders
for yourself
4 [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from
their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca,
but only for five years, after which they select
another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the
Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next
spring.
4 [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain
a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few
priests made only out of these people who love you very
much.
"Hah! Yes! There is a delicious contrast between the way that each claimant must surely expect that they will at least get something out of the compromise but, instead, they will get nothing! Lovely!
"Anyone may profess to love me very much. Surely my nascent priesthood would be flooded by beggars and the less professionally desperate. Is that what you mean a priesthood to be? The shelter of those who are not otherwise provided for? I do not see immediately how to separate, 'Prove the greatness of your love for me,' from, 'Prove the greatness of your desire for the power and security that will come from being a member of my priesthood.' If love for me and wanting priestly status were sufficient, why should I not have permitted priesthood to the Burgeck? Am I to personally judge each petitioner? Surely there is not enough time in a season for it. And every season will bring new desperation and desire. Well, I will accept the possibility that some may love me sufficiently to serve me in this manner. And if it happens that one or more are made known to me, and I know their love is great enough, then I will make some few of them into my priesthood.
"I will direct the judges to choose one from among themselves by council, but only for five years after which another must be chosen. And I will direct the wisest of my singers to Biancvint to oversee them for a year at a time.
"And, yes, the former lands of Wrul should be the lands of the Galugr, no matter that those lands are so distant from the rest of the Lands of the Tribes of the Ten Nations, nor that they are separated by a haunting of still notable potency, though it does fade."
"As am I, voice. The people travel further not only to explore but to raid and to cast net and line, and so they find themselves more greatly enriched in prizes won from distant places, in plunder and in fish."
Once more tis' I; The great and procrastinative Millwright!
Via communion with the Lost Three whom channel Our power, I can confirm the provenance and potency of that Mad Magician's potion.
K-UwU-zt has regained his youthful vigor for a period of six hundred and sixty six moons, which likely began shortly after the fall of Enonl. Similar results hath the Mad Magician. The Devicer though, could prove quite the boon, for she has become truly unaging, if not undying.
Which sparks the question: Did you gather observe enough of the Mad Magician's rituals to eventually reproduce his formula? To create a new breed of immortals could prove both a boon and a curse... Be warned, all three who imbibed the potion had some measure of luck, for the possibility of a monstrous transformation was not so unlikely as one would like.
"I have decided that the cost -- in both lives and accord -- of failed attempts at replicating the magician's potion is too great for the practice to be allowed. The potion itself may one day be of value again, though, and without regular practice, my own understanding of the process will not last forever. So I have had an incorrect version of the steps written down, with impossible requirements. And because I have forbidden any correct version of the steps, in time I will be the only one who knows what each impossible requirement actually represents, for each has a secret connection known only to me."
Viewers at home should note that Bianca is not intended as a role model of any sort, particularly not in terms of operational security. Don't roll your own crypto.
"Some have already come to sorrow in their attempts at creating the potion. In every case the quaffer has died shortly afterward in pain or at least in alarming discomfort. Life is lost, but that is the way of people, always taking whatever they can from those who are outsiders to one degree or another. But so long as no others succeed, all will come to understand that the magic is out of their reach and in time there will be fewer attempts."
The amount of water in the air is (called [Humidity]) is measured by a [Hygrometer], which takes advantage of the fact that the length of hair changes in direct proportion with the water in air. To construct a hygrometer you must first cleanse grease from the hair by washing in water and strong alcohol. Then you need some mechanism to magnify the change in length of the hair and compare with a fixed scale. Perhaps a good task for your new Devicer eh?
As to humidities affects upon bursting dust, it generally causes the dust to burst "slower", but just generally makes it harder to predict how much boom you get.
The best you can do is try to keep your bursting dust as dry as possible and make sure to swab out your cannon between shots. The residue of bursting dust will foul things quickly otherwise.
"If any hair will do, then surely horsehair will do best. No other beast has hair so long and at once so sturdy in each of its strands while also being ready at hand. I suppose if a strand of horsehair is fixed to the flat side of a split timber with a bead to pull it straight when the timber is upright, then marks may be made on the timber's face to show what length the hair has been at different times.
"I don't see the need for a device of greater complexity, Millwright. Why do you?
"But, yes, I see the need to keep the bursting dust dry, if humidity causes it to perform poorly. If humidity is high, though, how can the dust be dried out? Surely smoking it will change the dust in other ways, if it is not set to burst in the heat. The same for being packed in salt.
"No less, it is good to know to watch for this in any case."
Speaking of cannon, yet another reason to build them in one place and carry to battle is that you can achieve better quality with a dedicated building, cannon tools,and cannon-wrights that don't have to risk death or disease to practice their craft. For instance a large table that rotates the entire cannon about its long axis, while a sturdy cutting tool is lowered through guides that keep it perfectly straight from the floor above.
Have you tried making smaller cannon? You may need a ball the size of a head to bring down a wall, but a fist could scythe through an entire line of warriors if you got them at the right angle and skipped the round off the ground like a rock over water. Such a cannon could also be relatively mobile on the field of battle if hitched like a chariot.
"Small cannon? Well, it cannot be said to be a waste of the little bursting powder available when warriors already pack it into firepots to hurl into their enemies, to wildly mixed results.
"So it seems there should be one chariot for the cannon and another for the balls and bursting powder and packing cloth and shoving staff and such. And do the drivers of the chariots also load and fire the cannon? Or is another chariot needed for those?"
As for your question about weeds, I suppose you want a ground cover that will cannot survive when tilled as well as weeds can. Some plants are simply better at growing in up through recently overturned dirt. A really good plow can let you completely overturn the top layer of dirt to more completely prevent intrusions from previous ground cover. And as I mentioned with winter wheat, so long as you have seed to spare it is not to bad a plan to put down a crop in the fall that will die in the winter. Since the dead wheat can be tilled back into the land and helps prevent weeds from taking hold.
"It sounds like, 'What grows in last in fallow fields?' is the riddle which needs to be solved, here. The first things to grow, surely, are what was turned under the soil but rose up through it, but which are not poisonous or otherwise troublesome. When we know that, we will know what to plant after harvest and before Winter."
I believe that was all the questions you had for me. Next up are a few things I have stumbled across that you might find helpful.
[Bearing Bronze] is a bronze alloy consisting of eight parts copper, one part tin, and one part lead that is an excellent material for the interface between moving parts of many a machine. By it's nature, lead does no truly alloy with copper, but as the molten mixture cools the lead precipitates into a great many tiny beads. When in use the bronze is slowly worn down, beads of soft lead are released to act like a layer of grease. Increasing the proportion of lead increases the alloys lubricating properties, but reduces its strength and ease of casting such that more than two parts in ten of lead is generally considered unusable. This alloy is additionally useful because it strikes a good balance between durability and the ability for small imperfections to be worn away in use. Often it will be cast inside a casing of a more durable metal to act a a sacrificial layer that can be more easily replaced when the part wears out in several years.
"I understand you to mean that this mixture of copper, tin, and lead should be used when one surface of metal must rub up against another without catching and carrying it along. If I have that right, please tell me how I can find more lead, of which I have previously been warned to not allow contact with people or their beasts or the food or water meant for either."
[War Drums] are large drums that make a loud deep noise. When in battle you can have those to young to be useful fighters play the drums from the back. They need only be trained to keep a steady beat that to which the warriors can time their advance. Perhaps introduce some form of [Line Dancing] as a form of entertainment that will also subtly train your people to march to the beat of a drum. You can also use the drummers as a way of battlefield communication. One beat may tell the warriors at that point in the line that they are falling behind and must push the advance. Another might tell them to hold their position. In this way you could better maintain your warriors as a cohesive whole in battle. It could help you pull off tactics like having the edges of your force curve in to envelop the enemy without leaving any gaps for them to exploit to break out. Another good signal would be one telling the foremost warriors it is time to swap places with the man behind them so that they can rest a bit and thus battle longer.
"Hunters use horns to signal each other on their hunts. One sound says they have the prey and others should come. Another sound means only that all with horns should reply so that they may know they can all still hear the others. Another that they are ready for the setters to spring their trap, and so forth.
"Likewise, horns are used in battle. Each warleader either carries their own or has a close companion who sounds their horn for their wareader. Drum, though, are not used in this way. I do not know if a distant drum could even be heard over the noise of battle. How can larger drums be made for this purpose, Millwright?"
The [Chicken] is perhaps the single most useful form of livestock ever domesticated in human history. I am sorry to say that I only just realized you have never hinted at having them. They originate in the jungles of the land of storms across the southern sea and twice a far east past a land and of endless sands. The chicken is a bird that can only fly short distances and is raised for it's meat, feathers, and prodigious supply of eggs. They mainly feed off bugs and seeds, but some places will feed them directly off grain because of any animal they produce the most edible meat for a given amount of grain.
To my knowledge the chicken has spread far from it's ancestral homeland, and your expeditions to the southern sea may be able to trade for some if they follow the coast to the east or even make for the lands to the south of the southern sea. As a warning, the southern sea is known to be the most mild of the worlds seas in terms of weather, but it is also well known for it's many monsters. And I hear there is at least one god who hangs out down there and is particularly fond of seducing mortals whilst in the guise of a beast.
"The people capture fowl that fly into their lands in the Spring of most years. They pull or cut feathers from one or both wings, so that the fowl cannot escape to the sky, and keep them as best they can for their meat, eggs, reasonably stiff feathers, and soft down. These birds fly far enough that they are unknown in the winter, having gone somewhere far away to the south, so I do not believe they are the birds you speak of. I do not know if bugs make up any great amount of their diet, but surely all fowl would eat any little living thing that does not keep its distance.
"When these fowl are permitted to brood their clutch to hatching, they become much more aggressive. The non-egg-layers among them are often considered more trouble than they are worth. And for this reason not all fowl are caught and kept in this way, only the larger sort.
"One who can keep any number of fowl to fatness is regarded as wise and worthy of regard. And it is the pride of this or that family who can boast that their fowl replenish their numbers or prosper without needing that new birds be captured each year.
"I will direct my traders and scouts to look for birds from distant lands which can only fly short distances even with no feathers removed and which lay many, many eggs and eat seed and bugs. Is there anything else I should know of these fowl?"
The Lost Three have imparted to us the fate of the Greater Haunted Forest. It's foul energies shall not be amenable to defeat for at least a thousand years. The forest shall continue it's expansion until such time as tis' rebuffed by those natural magics of the lands around.
That in mind,
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
Long have we spake: You cannot be a god without worshipers. It is sort of a package deal. There is even some reason to believe that gods directly gain some power from being worshiped (beyond people listening to them). And you cannot hope to have worshipers without some authority (like a priesthood) telling them why you are to be worshiped in lieu of other gods.
However, your objections in mind, I suggest
[X] [Shrine] Bianca should be venerated in shared temples maintained by priesthoods of other gods
Because putting yourself on the same level as gods is less likely to make them personally affronted than elevating yourself above them.
As for judges, I would say that the one who is "in charge" should only have the slightest extra privilege.
[X] [Judiciary] Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another
[X] [Tributary] Let them gamble each spring for who should take tributary from these disputed outsiders in that year
Not sure I really understand the problem here?
"I do not believe, Millwright, that the Endless Winds cares whether or not she is worshiped. She goes where she wills over the face of the world, and does what she wills there. If she treats any differently who call themselves her worshipers, I have not heard of it. I have known some to make pretense of speaking for her, as seems to be inextricably part of worshiping the divine and as the Free People of the Ten Nations do presume to speak for me. But those have always been shown to have been pretenders only, without authority or power from the Endless Wind, at least..
"But you are right. My goals differ. But my singers and now my table-rulers are sufficient to my goals. How would a priesthood improve on that?
"And the problem with the tributary is that a problem between the tribes was so insoluble that it made its way to my attention."
While we rarely know magic, we now have good reasons to think that Kuwuzt and the evil magician will be unaging for a fifty years from the moments of drinking their potions, and then shall age normally; while your maker of devices is unaging forever, but I believe that she could die from violence. But better to not test that, as she is useful and should try to make better reapers. She should be used to make better devices for at least a few more decades, and she may gradually become much better at this task. Design of complicated devices was not something done before, after all, thus it's hard.
I hope that you can replicate the potion without the evil magician? While too many unaging people could be dangerous, and the manufacturing of the potion is terrible, in a few cases of exceptional people benefits may be better than risks.
"As I told the voice calling itself Millwright, I wish to avoid widespread attempts to duplicate the making of the medicine of long life. Those will, I am certain, cause strife for the Free People of the Ten Nations and trouble for me. The Fisher People get on well enough with a single lifetime each. They will continue to do so."
The matter of the Great Haunted Forest is unpleasant, as I feel ashamed that we caused this mess. While we rarely know magic, we now have reasons to believe that the forest may grow for many hundreds of years. But you have more and more resources than it was the case before. Could you use your magicians and the tribute of labor to slow this terrible process?
If the forest is truly impossible to stop, relocation of not only lesser giants but of everything may be very slowly needed. Very slowly, but you are undying... I would then advise retreat west, south-west and south.
"The people themselves rarely have any sense of how the cursed woodlands grow. Only those who know the land well can see it without aid. So that aid has been given them in the form of stones on which is written, "I was placed in the twenty-fourth year by the counting of Bianca the Undying. And at that time the cursed woodlands lay five hundred paces to the north." And in this way they may see that the cursed woodlands have grown because they are now only one hundred fifty paces to the north in the year fifty-nine by my counting.
"But they do not care enough to make much of it, unless it is on their own land. To make any work against the cursed woodlands would be to make battle against all the spirits and creatures and other cursed things in the whole area. That may not come to much even if all the Tribes were behind it. And they are not."
"Often enough, nothing at all is seen through the viewer, even in drops taken from water that was known to hold the tiny moving bits of living glass. I understand, as do any of the wise, that searching a droplet for tiny life and finding none does not mean that the water from which that droplet was taken has no tiny life. It is like any hunt: some days the game is simply too well hidden. It may be that there were no hares, or that they went unseen in the underbrush, frozen still in their way."
I feel interested about advances in surgery made by you or your servants. Let's start with the basic question: Any patient managed to live through something more complicated than cutting off a hand? And preferably not only "managed to live through" but benefited from the procedure.
"Yes? But this was true before I first summoned you. From time to time a person takes some horrible injury or is troubled by a lump or knot of flesh or has a wound that will not heal, and then surrenders themself to one who they know to be wise in the ways of bodies and medicine who will cut into them and dress the wound in some fashion. And even before I knew of you voices there were some who lived.
"Now with boiled needles and thread and hands and supplicant both washed with soaps and other things you and others have spoken of, the one who is cut on dies shortly thereafter less often. This is a fine thing, for as much of the person is preserved still adds to the strength of the Ten Nations. This despite that they will all die soon enough, being mortals.
"Some years back a young woman came to my great house to seek help. She bled little, in the way people do, but bled always, as is known to be wrong. Still pains came to her as they do to some every so many moons. By prodding with fingers, she or another had found a lump which they'd figured was around the size of her fist within the hollow of her belly. The wisest of her village said it needed to be cut out, but they were all in some dispute with her own family, so she did not trust them.
"Nonetheless, my singers and table-rulers came to the same conclusion and determined that she should be cut open and the malformed flesh removed. The woman agreed, and was cut upon, and endured, and was relieved of one malformation considerably larger than her fist, and also of her womb and of the companions of her womb which were all set into the lump. And what bled for that cutting, inside was burned by hot metal, and stopped. And then she was closed up, and sewn up, and when she could take food she ate what the wise told her. In time she walked again and worked, and raised the children of her marriage, and people do. She preferred her life afterward to the life she had when she came to me, for certain. How could she not?
"Tsk. I had wished to cut her open again when she died, to see what came of our work in her innards. But she was lost at sea, as happens."
The great limitation on survival is the blood loss. I can imagine methods to replace blood, but these methods are so enormously complicated, that I don't want to waste your time now - for now you must work with this limitation in mind. Methods and tool to slow inevitable loss of blood during surgery were mentioned previously.
"Yes. This is known. We fed that cankered woman broths this leaf and that root and that organ that the wise know to restore the blood after she was sewn. And many die shortly after being so cut, of course. The number is much higher than those who come to live more or less as they had before."
I advise for training wise healers and surgeons on dead bodies and pigs. Pigs have surprisingly similar size and function of internal organs to humans, despite obviously different external apperance.
"I believe you or another have suggested this before, Black Cat. And yes, the wise are told to gain familiarity with human bodies by cutting open certain of the dead among people and to learn of the manner and interior of live pigs now and then."
Also, advances in painkillers and method to make people sleep during surgery are needed. You mentioned once, a long time ago, that you may know a proper plant for this task. Without methods to ease pain, even bold people may want to die instead of suffering through surgery, especially while methods are not yet perfected and death is still highly possible. Survival rates should rise with more developed details of surgery, as is the case with quality of any art.
Surgeons, after their initial training, could also learn much from helping Armed Forces of your servant cities, especially after battles. Many, many terribly wounded people. Most would die anyway, so no great loss if surgery may be often not good enough.
"Indeed I know of a poison which, at sufficiently low doses, causes a sleeping stupor. But it has been noted that those who remain awake while the medicine of the knife is done to them will, if they are restrained from interfering with the work, more often recover themselves.
"And the wise who have accompanied the conquerors on their marches and in their boats do become more skillful in their arts. But they also come to illness and death more frequently, as do all who follow in the camps after the marching warriors. My table-rulers do what they can to win the greatest benefit for the people as a whole, sending some of the most experienced home so that they can teach, or at least so that they may be questioned at length about their skills. Not all are suited to taking on students."
Simple stethoscope.
There is a tool that allow healers and surgeons to hear internal sounds of the human body, for example heartbeat, or sounds of lungs, or bowels. These sounds often differ between healthy and ill people, and between various types of diseases and wounds. Healer or surgeon could of course press their ear to the body of the patient, but such closeness is often unadvisable, germs and stuff. Use of a wooden, funnel-shaped tube with an ending on the ear side is better and safer. You press one end to the body of your patient, and other to your ear.
"The wise do press their ears against the bodies of the ill, to listen to the noises of their innards, in particular their heartbeats and the sounds of breathing. I do not know what precautions might be taken already for being so close to the ill. That is the risk taken by the wise who seek to aid another. They can only cover their face and wash their hands and, now, employ a widened pipe of wood, I suppose."
By the way, do you know what sound is? Vibrations of air, basically. Extremely subtle with comparision to serious movement of air like wind, but human and animal ears can somehow detect these subtle and invisible sound waves. In airless place, though only far up from the ground such places exist, there would be no sound.
This also can explain what echo is, reflection of sound waves produced sometimes in empty caves, bottom of the well, etc...
Sound waves travel through the air, bounce off the cave walls and can be heard again by your ears.
"So when I speak to you-- No. You have no ears. So when I speak to another, you are telling me that from my mouth comes a trembling of the substance of air itself? And so long as the one to whom I speak is close enough that the trembling reaches them, the flesh of their ear trembles, also? And that tembling is what all noise is? Why does not each motion of my hand through the air cause such tremblings? How is it that some arrows fall silently while others buzz like bees?
"In the great stone halls of the Burgeck, which seem to be built greater every so many years, it is said that songs are finer and many voices take on a stronger character. I don't know that I care to bother, but if I wanted to make precise and skillful use of this, how would I go about it?"
Basic psychology: dreams.
Do you know what dreams are? Many unlearned people in many simple nations thought that all dreams are magical, but this belief is untrue and unwise. Surely, one dream out of many may be magical somehow, as magic in your world exist, but mostly... The vast majority of dreams simply help mortals "to store important memories and things they learned, get rid of unimportant memories, and sort through complicated thoughts and feelings." This wisdom may be slightly helpful to people who talk with these of troubled minds.
"Do I understand correctly that you mean it to be a comfort to the suffering that their dreams may be without meaning? How can the difference be known between a dream of omens and a one of no import?"
Psilocybin mushroom, also known as magic mushroom.
There are mushrooms that cause vivid, dream-like visions when a mortal is awake. As is the case with dreams, there is no shortage of people who see magic in effects of these mushrooms, even though there is no magic, but only mundane (but weird) reaction of the mortal mind. Some research suggest that moderate and responsible use, under strict control of a wise person, can help warriors with mind damaged by battle, and adults who were overbeaten or otherwise abused as children. These mushrooms are small, with size of about one up to two human fingertips, often light brown. Most often grows in groups, in grasslands not forests, especially wetter areas. It is often found in pastures that have been fertilized with sheep or cow dung, although it does not typically grow directly on the dung. It varies in shape from sharply conical to bell-shaped. On the underside of the mushroom's cap, there are between 15 and 27 individual narrow gills that are moderately crowded together.
Source, Wikipedia, also, this mushroom stuff is illegal, do not use in the real world, etc, etc, etc, etc
"I believe these are known to us, too, though not in quite the same form. They are not to be taken lightly, and if taken improperly, without following the proper forms and purifications of the self, great horrors that cannot be otherwise understood or even described may become known. I don't know if that is any aid to those who cry out at night or jump at sounds or motions that invite no such reaction. Perhaps a journey of visions and sensations leads to some understanding of the breakage? Tell me more of how the wise should control use of these mushrooms."
Priesthood.
A long time ago you asked what a benefit, if any, may be there from having priests. I then called priests "useless parasites", but after these decades of thinking and looking at things, I see some mild benefits and I started to understand why many gods decided to have priests. Why priests exist? Priests, who usually know how to read and write, are much more useful for these cities and nations and gods that lack table-rulers and singers. As you have table-rulers and singers, that already do many things done for other gods by their priests, this is less essential for you.
Spreading useful ways of thinking - your Singers do that for you. Writing - your Singers and Table-Rulers do that for you. Table-Rulers are good at numbers.
Priests also maintain temples and show respect to their god with rituals. Rituals that besides showing respect are often useless. With more wisdom, mildly useful things could be done as rituals instead: maybe washing of hands and bodies, boiling water and drinking herbal tea, proper care for the sick, making devices for you, practicing ways of discovery for you, talking with people of troubled minds... But as I said, many useful things that for other gods are done by priests - are already done for you, simply outside of temples and by singers and table-rulers instead of priests.
"Yes. This is why I have little need of any priesthood. If I want the people to take a certain action, my singers will instruct them. And I know that the words of the priests are not followed by the people any better than the words of my singers are, though many people conspire to hide their disobedience.
"Some way outside the city of Enonl there is a place that is called sacred to Sky and Clay and River, the sources of all things, for in that place their three creations, Grasses, Reeds, and mist like clouds are all seen together at times which are also called sacred. The priests and priestesses of that place teach the making of the Old Gods by Sky and Clay and River differently. The order is the same, and what is made from what is the same. But they name the Old Gods in circles. They say that in the innermost circle are the Keepers: Crocodile, Bear, and Leopard. In the next are the Game: Fish, Deer, and Hare. And in the outermost circle are the Harriers: Rorqual, Wolf, and Hawk. These are further divided into three domains: Scales, Fur, and Cunning.
"These holy people call all the new gods evildoers and pretenders, and they are permitted to do so in recognition of their unique service to Sky and Clay and River who do not otherwise speak for themselves. But their followers do not heed their calls to abstain from the veneration of the new gods beyond some distances from the holy place of mists. Instead they live much as others do, quarreling over this and that and make peace almost just as often.
"I do not think these falsehoods abound because those holy people are wrong -- though they are as Rorqual -- if Her form is like that of whales I have seen -- has no scales. Barnacles are not scales.
"I think these people act falsely because that is the way of people, to make one face to the people whose goodwill they need, deities included, and another to their close friends, or even to other people whose goodwill they need."
Priesthood could be perhaps a way of life for these youths who are too bad with numbers to be great table-rulers, and too bad at singing to be great Singers, but love you much more than most youth. Such people could be priests. Such people could help singers when no ability to sing is needed and table-rulers when there is no need to be excellent with numbers.
Even a priest cannot be a complete idiot with love for you as their only useful thing. Even priests need to do their duties somewhat properly. Boldness not really needed, nor great talents with numbers, but reading, and writing, and some basic thinking ability are useful.
I know about the priests of the Catholic religion that were allowed to be meek but despite that were respected for their wise, polite and nice, very nice advice. Somewhat like singers, but without boldness and singing...
To summarize. There may be some small benefits to have people who love you and constantly encourage others to show respect for you, but many things usually done by Priests are already done for you by your Singers and Table-Rulers, so your need for priests is indeed much lesser than it's usual for gods.
But there is no reason to hate the idea too much! That is my opinion after many, many years of considering this matter carefully and, I hope, without any madness.
If you decide to allow some few people to be priests, simply make sure that singers and table-rulers are more important, above priests.
"What, exactly, should the duties of this priesthood be, beyond those covered by my singers and table-rulers? Is it only for the performance of 'rituals that besides showing respect are useless?'
"I do find I like the idea of rituals that remind the people that they will show me proper respect. But I like those to also include some signs of effect, which are most readily obtained by actual function to the ritual. I know who has and has not paid me tribute. I have table-rulers to keep track of that. And anyone can see with their eyes if the ritual of the black soils has been done properly."
Equality of opportunity and Priesthood.
I can see nations where priests were like a separate tribe of people, yes, but I generally consider that as the bad way of doing things. As you know, I'm one of these voices that believe in some inequality between people as more beneficial than risks of discord, but at the same time, I believe that riches and position above others should come out of cunning and talents of the individual person - instead of benefiting forever their whole family. A possibility that one person may be better than most people - always exists. But a possibility that everyone in the family, and their descendants, will be better than others - is slim. So I support having some of such people outside of their families, as is the case with your Singers.
That's called equality of opportunity. People under such a system are not equal, but riches come to the individual person only because of cunning, hard work, and usefulness to you, not because the whole family is above others forever.
"I have come to see that some of the changes I have made among the Free People of the Ten Nations have made some people far richer than their fellows. The glassmakers, the traders, the bloomerists who work out the making of iron, they all accumulate trinkets and baubles along with better tools and more abundant food. I had thought that in time it would all make its way to me and matters would level out again. But now I am thinking that perhaps that will not happen swiftly enough.
"I continue to see no sign that there is any good to come from some having more than others in this way. But I have seen how it is the result of the making of more and more different and more useful things. I want the Free People of the Ten Nations to have iron, to have better metal than copper alone. I want them to not be at the mercy of whoever it is that has tin, and to their ability to get it and trade it away. I want to peer closely at the face of the moon, which I had no way of doing without the use of lenses. I want the people to have many, many fish. I want goods and news from far away lands. I want a great many things that make it ever more difficult for me to separate the people from their trifles faster than they accumulate.
"And there is discord, Black Cat. Discord and suffering among the people are justified by the acquisition of shiney trash, and I see no wisdom in it. You will need to tell me more about how that is helping anything at all."
Simple inheritance tax.
I can see nations that tried to create some sort of a wise balance: they valued some inequality as more useful than discord and allowed a whole family of an exceptional person to benefit for a while: if the exceptional person very much wanted that to happen instead of being drawn out of their family. But at the same time, they were against raising some families above others forever. They tried to solve this problem by taking most of the family wealth in tribute after their exceptional member died.
"This seems like a good way to upset a family who has just lost their exceptional member. Is the passing of a prosperous trader or widely successful rader the best time to call for tribute from their family? I find taking tribute from their victories more graciously received."
Simple welfare state.
Poor people can ofter tolerate rich people better and hate them much less when some wealth is taken out of the rich families and given to the poor. Well, obviously. The Ten Nations are doing this. But the Ten Nations are doing this so strongly that there are no rich families or people at all, and the cities are not doing this in any way or shape. Two unbalanced extremes. A wise balance could be possible instead: the rich must share, but not always everything. Truly exceptional people and families could retain more than others, at least for some time, as a just gift for their service to you, Great Bianca. For example, you could say that anybody allowed to be rich must share with poor families 10% of his wealth after every ten years. And you could give to the poor some part of a tribute taken after death of a rich person. Make poor believe that riches are temporary gifts that would after some time return to everyone, even if not as fast as now.
Riches as gifts for serving you well, and for doing other desirable things, producing more than others, working smarter than others, introducing new productive innovations...
"I am well aware of and well in favor of the practice of rewarding good work with baubles, Black Cat. I believe the only place we disagree is in degree.
"For example, there are many, many more families who are not overrun with shining possessions than there those which are. If one in ten parts of the most bountied family's trinkets and trifles were taken from them and distributed to all the others, it would not mean much of a change for either, the one for still having nine parts and the other for the thinness of the spread. I utterly fail to see the point.
"But you are right that there is more of a divide in the cities, that it would be most meaningful to do such a thing there. I have been told of cities far away where the divide is even greater, where the rulers and those who keep them in power eat honeyed fruit and the people eat dirt. If your suggestion were to do any good, I think, it would only be because matters were already well out of hand. May as well leave the people to killing each other at that point. They'll be done soon enough for my tastes.
"Hmm-hrm. Perhaps I should send an especially skillful singer to see such cities, and to see if the people might be guided to throw off their rulers. No, no. It could only lead to people coming here unbidden, to live freely. Or. Or my singer could tell them falsely of a place where there is freedom that is to the east or the west or even further to the south and not to the north.
People allowed to be rich could be also encouraged, in songs for example, to be humble and responsible: to use their wealth mainly for productive and healthy things, like buying more diverse healthy food, and more soap, and washing more often than poor people can afford; instead of using wealth mainly for colorful clothes. Many simple grey clothes washed often are much more healthy than one rich-looking but dirty robe, and it's the rich-looking robe that create the most hate from the poor. Encourage rich to buy better plows, useful devices or horses, to increase useful production, and to experiment with complicated devices and innovations. Not to walk around with golden jewellery. This is a matter for customs not laws of course.
"I don't know of any person who has made their family wealthy who does not scheme nearly constantly for ways to gain more riches for themselves, to be more productive. The shepherd with the largest flock thinks only of growing their flock larger still. It is the same for the trader and the glassmaker and the bloomerist.
"But, I suppose, you mean the others in their family who enjoy the advantages of their kinship. Yes, some of these are known to overfocus on the finery of woven cloth or whatever thing it is that the people want more of and better. It is silly of them. And for that they are already called out in song.
"But cleanliness. That's another matter. How should the song go? Should the baubles be called dirty? No. The people will not stop wanting them just because they are bad or they would already leave them be. Is it a matter of time and attention, then? The foolish brother of a successful trader who turned away soaps for glass?
"But what of the people who run out of soap without the opportunity to get more? Is their misfortune to be judged as harshly as is the foolishness of the trader's brother? People are not very good, Black Cat, at winnowing circumstance from consequence."
A few more words about some inequality.
Surely you can understand that it could be sometimes useful for you to have people doing work for you not only out of labor tribute or respect but also in exchange for baubles that 50 years later would mostly return to you. There are many types of people, some better motivated by respect or virtue or honor, but others better motivated by greed. A wise balance of incentives is often useful.
I can see nations that used small things of equal weight made out of gold, silver, and copper. Well, coins were mentioned a long time ago.
"I do send tiny pieces of gold and silver and much larger castings of copper with my traders to the nearer lands of prosperous outsiders. And as I see it, the people who work for wealth will do so whether or not they are expected to give it to me in tribute later. I don't see how this is any argument for allowing the inequality you speak of.
"Is this your plan, Black Cat, to add to the greed in the world for reasons as ineffable as a spirit's?"
About judges and tests of judgment.
It would be best to test potential new judges in your Great Home.
To avoid wasting your valuable time for that, you can create 5 people Table-Rulers Council to do such tests. Then you could be reasonably sure that the Judgment of Merit is as sensible as possible for mortals.
5 is a nice number for small councils: when there is any vote, then there is always a sensible majority and no tie. At least when there is a reasonable law that nobody can abstain.
"Servant, before he died, assayed wisdom differently than I do. So it is with each judge and each table-ruler. How do you suggest that I determine who can determine who should sit in judgement?
"But already I entrust this to others in some way or another. It is only that you speak of tests, tests, tests but never provide the tests themselves. By what measure do you think wisdom is known? What questions should a table-ruler ask a judge to answer and what answers are best?
"You know what I have noticed to be the most consistent trait of chiefs? Height. There is no rule, of course. Aklot, called 'The Red Hammer,' was not among the tallest men, though he was very broad in his shoulders. Also, he was not a chief, because he was of Eppam who have none. Even the chieftainesses, even they are more often than not tall for women. When one who is known to be suited to rule but is not tall, the people may remark that they are like me, as a compliment. But I can remember no fully grown warleaders or unbent village chief or chieftess who was at least so tall that their chin met my brow."
Regardless of such details, there is also another benefit, as all candidates for judges would be forced to see the greatness of your Great Home and, during their travel, how the Ten Nations live. That's more important than it sounds: with passing time, memories about your conquest will feel more distant, so important but distant people need to be reminded strongly that you exist.
Heading to a place for the sake of visiting, The Hajj, also called حَجّ Ḥaǧǧ.
Many people of the Ten Nations and many of your servants currently live far away from the Ten Nations. They may have children far away from the Ten Nations. This can create division among your currently loyal people, this can cause them to grow very distant, or maybe even cause their descendants to forget about you after a few generations. I can see a partial solution for such a problem, The Hajj. Your Singers could promote a way of thinking that would emphasize that all people of the Ten Nations, even those who live in distant cities, should travel to the lands of the Ten Nations once during their lives. Why? Because this show that a person is virtuous and loves their Nation properly. Maybe create a pillar of stone that should be visited or something like that.
Or maybe simply enforce tribute of labor even on distant youths, but this could be harder than a promotion of a new way for thinking. It's easy to assemble these youths that live inside of the Ten Nations lands, but it must be harder in the case of these far away. It may be better if they could be politely persuaded to visit.
"Is this a trick? Do you mean to slip the greed that feeds you in by leading me to compete with the rulers of far away places for a great house that is more impressive than theirs?
"I am not a fool, Black Cat. I have listened to the reports of my scouts and traders who have returned from far away. I know that the great houses of such wasteful rulers as I hear of must be great indeed. Perhaps they have not accumulated a hoard for so long as I have. But if they care more than I do about their show of wealth, and their forebearers cared more, and theirs more still, then that show is all the more likely to be greater than mine.
"What do you mean for them to come and see? A low wall surrounding farmland and orchards? Clear, hard roads and the smoke belches of the bloomeries? Even my fine herd of Kahl's Warhorses, like which there are no others, will too soon be unexceptional next to the herd of the Sleomjash. For I do not grow their number for the sake of keeping them to myself, but so that the people are less likely to steal them from each other. There is no greed greater than that for large horses, it seems."
Capital City.
A "capital" is the main city of an Empire, where the Great House of the ruler and their numerous servants and table-rulers live and where they receive the tribute from less important parts of an Empire.
Your Great Home is slightly like your capital, but it's not a city, so not exactly.
But I imagine that you constantly receive more and more tribute, not only goods but also tribute in labor. So in the future, you may have not only Biancvint as your city but also a city of craftsmen and servants and table-rulers around your Great Home.
This may be beneficial as long as the labor of craftsmen, magicians, servants, and other people is used well. Now, after so many conquests, you certainly can afford to take enough food in tribute. During harder times, food can be taken not out of the Ten Nations, but from outsiders.
A good capital should be well-defensible, have a great road network around, and river great enough for keeled ships is nice, or sea, or lake. A few wide roads should extend even inside of the city as firebreaks and for easier transportation of goods, when possible houses should be made mainly out of brick and stone, and clean water and careful removal of harmful waste are very beneficial for health.
"This is all well and good, Black Cat. And I suppose Liacvint is the capital city of the lands ruled by the Giantess of Liacvint. But I am not a ruler, not in the way that she is, in the way King Kuwuzt of Enonl is, not even in my own city. Perhaps that will change in the future, though.
"But what exactly is your advice, here? 'Live in one city and keep around you all the people who aid you in what you do while you live?' 'Make sure it is a good city where people don't stand in their own filth?' Good advice, yes. But good advice for any city. What, exactly, am I to do with this?"
Identification sign (seal).
That's a somewhat similar idea to printing, but perhaps more useful now. In addition to using fingerprints for identification of important writing, an unique and complicated sign may be carved from a small piece of wood. Such a sign could be then used to make an impression with ink or wax on a parchment, to mark thIs parchment as something important, or written by a very important servant.
Wax seal can also show whether parchment with message or a package was opened or not. Apply wax and unique seal in a way that would always cause destruction of the wax seal before package is opened.
"The people have already taken to this, and did so as they began using wax to seal the pots of cooked sour food. A small clump of wax is dropped at the end of the ring around the cap, and a mark is pressed into that clump.
"How do you suggest that ink be applied to the sign? For that matter, what improvements can be made to the means by which I apply ink to parchment? Feathers and reeds hold ink and let it run out onto the page, until they don't. And drops and slips mar the work sometimes so much that they must be scraped away, sometimes so that the page is no longer good for work to be kept, and is handed to the learners for practice beyond wax tablets."
Unique names and maybe numbers for all villages with a table-ruler.
Maybe table-rulers already use something like that for writing and messages, but if not, then such idea could often prevent confusion and mistakes. Unnamed places are like people without names: surely you can describe these with their apperance or location, but it can be impractical and cause weird mistakes.
"Any hunter traveling the woodland comes up with names for places he visits again and again. The same was true for my table-rulers as they counted the people so many summers past. Many of the people do not know what the name is of the village they live in, but their table-ruler does, as do the other table-rulers in the area. And those who can read know from the stones or 'stones' of signs outside each village. In some cases the village is named for a feature of the land, in others its name may be fully arbitrary or meaningful, and for those villages of a single family the name of the family is often used.
"Using numbers seems odd. After all, numbers lie on a staff, rising from nothing to heights while villages lie on the land, scattered out in all directions. What should the number mean about the village? If a name is meaningless, that name should appear meaningless, be known to be meaningless. Should the village with a lower number than their neighbors think themselves lesser? Or greater? Bah. No need to give them one more thing over which to contest."
Boats? Rudder maybe.
I don't know much about boats, but I know that you can steer a boat or a bigger ship with a rudder: underwater (wooden and wide) blade that is positioned at the back of a boat or ship and controlled by its helm (handle) and that when turned causes the vessel's head to turn.
an underwater blade that is positioned at the stern of a boat or ship and controlled by its helm and that when turned causes the vessel's head to turn in the same direction… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
The tiller is a type of helm, the handle attached to the rudder.
If you want the bow of the boat to go right, for example, you need to move the tiller to the left.
Rapid back and forth movement on the tiller helps create drag and slows the boat.
The tiller is what steers a boat — specifically, the handle attached to the rudder. Tillers are generally found on smaller boats because it would take too much force to steer larger ships with hand tillers.
www.vocabulary.com
Like wooden and wide blade that "cuts" water at the back of the boat. Test this on various small models first. Testing on toy models is often great and cheap, even though bigger real stuff sometimes act slightly differently.
As is usual, my words are probably not enough and heavy experimentation is needed to figure out many, many details.
"When boats strap the wind to themselves, they are set in their facing by the strongest rower holding their oar in the water. It sounds like what you're describing, Black Cat, is a great oar affixed to the tail end of the ship so that it can be turned one way and the other, but not to row. If that is all this is, it seems simple enough and I do not see why you recommend the assessment of toys. One way or another, once it is done it will be the people in boats who learn its worth or waste."
I can confirm what another has said. Our glimpse of fate has revealed to us that the king and the magician will be youthful for fifty years since they drank their potions, but the inventor is now entirely unaging. They may well have died or become monsters or simply not been healed at all by the potions, but luck and fate has turned so that all the potions were effective to some degrees.
The purpose of mortars is not to hit a wall, but to hit what is behind the wall. If you wish to batter down a city's walls and take it intact perhaps they are not useful, then.
"Hrmph. If Hersaulf finds himself to resume his aging, he will no doubt seek to prepare himself another potion, wherever he has gotten to. That is ill fortune for the people around him, but they are not the people around the people around me.
"Cannons which are short are easier to move. Cannon which are thicker are less likely to burst. And I care not where the ruin lies, on the walls or within them, so long as the city yields. Stone may be placed back on stone, afterward.
"Just how 'intact' can a city be taken, in any case?"
[x][Judiciary] Send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint until the next spring
Judging disputes between judges is not quite as simple as judging disputes between ordinary people. Whatever judgement is ultimately reached when two judges argue, other judges will often look to it and say 'it was decided thus last time this issue came up', and cling to the decision made by whoever you appoint to resolve disputes... I think that if the judges themselves pick a superior judge they will squabble and argue among themselves for who gets to be superior judge and cause trouble. You should pick the superior judge.
I would say you should send either a table-ruler or a singer - and more likely a singer, as the singers are more loyal to you. Anyone asked to pick worthy people ends up picking their friends and family -- better to have one who has few friends and family in Biancvint keep the judges in line. I would suggest a singer over a table-ruler for this because the singers know more of what you consider important and fair and orderly, even if a table-ruler's job is closer to what a judge does in some ways. The fine details of each case that a table-ruler might grasp can be presented by the arguing judges to a singer just fine.
[x][Shrine] Bianca should be venerated in shared temples maintained by priesthoods of other gods
As to the monuments, I am not sure forbidding worship would actually work. Priesthoods can be strangely stubborn and it would not surprise me if they venerated you despite you forbidding it and then became all the more bothersome because they developed with strange ideas. However by making you one of many and only venerated in temples to other gods, without real priestesses or temples of your own, the giantess may be satisfied without generating a priesthood that would cause trouble in the future. I may be swayed on this advice if other voices have arguments about it, though.
...The cursed woodlands worry me but I have no clever suggestions regarding driving them back besides attempting to discern how the spirits of that place think and how the woodland plants spread. If that is understood, something can be came up with to stop it.
Some thoughts on Naumo and Gawdtha, I think any division where they divide the loot or gamble for the right to take tribute will perhaps cause fighting between the two tribes and lead to resentment and anger. However, it does seem to me that Naumo is overstepping themselves if Gawdtha already had a relationship with these outsider. I am not sure what my judgement on this is quite yet, I will think on it more. I will also think on all the other matters you ask for advice on.
"Yes, it is best to prevent discord from the people. But I do so by settling disputes. If a dispute is settled by a game of chance, at my command, then setting aside the result or disputing it is disputing my own command. That does happen, but rarely as I do not direct the Free People of the Ten Nations in their every waking moment, but rather I allow them to find their ways."
What trouble could priests cause? If there is no additional raising one tribe above another, at least? As I said, many usual things that priests do for cities of outsiders are already done by either singers or table-rulers, but if the priesthood is done wisely - so certainly not like the Burgeck wanted that done - I fail to see great dangers.
And humph, if temples are shared with other gods, then the Free People of Ten Nations wouldn't be able to worship in these if I understand customs right.
I have no great love for priests, but if people want temples, let's give them temples.
"The problem with priests is that they speak for divinities or are at least treated as though they do. If that priestess of Erweh had not claimed to speak for Erweh in her condemnation of me, would any other have gathered to her? Not the King of Wrul, even though he desired more glass as one desires their newlywed spouse. Not the party of heroes she brought with her earlier, either.
"And if someone is to speak for me, I should know that they will not speak foolishness. How can I be assured of that? For now, I will simply forbid them to speak at all while they are my priesthood, but only allow them to maintain a temple at Liavint."
I feel, by the way, slightly troubled by the fact that the Ten Nations are so much above over others. Bianca should be above others, as well as some great and loyal people as I explained during my talk about equality of opportunity, but... The current situation sounds unstable, like sooner or later cities and tribes of outsiders that pay tribute may rebel. Any ideas on how to slowly change that without irritating the Ten Nations? Humph.
"'Rebel?' You mean, 'cast off those who are raised over them,' yes?
"Hah! Of course they will. I don't know what to do about it, just now. I think keeping the lands of the Ten Nations free of such nonsense may be enough. They will lose cities and the tribute from them, yes. But so long as there is, here in the center, enough land growing food to keep the people from starving, enough flax and sheep to keep the people clothed, enough blooming to keep them in tools and weapons, and enough knowledge of things to keep it running then these people who obey me will survive.
"Rebellion will not go well for the cities. The lands that feed them will be ruined by the fighting around them. And then those cities will starve, as I have said they will and for the reasons we have discussed before, Black Cat.
"I don't know cities. You voices were right about that. And there does seem to be some lifting up of some over the others necessary in cities. Too many people crowded together for all to be equal, it seems. Some must dole out punishment for infractions, and quickly because there are more besides. And, yes, some number of warriors must serve as warriors at all times, more than any village needs, just to ensure that the lands that feed the city continue to do so whether raids or misfortune disrupt it.
"So I don't know if a city can be managed such that all the wonders of a city come from it for the benefit of all the people, without at times doing the sorts of things to the people working that land that feeds the city that are only done by pushing some down underneath others.
"I will see what I can learn from Biancvint. And I will know more before I allow the kinds of goings on in cities to take place in what are now the lands of the Ten Nations. They may conquer other cities and rule there. Cities may pledge themselves to me as Biancvint has done. Outsider rulers may similarly pledge themselves, as the Giantess of Liavint has done. They may even leave the old lands of the Ten Nations to found a city, as the Galugr will no doubt do at the site of the former city of Wrul. But I have found a way for people to live that has worked for hundreds of years and I will not have it spoiled in the place it has worked for brief gains before final ruin."
Maybe draw some of the best, exceptional outsiders out of their conquered cities and tribes and encourage people from the Ten Nations to marry these or use them as table-rulers? Not unprecedented, the son of the King of Wrul managed to join Ten Nations by marriage.
Tribes of the Ten Nations, with exeption of lesser giants, believe that there is no need for bigger numbers, you say. Humph. Tribes as a whole, yes. But what about small families and individuals? Let's imagine, a bold young man or woman want to create their own new family. But two people, or even a few people, are too few to do that properly. Surely they could benefit from more pretty and hard-working wives or husbands, even if drawn out of outsiders, humph.
Or imagine a village where people share many common ancestors. It's only proper and healthy for quality of their instructions of life to search for wives and husbands pretty far away.
"How far away, again? How close is too dangerous? What does that danger look like? I encourage you to remember, Black Cat, that I want to hear the reasons why a thing is bad and how to tell just that thing from some other thing that is only similar to that thing.
"All the people know that prosperity is measured in number of offspring who survive to have offspring of their own. They want numbers. It is only the Galugr who know they were -- are still, really -- too few to sustain their numbers, largely because they are lesser giants and so cannot produce offspring with the Fisher People who make up the other Nine Tribes.
"And so the people know that if their two children each bring a spouse into their family they prosper more than if one child does the same and the other joins a marriage in another family. But spouses must come from somewhere, so there is much bickering and plotting with regard to who should join whom, and occasional bloodshed.
"That said, only the Lan and Gawdtha marry outsiders notably often, and both also lose their own members to travel more often as well. Some die, surely, but it is known that some join outsiders in marriage as well. Further, the Tash and Burgeck do not marry anyone who is not of the Nine Nations. There was a time when they would join no marriage with a person of Sleomjash, even after they had forgotten that the Sleomjash were once fully outsiders.
"Though they do not travel to marry, the other tribes are known to temp the mighty, the wise, or the comely who are taken as bond captives to join in a marriage with them at the end of their bond. That is how Great Saveo the Enfeebled, son of the Last King of Wrul, came to join the Ten Nations by marriage."
And it could be nice to promote a way of thinking that could argue as follows: conquests benefit not only the Ten Nations and Bianca, but even the conquered, despite their need to pay tribute and serve. After all, the conquered are savages that know nothing about the proper ways of living, while the people of the Ten Nations know how to wash, heal wounds more often, respect Bianca, prosper... Such a way of thinking sounds entirely sensible. There should be some hope, maybe false or maybe true, that the conquered people may be also raised if they start to love Bianca enough and learn proper ways of living.
"There may be some truth that Enonl prospers because the knowledge of the Ten Nations is there to make it prosper. Their water does not come from open wells. Even now some build great works of stone and mortar to hold water against some need or another. And if the width of the roads prevents fires from spreading, then that is good, too. But before, the people of Enonl were pushed down under people who were raised over them. And afterward, the people of Enonl are pushed down under people who are raised over them. They are not made to prosper as the Free People of the Ten Nations are. And they are not made free, so what does it matter to them? They will still lose so much to the discord that arises from that arrangement."
While without "magical industry" it's not possible to deal with the forest permanently, it may be possible to significantly slow down the forest expansion, I believe.
The New Justice System.
I want to propose, and I would appreciate also discussion with other Voices about the matter, a new model for judging crimes and disputes, for use in big villages of the Ten Nations, that could be advised for voluntary adoption by villagers.
In big villages, for example, these with over 300 people, Free People of a village who are older than 14 and widely considered sane, would assembly to vote whether they want to change to this New System or remain with their current system. This voluntary decision would ensure less discord and allow the Free People to freely remain with alternative systems when alternatives work well, and enforce change in these villages where changes are desired.
The Free People know how to vote? There are many systems. Raise hands for YES. Or throw a stone into a bucket for YES. When there are many different options, not only YES and NO, then they can use many separate buckets for these, or use obviously different stones. Whatever. Whatever the method. If the majority decide to vote for YES, then the new proposed system is as follows.
They would elect a 5 person Council of Justice, to serve for a 5 years before the next election. The council would act to judge disputes.
The Council would select a Chief among themselves, and also two or three Village Guards to ensure that criminals would always obey the Council. Guards would usually live like normal people and do their duties of protecting the Council and helping to enforce judgments only when a crime is seriously suspected in the village. Hopefully, they would be rarely needed, as regularly elected Council obviously judges in the name of the Free People, not tyrannically. Still, it's better to have Guards selected, just in case.
During future judgments, the Council of Justice would at first hear words of the accused and of the victims (if there are living victims), see evidence if any, hear witnesses if any, and ask Table-Ruler or Singer (if there are any in the village) for advice about laws.
Then the Council would vote to determine whether an accused person is guilty of a crime. If 3 among them vote YES, then the Chief of the Council would determine punishment, after, again, asking either Table-Ruler or Singer for advice (if there are any in the village).
If Table-Ruler or Singer would be present and felt that their expert law advice was completely ignored by the Council, or that the judgment was gravely unjust, then they could protest, but not to you, but to the First Singer or the First Table-Ruler.
Only if the First Singer or the First Table-Ruler decides that the situation indeed warrants your attention, only then you would be bothered.
This system is designed to still offer Free People much more freedom than in cities, but at the same time enforce more order than now.
An alternative way is to elect the Council only to determine whether the accused is guilty and for details of a dispute or punishment have a Judge selected according to tests done in your Great House, instead of electing Chief for the Council. Such a way may offer your Servants more direct control but may feel to the Free People like less free and more tyrannical system.
"It will surely bind the people together more tightly if they all govern themselves in the same way, Black Cat. But I do not see why the way you describe is superior to the ways already in use. What need does any wise council or chieftain have for 'guards?' If the people of the village do not follow their judgement they are no chief or are not regarded as wise.
"Cities, I have learned, are in fact different. Did you not tell me that? You were right. But where the Free People do not live in cities they still live as they have, more or less. Or, at least, they still govern themselves in nearly the same way, excepting perhaps that my table-rulers are among them taking measures, making records, and making known their measures and records.
"Yes, I would like for fewer disputes to trouble me. But if your suggestion will accomplish that it is not clear to me how. Except, I suppose, for the cases where one comes to me saying, 'The village I came to marry in is not run in the same way as the village of my mother's family and this is unjust!' And there are some of that sort, but not many have of themselves enough boldness to stand against their entire village not once but also in my presence. And ones who are so bold will, I think, mostly find other reasons to object to decisions they do not find to their liking, even if all villages are run in the same fashion."
Inquisition of the Ten Nations.
Even if sentences of the village authority - either the new one or the various currently existing systems - are strongly suspected to be unlawful, it may be NOT necessary to bother you if you create also the Inquisition of the Ten Nations. 20 or 50 Inquisitors, under command of a First Inquisitor, could be raised above others, armed well, and march to villages suspected of unlawful judgments, to investigate the matter in your name. Hopefully, this would be needed only very rarely. If needed only very rarely, even such a small number of men could be often enough to replace your harsh attention.
This whole system may sound complicated but should waste less of your time when implemented well, not more.
"If I send fifty warriors from elsewhere in the Ten Nations and in armor and arms into a village already suffering discord, there will be murder done. And from that murder, there will be more discord. Eventually I will need to intercede myself and kill everyone who I think will sustain the discord further. And that is what I should have done in the first place rather than send in warriors from other places to tell that village how to handle its disputes. If they listened to each other they wouldn't have that problem in the first place. And if they listened to my representatives they would listen to my singers. Threats of violence only keep order so long as those threats are sustained. Eventually there will be real violence or there will be disorder, or both."
A piece of small advice about law enforcement and proportionate force needed to enforce order.
Village Guards, City Guards and to a lesser extent even Inquisitors, differ from the Armed Forces and warparties in their main duty: they mainly enforce laws, instead of battling with outsiders or raiding outsiders.
This means, that during "fighting" against one drunk criminal of the Free People - like during a Festival, for example - Guards or Inquisitors should often try to use non-lethal force. For example, wooden clubs instead of deadly metal weapons. They should also own deadly weapons, but these deadly weapons should be used only against outsiders, obvious traitors, and greatly dangerous criminals.
That's still mixed elements of local democracy with tyranny and pure barbarism, and any lawyer would be disgusted and shocked, but you know, the Bronze Age.
"People know they should not strike to kill when they are in a fight with their neighbors. Any right-thinking people know this, do they not? If a guard in a city kills people, will not the people will come to resent all the guards and what they guard?
The 'eye' which I referred to last time is a small protrusion along the side of a boat that an oar can be rested against and pushes against the oar when it is rowed. If the boat holds an oar in place instead of the one rowing, a man can wield two oars at once, or use both arms on a longer and heavier oar, and thus put more effort into their movement. I have heard tell of huge, long, low, and flat keeled ships driven with speed and power by forty men driving twenty large oars on each side through the water. Such ships could be very nimble and quick, and carry warriors near enough other boats to throw stones and arrows, or even jump to other boats. I think sailing ships are generally regarded as better if you know how to make very good sailing ships... Though a ship of many oars can still carry sails has the advantage that a lack of wind does not leave it stuck.
"I can guess, already, that forty warriors sweeping twenty oars would need to work together all the time in order to avoid tangling their oars while rowing. Fishing boats have no need to that degree of… would it be discipline? Yes, I think so. This is not an activity which will bring in food. So these rowing warriors would need to be lifted above the others, just to have the time they need to row together.
"But, like cities, perhaps it will come to pass in any case and the Free People of the Ten Nations should not be the ones without these things. They will be made to know of these things."
More complicated and advanced sailing ships often carried cannons and fired at each other with them. A big enough ship can carry many cannons around on the water without sinking. You turn the ship to aim the cannons at another ship or at foes on land, and then try to fire them in time with the rise and fall of the boat. I think there are improved ways of firing a cannon more quickly that would make this easier? Of course, this is horribly dangerous with the cannons you have now, which are inconsistent with each other and prone to exploding.
"This also sounds like a good way to lose a great deal of bronze. Tell me, voice, when someone else does this thing, how are they likely to fall short of the ideal? In what way may I exploit the early and unrefined stages of this practice of putting cannon on boats?"
It should be known that lodestones, small pieces of grey stone which sometimes naturally form shapes like cubes and pyramids and attract iron to themselves and attract to each other in some directions but are repelled in others, are magnetic. 'Magnetic' and 'magnetism' is the name of the property that attracts iron and attracts and repels other magnetic things. Magnets are objects which are magnetic. Anyway, a useful device called a Compass can be constructed by taking an iron needle and rubbing it on a lodestone many times in the same direction, or possibly by striking it with the lodestone. This should impart a little bit of magnetism to the iron needle. By driving the needle through a piece of cork or light wood and then putting the cork in a bowl of water so that the needle is horizontal with the surface of the water, the needle will slowly come to point in one direction no matter how it is placed in the water.
This is because the whole earth is like an enormous but very, very weak magnet - another magnet will be pulled ever so lightly to align with it. The force is so small that you can only tell by letting a magnetic needle turn freely so it is pulled into alignment. One point of the needle should come to face north and the other south. Which end points north will be the same each time. You can paint one end of the needle to tell north and south apart. This can be used to help ships and travelers find their way, and while the sun's rising and setting also tells you which way north is, a compass can do so more precisely - and can do so at any time of day without stopping to view the sun's procession or even at night if you have light enough to see, which might be handy.
Lodestones are usually grey and silvery or brownish-black and are only found on the surface of the world, very rarely deep in caves. It is said that they are created by lightning, but I am not completely sure this is true. As I said before, they sometimes fall into pointy shapes like cubes or pyramids, but not always. Another telling sign of lodestones is that they can sometimes attract magnetite dust, which clings lightly to it as that stone is heavy with iron. Compasses are good for helping boats find their way, though it would take quite calm seas to use a still bowl of water to find your way. By putting a tiny hole in the center of the magnetized needle and placing it on another needle with a small amount of oil so it can turn freely, a compass that does not need to float on still water can possibly be made. The best compasses are made this way, though it would take careful craftsmanship indeed.
"I can already see what you mean. What is the limitation of this tool? Does the needle wear out? Does the lodestone? It looks as though when I have not passed the lodestone over the needle a sufficient number of times, the needle moves slower, or without purpose. Is there any sort of accident or failure that would cause the needle to point in entirely the wrong direction? I mean, other than to a nearby lodestone."
Magnets also interact with electricity and lightning in complicated ways that aren't obviously helpful to make something useful with what you have now. A magnet that is moved relative to coils of copper wire generates a little bit of electricity. If you fixed a magnet in place and spun around it some copper wire tightly coiled into a tube shape no wider than a fist, as if the tube were a very long wheel, you could create a small and controlled piece of lightning in those wires. The wire might grow warm as if by magic, and if the ends of the coiled wire were put near each other they might produce a spark or give a shock to one who touched it. It would be much trouble to put this to actual use except as a curiosity, though. Perhaps bits of this have been explained before but I forget.
"If I understand you correctly, first copper must be drawn into long wires. Then those wires should be wound around a rod. Then a lodestone should be passed along the post, and some manner of tiny lightning will come to be around the wire tips, which are at either ends of the rod? This seems straightforward, for all that it may require excessive effort. I will try it and see what comes of it."
After some thought, I feel that I'm ready to adjust my votes. Discussion with other Voices is welcome.
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
[X] [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders for yourself
"In the time before my confinement, I did see the landscape change with the passing of many years: mountains of ice where there had been grassland, grassland where there had been woods, open water where woods had been. Whatever is going on within the cursed woodlands, it is no more invulnerable to the passage of time than a mountain of ice is. In time it will pass as well.
"The Galugr have fought the growth of the cursed woods with all the fervor of one who is defending their livelihood, as that is what has been at stake for them. I do not see how the Free People of the Ten Nations can be any more motivated to oppose that gnarled, brambled, howling, bleeding, spirit-wracked forest. Should they go to war with it? Should I assemble a great host of warriors to charge into it with ax and bow? No. That would be a waste of lives which will be better spent elsewhere, whether on fields of grain or fields of battle."
Hope that Bianca dont know this cause I'm proud of myself XD
Do you know oak tree Bianca? Do you know acorns? Acorns are great great food but people need to know how to prepare acorns properly otherwise badly prepared acorns good only for pigs. And thats a waste I tell you. Acorns are better for humans when done good. There are mild poisons in acorns how to remove poisons?Easy. Only use acorns when brown. But even with brown ripe acorns we have a problem. Bitter terrible taste and mild poison if eaten too much by people and good only for pigs. How solve that? Easy. Smply leaching it out of acorns in a pot of boiling water, pouring out the hot water and having repeated changes of water. Continue doing this until the water does not turn brown after you have strained and replaced it. There is also method without boiling: this method is bagging the nuts and allowing them to soak in a clean, flowing stream for a few days until no brown-colored water is seen when checking their progress. Remove the acorns once leached and leave to simply dry or to make roasted nuts after drying, as desired. Raw acorns can be stored for months without spoiling; this dramatically increases their value, being a "process as needed food resource", however, they must be dry or otherwise they can get moldy and mildewed. But only when leached are they ready to use! Its possible to make many stuff from acorns. Acorn flour. Or add to stews. Or many many methods but remove damn bitter stuff before.
"I do, indeed, know this tree. No one grows them for food, as it is known to be bad for people. But if they are being planted for windbreaks and perhaps for their wood in any case, it would be better that the people are also able to eat them. Or, as you say, feed them to pigs if there's no need to go through the trouble to prepare them for people to eat.
Oak trees are good very good for ships. Good to have oak trees. Warning. "The leaves and acorns of the oak tree are poisonous to cattle" bitter stuff like acorns. Pigs are immune but when done better acorns are too good for damn pigs! Share this wisdom and without bitter stuff acorns great for people better than many foods. Healthy. Some tribes may LACK WISDOM and think: acorns are food of pigs poor starved losers... but NO simply do acorns properly! And then excellent stuff
"The Free People of the Ten nations hold cattle herding in high regard and, yes, the insuitability of oak for cattle may account for why these trees may be avoided at times. Or it may be happenstance. I do not know.
"But for the sake of a variety of table-fare, for the sake of having strong boards, and for the sake of greater security in the lean years I will direct my singers to encourage the people in growing these. I think perhaps some ritual consumption of properly prepared acorns on a certain day might ensure that they are always aware of the method of preparation and that acorns make fair food.
"And there is always call for more wood: wood for burning, wood for charing and then burning, wood for posts and wood for beams, and yes, now wood for ships as well. Even now the people know that their needs are greater than can be met by land from which they only take. And so they are planting trees from the woodlands in some places for the sake of new woodlands in the times of their children's children."
And do you know how to eat stinging nettles? Nasty nasty plant but people need to only boil it and then its great for health! WARNING use leather gloves or something raw nettles are yes stinging. "Believe it or not, however, nettles can be a delicious, nutritious, non-stinging food." Your goal here is to "blanch" the nettles — boil them for a short time — so that their stingers are inactivated.
"The wise do know similar preparation of the nettle as medicine. And so I wonder if you do not mention it as a medicine because there is madness in the cacophony or because you do not regard it as medicinal. The problem with nettle is in keeping it. If there is a wide patch of it, the people avoid it and must drive their herds away from it. A field of nettle, grown for use, is a danger to all fools whether people or beasts. And fools are plentiful."
When people farm. Teach people to use cunning not only hard work. Someone lack wisdom and plant only apple trees. Apple trees suffer from disease. Better: "one apple tree is planted with one plum, and one pear, and one hazelnut, and one peach, and five gooseberries, and ten blackberries, and ten blueberries, and dozens of non-fruit plants that return nitrogen and minerals and mulch to the soil and produce flowers and nectar that attract beneficial predatory insects and birds that eat the bugs that prey on our fruit. "
"Ah. You mean that the nettles should be grown in with other plants? Perhaps that would keep beasts from eating the fruit before people take it. But that would depend on the timing of the nettles and the fruit. And also it would not keep the birds out, nor, I think, rats. But in the rest I believe I understand you. A blight is likely to only take one sort of plant, or perhaps some similar sorts. So if there are many sorts then at any time they will not be all blighted. And perhaps they would all be less likely to be blighted with less crowding of just the one plant? If that is what you mean then, yes, I do see the wisdom in that. And thank you, voice."
My fellow Voices, are many among you offended that Bianca was not fascinated by overcomplicated devices last time? Or that we were forced to wait for more years than it was usual before? I ask because I feel your presence and yet not many among you try to say things, much fewer Voices than years ago.
I'm a cat, and cats can be evil, black ones especially, intelligent cats doubly so, but seriously, advising is fun.
Vote on our main decisions at least, so that we can progress properly.
Anyway. When I think about matters of evil, I'm now reminded about something.
Bianca, you say that people of the Ten Nations are equal, and yet you already used some small inequality to enforce better customs. At least i think so. Let me explain. You once said, that these among the free people who refused to use your black soil, were deprived of your magical blessing, and then experienced "ruin" when their land was depleted by their farming idiocy.
I understand that in this one case other families of the Free People refused to help and share WITH OBVIOUS IDIOTS, at least in numbers needed to fully feed these obvious idiots, at least in numbers needed for idiots to prosper equally to intelligent and decent servants of Bianca. See? Inequality is decent sometimes.
"There is a great difference, Black Cat, between my choice to deprive the disobedient of my blessing and the greed by which a family of the Free People does not share with their neighbors. I am lifted up over these people by merit of my age and my magic and by my will that I should be so lifted up. Is this a cause for discord? Perhaps. But I do not avoid discord as Hare avoids Leopard, but as farmers avoid blight. It is more important that my actions are unrestricted than that all the people live in peace.
Well I, for one, likely don't have time to do anything in this quest for at least two weeks due to an impending exam period.
Also, Bianca, if you're hearing us discuss here about voting periods the way we're doing right now, I can tell you right now that it's a brand of madness you're better off not trying to understand.
Maybe we could actually have Bianca reply to a few quick questions?
I am a bit confused about the problem of the tributaries. Seems to me that if you want to lay claim to all the tribute from a people, then you aught treat them the same as a herd of sheep or a particularly fertile field.
Well, I think that I understand the problem. One among the Ten Nations tribes, Gawdtha, believes tributary tribe of outsiders ("Friends of Gawdtha") to be their ekhm... property (or at least vassal), and another tribe of the Ten Nations (so equals to Gawdtha), the Naumo, raids "Friends of Gawdtha" anyway without recognizing such a relationship.
I would be tempted to take these "Friends of Gawdtha" outsiders directly under the authority of Bianca, if these outsiders are so friendly, obedient and hungry for protection.
If that is the case, then I would say that the metaphor of a flock of sheep or herd of cattle works well. There is little honor in herding cattle, but there is honor in protecting the herd from those who would steal it.
"That is something of it, yes. Though I have no desire to keep herds of cattle or sheep or people myself. But there are differences, still. The Gawdtha did not move among these outsiders to decide which youths should be gelded or moved to other herds. They did not keep watch over these people against disease or move them to new fields when their old fields came to yield less grain. A herd may be the property of a family and the responsibility of its keepers. But these outsiders were neither of those. I think that perhaps it would be best considered that the Gawdtha took tribute with a promise of protection on which they could not make good.
"And now, by the advice of you voices, I will make that same promise to these outsiders and take their tribute. They do not prosper as the Free People of the Ten Nations do, so their tribute will not be worth similar trouble."
Would it be reasonable to pm people who have previously participated in case they missed the alert?
Anyway, based on the new information we have, I think the most likely location of the Pact Nations is Lithuania. Mainly because the Buraghm flows to the south while we are near the north coast. I think that the Buraghm is what we know as the Dnieper. Also from Bianca's description of the coast which to the east slopes north, folds in on itself, and then continues east. While to the west, the coast curves north before turning west-south-west.
If I am correct, the one who follows the coast to the east will eventually curve back west.
I thought that this may be the case, different world than our visions, but the same basic shape of land. Lithuania, yes, probably. This version of the world, and in particular Europe, seems to be slightly more developed than what we can see from our Visions of the Bronze Age. This was the case even before our meddling, I mean, a few cities, that we couldn't see. Not all things seem to be consistent with our visions, we were able to see how world would look without any visible magic present. So no Gods, no Bianca, no Nine Nations, no immortals or monsters, these things we were unable to see. But mostly it seems to be right, we may know the shape of the land. Sadly, we cannot show a map to Bianca.
It's no wonder that Bianca knows nothing about walnuts. These grow in the North America, on the other side of the world, far far far far far West. And no, even keeled ships are nowhere good enough to sail that far, not yet.
To the North there also should be lands beyond the sea, but even colder and less pleasant than the Ten Nations. South is warmer and warmer - up to the middle of the world sphere surface at least, only then climate starts to be colder again. While the north is colder and colder up to the North Pole (South Pole is also cold, but it's enormously far away). On the North Pole of the world sphere there is forever frozen ice. North is far less interesting than the south, but north you should have more furs, hides, seals and whales; and less people not more. Terrible places during winter, and the North Pole is always terrible.
If we are right and your world is indeed only slightly different than world of our dreams and memories.
"Knowing now how many more people there are in the lands to the south, how more easily the people live there, how much more easily they bring in riches from far off lands, I think that if the winters sour again or perhaps if they were to become even worse I might gather all of the Ten Nations together and bring all the people to the south. As it is, already families of the nations who are displeased with their lot in the place where they are have taken up all they had and have gone seeking some new place to the south."
Also also, Voices, I think that it would be helpful to identify where our areas of expertise could provide the most benefits for the least cost.
For example. We provided advice for more and safer heat, with chimneys and coal, now it's a time for ways to retain heat inside of a house.
Once we mentioned glass in windows (windows are small holes in the walls that supply daylight to the building). Bianca probably dismissed this as madness - for her glass is still pretty precious and rare.
Overcomplicated devices to produce glass cheaply are imaginable, so we see glass constantly everywhere, buuut... Like I said, let's try "the most benefits for the least cost". No overcomplicated devices before simpler solution is in use.
I believe that, for the vast majority of her people and maybe outside of a few richest men of cities, semi-transparent pieces of hide in a wooden frame could be much more possible than glass. I also know about nations that used flattened animal horn. Of course, glass and especially flat transparent glass would be more ideal, but also so expensive.
The wooden frame would need to fit into a window hole neatly, without any holes remaining. I imagine that cement or concrete could be maybe used for that, to fill out imperfections.
Also, it's possible to build windows in a way that would make them possible to open and close easily, without complicated removal of a whole window, but maybe someone else could explain that. I'm not sure that I see and understand these parts clearly.
My apologies, Bianca, if your people figured this stuff about windows already on their own. Without glass and with a semi-transparent hide it sounds pretty common-sense.
Of course, if we assume wealth unlimited, then glass would be ideal, and preferably two pieces of glass with some empty space in the middle. When air is trapped, instead of moving, it's a surprisingly good barrier to heat transfer/escape.
"When it is cold, the people do put frames on which a hide is stretched and scraped very thin in the holes in their homes which are there for the light. And when it is very cold, they do know to put a second one in each, for meager light while more of the cold is kept out. But few families can keep more than a few of these sunwalls because they are delicate and not easily made.
"I do know of one that was made of glass for one of the great halls of the Burgeck, called the Great Green Eye, which they have made so that the sun shines on different carved figures they have set into the walls at sunrise on different days of the year. I foresee that this or another of their great halls will be a source of discord if the other nations do not take up the building of such things before too long.
"But most light within a home of stone or wood comes through open places in the day and from fire or embers at night, which chimneys have made more comfortably and safely kept."
Ventilation. Some fresh outdoor air is needed inside of a building, of course, but for that well-designed one small hole is much better and save more heat than open holes in all windows. While fireplaces that connect with chimneys are obviously on the ground, such a hole should be up high, and preferably open into a small chimney-style channel.
As with many things, wise balance is needed. Excessive openings and unintentional holes cause dangerous heat loss during winter, while utter lack of fresh air could cause illness or death.
"What is the manner of this sickness, so that it may be known from all the others which afflict the people. Is it one of tiny life? And is that tiny life harmed by moving air? Is it one of deprivation and does it spoil food?"
Not only that is an issue with heat. There is also the fact, that materials transfer heat even when there is no movement of air. Some materials, lIke metals, transfer heat faster, while others, like fortunately bricks or earth or wood, slower. Still, external walls should be probably made two-bricks wide, not one-brick wide.
In comparison with many other pieces of advice, this stuff about heat should be pretty easy to test. As you know, some caves are so well insulated from heat transfer, that without any heating there is never hot nor freezing inside. Houses are impossible to isolate that well, but the basic principle is maybe now more clear.
I wonder how a wall out of bricks, then compressed earth, and then again bricks would work to reduce heat transfer... With some small amount of cement added... Probably could be pretty heavy, though.
"What would the purpose of the pounded dirt between the walls be? Why not just use more bricks if you want strength or leave it empty like the two-hides sunwalls?"
Oh, and mold inside of a house is very unhealthy for mortals. Too much moisture in the air. Maybe a small ventilation hole above places with boiled or wet stuff needed. Humph. Experiment.
A very wise balance of various concerns is needed.
"Again, Black Cat, in what way does the unhealthiness of mold present? The people know that the smell of some molds is bad, and the wise know that others sicken. But if you do not tell me the way in which a hazard sickens people, I will not know whether the hazard is present.
"But, yes. It is already known to the wise that too much wetness in an enclosed space is bad for certain materials, that leather and clothing and wood rot faster in such places."
Pretty smooth walls without any holes can be made by covering bricks or stone with a thin layer of plaster: a mixture of clay, sand, water and sometimes cement.
Or lime plaster? Lime plaster can better prevent mold. Sand, water, and lime.
"A good seal is important, yes. I think that fine, smooth walls will show which family has had greater fortune than the others, so that the others will come to them saying the words that invite sharing. And then they will have to give away extra shares of what they have that is not walls, to better even matters out. Or perhaps push to smooth the walls of everyone in the village? We shall see."
Back to glass windows, so unpractical and so costly but also so efficient at preventing the escape of heat, so tempting... You can join smaller pieces of glass into bigger structure with some lead metal...
Lead is a slow poison for mortals, lead can cause children to be stupid, aggressive and old people to die slightly faster, but mainly when they breathe around hot lead or when lead is touching water or food... Manufacturing uses are much safer. Wise balance needed. Simply never make water pipes or cups out of lead, never ever. Never try to make redewing devices out of lead, never ever.
Things like glass-lead windows of the wealthy should be reasonably safe. Balls of lead for small weapons of bursting dust should be nice.
Lead, lead... Gray and silvery ore, often with silver around, but much more weighty than silver. Much more common and cheaper than silver, if you have ore around. Dull grey. Metal with a very low melting temperature, you could melt lead in a campfire.
"Figures made from metal of weight some find pleasing have come from afar by trade. Plates and cups and bands that coil around wrists or arms have shown up as well. You voices have warned me of this metal before, have you not? No matter. My singers spread word of its dangers. And it is easily reshaped into other forms, being soft and, as you say, melting easily. But none that I know of have used it to bind smaller pieces of light glass into larger frames.
"You voices have told me how to acquire iron, a metal more plentiful than bronze if not currently better in quality. How can I acquire lead?"
There is also mercury, a dangerous and pretty useless for now wonder, the only metal liquid at normal everyday heat levels, no heating needed... Even more, much more toxic than lead. I can see, unwise people that tried to use mercury as a medicine; bad idea, very bad idea. Some complicated devices can use mercury, but there is no need for these, not yet.
"This, too, I have now seen, tiny beads of metal fluid, said by some to be blood or tears of divinities, or a magical dew which divinities drink. I know it is not, or at least not the blood or tears of all who are divine. Where does it come from? How can more be obtained?"
Oil of vitrol (Sulfuric acid)
Burning sulfur together with saltpeter in the presence of steam can produce mildly interesting substance, oil of vitrol, also called sulfuric acid. This liquid can literally melt human body and many other things, but can be stored safely in glass containers. Mostly unpractical as a weapon, unless for pure terror, but may be needed in the future for more of our advice. As you know, pretty often our future advice depends on past advice. Also, you sometimes like terrible stuff.
Sweet oil of vitriol (diethyl ether)
Redewing oil of vitrol together with pure alcohol cause the creation of diethyl ether, also called sweet oil of vitriol. This is no longer a terrible substance when properly made, and in fact, can be used to ease pain during surgery!
Back to buildings... Anybody, maybe in cities, tried to build two-story buildings? I mean, like one room that is directly above another. This saves space when, as in the city center, space is in the short supply; but of course foundation and walls and ceiling (that doubles as a floor for the next level) need to be properly strong. When design of everything is perfected, even four-story buildings are imaginable with wise use of bricks, concrete, etc, and can be reasonably safe.
I can imagine a city... Traders have their goods and haggle with buyers on the first floor, while they sleep - and probably store parts of their small hoard that are not for trade - above. Ladders or stone stairs are used...
Roman Empire... There I can see even 7-story buildings in their capital, but that starts to be highly dangerous even with absolutely perfect use of bricks, and not to mention, a fire hazard and a chore to climb that high. But 2 levels are useful for cities.
Do you know that even if most of the building is build out of bricks or stone, a ceiling can be held up with solid wooden beams? Though I remember that Burgeck tried to solve their problems with curved ceilings, that's also a solution, and cunning development of our arch idea, but less ideal if somebody wants to have two usable floors, one over another.
"Yes it is not uncommon in cities to have one place over another. And they do use wooden beams to support the floor of the higher places. In Liavint there is a tall house of stone, with ceilings too low for the comfort of giants. On top there is a high place built on wooden poles, and between the high place and the top of the stone house the emptiness has been enclosed by many hides pulled taut, within which people may also go about the business that people do in houses.
"Once the walls of a city are up there is little to do for expanding their protection. The building of walls is such a great task, the people will instead crowd their buildings together inside and, yes, build them taller so that they can do more without leaving the protection of the walls. Seven houses stacked one on top another, though… Why? To what end? Is this about priests and making places that are difficult for others to get to?"
Sewage system. For a small city, it may be more beneficial to bury most of their feces and other waste for two or three years, and then afterward when time passes and waste starts to be safer, dig that out and send to villages for use as compost. But a truly big city will probably need some channels for removal at least some of human waste, wastewater and rainwater. I do not need to add, as we talked about this again and again and again, that such unpleasant wastewater should be isolated from the fresh water used for drinking and even washing, isolated as much as imaginable. Dumping wastewater downstream is a decent enough for a city itself, but tend to contaminate water downstream. It's better to have a pretty big useless field around. Wetlands, including artificially created small wetlands, are very decent at eating dangerous human waste - for that to work ideally, some plants and things from a wetland would need to be transplanted.
I know about some unwise cities where people simply dumped their feces outside their homes, terrible, terrible cities full of disease and preventable deaths. Terrible.
"I have directed that all waste be removed from any city of mine, that it should not be kept within, and that it should not be left on the ground. My singers teach the people that there is tiny life which causes sickness in waste, and it must be allowed to die to time or winter's freezing before it comes any ground around or uphill to a well, as you voices have said. So waste is carted out of cities such as Enonl and Biancvint every day, and cast into a pit which is not beside any road leading to or from anywhere but the pits and the city. In autumn, they dig a new pit for the next year, and after the second full moon following the sunstead, no more waste is added to the old pit, but only the new. Then the waste of the previous year's pit can be dug out for spreading about where things are grown.
"In Liavint the waste is removed every three days and on the other two days it is taken to collecting places at the walls. I am told that in Huip every family which owns a house in the city is responsible for paying people of the families which do not to carry their waste out and down to a place where the land is high above the shore, and there it is cast over the edge, to be carried away by the crashing waves.
"As the Free People of the Ten Nations come to raise themselves above others, as rulers of cities submit themselves to my will as has the Giantess of Liavint, as new cities are founded or refounded as I foresee where Wrul stood, in these places my singers will tell of the threats of tiny living things. The wise will know the troubles of the waste of people and their animals. How could they do otherwise than to remove it?"
Aqueduct.
Some great cities build channels to supply a city with fresh water from mountain or hill streams. Sometimes even bridges specially build for such a water channel were used! That's of course pretty costly in resources and labor, but can be done.
"If the wells of a city are not sufficient, then the people should leave the city. If they bring in water in a channel, that water can be stopped up or poisoned by people laying siege to the city. Then there will not be enough safe water within the city. A city which relies on a channel that can be attacked in this way may as well not have walls. And if there is no benefit to walls, what need is there to be a city at all?"
Cat feedback to you. I think that maybs add Supreme Court over all nations to complain about bad village court before case going to bianca or inquisitors. Inquisition replace Biancas for small stupid mess but limits: like no killing without reasons and no mutilation and no torturing people ever and discipline and not working drunk(like guard or inquisitors or judges etc etc only drink after job done).So more like police not meme Spanish Inquisition. Add some stuff to guard roads and river traffic trade like XIX century river police
"Judges over roads or well traveled rivers? If murderers and thieves frequent a length or road or river, it seems to me that the solution is to find the people causing the trouble and deal with them directly. Is trouble like this so frequent that warriors are needed to constantly travel along the roads to watch for them? What a difficult world you describe. What, perhaps, a difficult world this one will become.
"For now yes, judges should not be given to drunkenness and should not take lives or limbs lightly. I agree with you, voice, on these notes. But when one person is lifted over another, they seem more often to become enraged when they are defied. And in their anger, they more frequently take steps that would fairly be called torture to quell that defiance. That does lead to discord, but I do not see how to separate it from the lifting of one person over others. If you do, voice, please tell me more about it.
"I have seen people behaving thus before my confinement and afterward. It is among the problems of raising some over others, is it not?"
[X] [Judiciary] Write-in: Let them select one judge from their number to be over them and to answer to Bianca, but only for five years, after which they select another. Also, send a singer each spring to oversee the Judges of Biancvint and their First Judge until the next spring.
[X] [Shrine]Write-in: Have singers and table-rulers maintain a temple to Bianca in Liavint, but allow also a few priests made only out of these people who love you very much.
[X] [Retreat] Move the Galugr to the former site of Wrul and the currently fallow croplands and pastures around it
[X] [Tributary] Write-in: Punish both tribes for this discord by taking that "friendly" tribe of outsiders for yourself
Oh Bianca the undying, some years ago you asked us how you could know the size of the earth.
Fear not for the answer can be deduced without walking to the west or east for years on end.
First you must find two spots in your realm that are around six or ten days of walking apart in the north to south axis and plant a stick in these two spots, then measure the distance between these two points in what ever units you wish to use.
Now that you know the distance between these two points and the sticks have been erected you must find out the angles that the sun makes the sticks cast shadows at the same day of the year when the sun is at it's highest. I would recommend the summer solar equinox as a good marker for this.
You can find the angle's degree by using string that you pull from the tip of the stick to the shadows tip and using a disc that has been divided trough it's center to form 360 equal parts.
Now you must count how many of these parts are between the string and the pole when the center of the disk is is at the sticks tip and one of the division lines goes along the stick.
Now you subtract the angle of the southern stick from the northern stick if the result is negative do not panic for it will still work you just need to consider it to be a positive number.
Now you have all the number needed to calculate the worlds circumference.
The formula is quite easy to be honest.
The result of the subtraction is divided by 360 is equal to the distance between the points divided by the worlds circumference, which is in this case marked as an X.
now you must multiply both sides of the equation with both 360 and the worlds circumference creating a situation in which.
X multiplied by the result of the subtraction is equal to the distance multiplied by 360.
Now you must divide by the result of the subtraction.
creating a situation in which X is equal to distance multiplied by 360 which is then divided by the result of the subtraction.
Thus you have calculated the approximated size of the earth.
If you wish to know how long a meter of which we voices have mentioned before is you just take a quarter of the circumference and divide it by 10,000,000.
"Sometimes what you voices say sounds very similar to that which is not madness. And this may be once such.
"I understand that two sticks should be raised erect, one six or ten days walk north of the other, and that the steps between the two of them should be counted.
"I understand that on the summer sunstead, when the sun is highest, the span between the edge of the shadow and each stick should be measured by thread. But a circle is involved in a way that I do not know and divided many times.
"And from there I do not know what you are speaking of. At times one relationship is clear, but it is built on confusion and results in confusion.
"Please try again, oh voice, if it is not madness you speak. I would like to know the count of paces that would walk around the earth."
Paper, paper, paper...
I rember that you were very interested in paper, Bianca, but my wisdom of papermaking is very incomplete, so you may need to wait for other voices. I shall say what I can remember, I'm not able to say more.
I know that making paper out of wood is very hard and may need overcomplicated devices, and that it's much easier to use old rags.
I can dimly recall that you need to boil highly fragmented pieces of rags for a long time, then pound that to form a pulp - a soft, wet, shapeless mass of material. Then strain pulp, maybe though cloth, to form a very thin layer that, when dried, should be a sheet of paper. My apologies, Bianca, the above may be incomplete or insufficient, but at least shows you a way for experimentation.
"So rags and scraps should be boiled, and the boiled rangs should be drained and beaten to pulp, then that pulp should be spread across cloth and the water drained out? Was not the water already beaten out? Perhaps more water is to be added during the beating.
"There isn't much in the way of rags around, and the people often already have uses for cloth that is otherwise ruined. But I will make some attempt at this right now."
Code:
B R E A K
"Oh, voices, it has been far too long since I last called on you. When last we spoke it was the spring of the fifty-ninth year since I first summoned you voices and now it is the spring of the eighty-fifth. Kuwuzt of Zouchaud, First Chief of the Ten Nations and King of Enonl, marked his hundredth summer last year. His beard has greyed but the hair of his scalp remains mostly dark. All the children of his youth are dead to old age.
"Very few have much memory of the time, more than sixty years past, when he was not the First Chief of the Ten Nations. And it may be that I am the only one living who remembers when he was not Chieftain of Zouchaud Tribe. I look forward to learning what he means to make his grey years about, now that they are finally coming in their fullness.
"For a time I had priests in Liavint who kept the small temple to me there. But there were some among them who quarreled with people of note in that city. And because the rulers of the city dared not cross me by acting against my priests, the matter came to fester. When I learned of it, I called the priests to serve me directly at my great house in the lands of the Ten Nations, where some still do.
"In their place, at the temples to me in Liavint, Biancvint, Wreol, Enonl, Huip and many others besides, live meek folk who are called Silent Servants. They look after the buildings and their contents. And true to their names they do not speak with visitors. That is what my singers are for. Still, the very meekness of the meek invites the rougher attentions of the strong. And for that reason I have twice gone to Liavint myself to make clear that my Silent Servants are not to be troubled. As such things often develop, the local authorities have since addressed similar matters to my satisfaction. My disapproval of their previous handling of the matter is well understood.
"Judges effectively rule in my name In Biancvint and Wreol. Every spring I send a singer to each city to relieve the singer before them who oversaw the judges for the previous year. And every fifth spring the judges in each city choose one of their number to set above them, in oversight.
"There has come some scandal of this. Some dispute the fairness of the judges or of the singer over them. There has been little blood shed over it, though, even among the lesser giants. And I have yet to feel that I should intervene personally. So that has gone better than I'd hoped, even.
"It is known that in Biancvint and Wreol no one may slay another in the streets, not even the judges who rule or the warriors who stand between whoever makes fights. But Fisher People are not so tough as their cattle are, and some are struck such that they fall dead in any case.
"Wreol sits beside where Wrul once stood. It has no wall and may or may not be a city, in truth. But it is a place where the Galugr make their homes. The fields and pastures around it are theirs and their boats go out on and return from the river Burgaghm there. Though they have not built a wall, they build their homes from the stones and timbers taken from the ruins of Wrul. Or, I suppose, they assist with the building of their homes.
"The Galugr live with no illusion regarding the quality of the work of their hands. They bring Fisher People to live among them and craft the sorts of things that suffer most when made in the fashion of the lesser giants. Some come to work for the Galugr in exchange for Galugr working for their families. Some are bond captives taken from sometimes distant outsiders. Others live and work their craft there because they have been cast out of their family home. The Galugr know their strengths and their limits, and so will make a place for even one of the Fisher People who is not yet skilled on the promise that they will learn.
"There are also Galugr who remain in the same lands I granted them around the cursed woodlands. Some who stayed are suspicious of the new place. Some are stubborn. Others believe their family will have better opportunities in the abandoned lands around the cursed woodlands. They also travel between both lands. And the Galugr continue to travel to far off places to secure other lesser giants as spouses by whatever means present themselves.
"That is its own source of discord. The lesser giants who are brought in, and to some degree their children, follow ways that the Free People of the Ten Nations do not. Every other year, it seems, I will be brought a complaint by someone from Burgeck or Tash that there is some terrible thing being done among the Galugr. They claim to know of cannibalism or hoarding or the stealing of children or of tribute being made to other gods.
"The table-rulers among the Galugr tell me that they should have no need to go abroad for spouses when the children born this year are grandparents, so long as winters are not too harsh for them. But I and my singers among the Galugr expect that it will not be so simple. When the time comes and they are forbidden to force any to remain among them beyond the limits of a proper bond of captivity, the practice will not end. But that is a problem for the future, when there are enough Galugr that alternatives may be explored.
"Those outsiders to the north who were called Friends of Gawdtha but were raided by Naumo paid tribute to me for one year before they left, leaving no sign of where they went. I did not seek them out and their fates are no concern of mine. All of the tribes raid outsiders more freely, now. And there are few outsiders who believe that one tribe can protect them from the others.
"I have built several horsehair measurers of airborne water. Even with the keeping of records at my great house, we have no clear understanding of the role of this tool in divination. The bead may be higher or lower and seems to have little bearing on what comes to pass. Even regarding the potency of the bursting dust, there is not much to be told from the bead.
"Oh, but the dust and the small cannons it is packed into have brought change like little else has. That and riders on horseback with stirrups and bows of such strength that only the mighty might draw them. The horses themselves are a horror enough in battle, and for that matter in the stable as well.
"Though the cruel animals remain too small for lesser giants to ride, it is well known that none keep them so well as the Galugr. Fisher People are just too small to safely share space with the mean beasts for too much time. Even so, the greatest warhorses are known to break the bones of the lesser giants who tend to them, from time to time. And there have been some few fatalities.
"People of Zouchaud, Sleomjash, Lan, Gawdtha, and Naumo have made themselves rulers over people in distant lands. Gawdtha and Lan bring local rulers into their marriages and into the Ten Ways Pact. Their children journey to my great house and I make them march or build roads or otherwise serve as I see fit. All of these conquering warriors bring my singers and my table-rulers with them. And they tell me what they find and in what numbers.
"The Giants of Liavint are the most successful. The hosts of their warriors ride across their great bridge of stone on chariots and wagons, they march and push handcarts loaded down, they lead donkeys and mules with great burdens also. And they bring small bronze cannons with them, cast and bored by skilled hands overseen by those who learned from the first cannon-makers.
"The Giants of Liavint rule over five cities in the south and have razed some others besides.
"And my scouts of trade and deception travel further and further away, bringing back word from places still further beyond where they have traveled. I have learned of others who consider themselves great powers and who know of me.
"Far to the southeast, on the shores of a sea of abundance, there contest two such powers. One is a child said to be the chosen high priestess of Yula, the first of the New Gods. She rules over ten cities as did the chosen high priestess before her and demands that the people should give tribute only to Yula and to no other. Her ships on that sea trade with and war against another nation of eight cities which are led by some fashion of family who call certain spirits into them, or are controlled by those spirits. It may be that there is only one spirit which works through different members of the family, if a family it is, at different times.
Author's note: neither of these are Oran the Wise, who you may or may not remember from the first post in this thread. He's still kicking around, but he's much, much further to the east. If she doesn't bite it first (heh), you'll run into Zorella the Cursed before you run into Oran.
"The Yulaites send their clever priests to distant cities ruled over by this or that person who pays me tribute. They preach the glory of Yula the Godslayer and denounce other gods new and old, and so there is some strife. But with them come traders hungry for iron and glass and clear stones and other things from the Ten Nations. And these bring fabrics and works of metal and yes also seeds and fruit unknown to the Ten Nations. So each ruler must find their own balance on the matter.
"The people of the eight cities call themselves the People of the Family. But outsiders call them Noarites, after their greatest city and the river on which it sits. The Noarites do not seem to make any demands of the cities with whom they trade. But they have sent their own scouts of trade and deception much farther north than the Yulaites. It may be that some of their number have seen Liavint, as they have surely seen other cities of the Giants.
"Both speak ill of the other, and encourage the hosts of the Giants and also of the Ten Nations to attack the other for their unrighteousness and such.
"Oh! I should tell you, oh procrastinative Millwright, that my scouts and traders did find fowl as you have described. They are smaller than the long-necked fowl caught and kept each summer in the lands of the Ten Nations. Their feathers are not so great or so stiff, and their down is not so plentiful. But they are far, far less trouble. They do not fly well or far. They live among people with little complaint. Their faults are mostly those of small things, in that they die easily and are favored targets of hawks, foxes, and even the village cat. They winter poorly, and must be kept with some care. Also, they fight amongst themselves, most especially the cocks, who do not tolerate each other's presence.
"But with the fowl my scouts also brought back the technique of castrating cocks while they are young. These then grow much larger -- though not so large as the long-necked fowl already kept -- and are much less trouble to their fellows and their keeper. On account of how small they are or perhaps on account of their balls being in their side, they die of their castration more often than steers do.
"But their eggs are, as you said, produced in remarkable numbers.
"A god has sent word from far in the west and south that the People of the Ten Nations have trespassed against them by making glass and, they say, doing so poorly. I have not seen their followers, but I am told that they are another people, Bear's People, who I have not heard word of in a very long time. They are said to have been made by Bear from the First People just as the Fisher People were made from the First People by Fish. And it is said that Bear worked with them to craft four New Gods: Dornhal of Stone, Samla of Gold and Silver, Tohn of Glass, and Ribl of Copper who made herself into Zagnal of Bronze many, many years later.
"The message from Bear's People came with a tree of glass whose branches glow white, whose leaves glow green, and whose fruit are no two alike in shape or in their colors, being all the colors of the rainbow and perhaps more besides. The message, which was spoken to a trader of Lan who wrote it down, said, 'Your works of glass are laughably crude. Their very existence is a mockery and an offense to our craft. Look, despair, and cease.'
"There has, of course, been no cessation in the crafting of glass, though some have despaired at the exquisite beauty of the Glass Tree of Light and Colors. It may be the most beautiful thing I have seen since some time long before my confinement and I keep it in my great house where I may look on it, as may those whom I favor.
"Bear's People would have me believe they have nothing to learn from me. But they do not know iron, and it is known that they desire its secrets. Like the making of glass, I will see that they have those secrets before they send hosts to my lands. And others are sure to learn to build the threshing and reaping machines that are used throughout much of the Ten Nations and in some places they rule over. But there are other secrets that none know to seek, such as the compass and the black soil and the roads within the Ten Nations. I would have you voices tell me more secrets that can be kept from the world.
"I have wound copper wire around a wooden staff and waved a loadstone over it. I have noted curious behavior but like the tugging of a loadstone against iron it is only a curiosity. I don't know what the purpose or use is of such things. But I keep them as secrets, for there is so much world and so many who might learn better before my people do.
"Another messenger sought me first at Biancvint and then at my great palace from a ruler far away, the Eternal Sovereign of Asule. He told me that one of my people, Kartz of Lan, came to his kingdom to pay him tribute but stole from him a precious book. I found the book in my hoard easily enough, having received it in tribute from the same Kartz of Lan some six or seven summers before. It is finely bound with over three hundred fine parchment pages and a cover with repeated patterns of jagged lines worked skillfully into the leather of its faces. The script in it appears unique to the book itself. We have seen it nowhere else. And its meaning is unknown. There are images with more script among them, some of which can be identified but most are just as impenetrable. The messenger has told me that only the Eternal Sovereign of Asule himself knows how to read the script and that, in fact, until he came near the lands of my possession he believed that the Eternal Sovereign was the only person who could read or write. His master demands the return of the book and the head of the thief of his secrets, neither of which do I find appealing. But how should I refuse?"
[Tome] Hospitality law be damned, kill this messenger in secret after sending him away
[Tome] Refuse simply
[Tome] Demand an unreasonably great gift in return
[Tome] Demand a reasonable gift in return
[Tome] Invite the messenger to watch as the pages are scraped for reuse
[Tome] Write in
"There is also, of course, the question of what to do about Kartz of Lan, who is said not only to have stolen from a king of some sort, but to have paid tribute to him in violation of the Ten Ways Pact. When called before me, Kartz said that he had been told that the Sovereign of Asule directed all thought and the actions of each and every person in his walled city in the mountains of Gahz far to the east. He was told that to go through the gates of that city was to lose one's self and forevermore serve the Sovereign of Azule in every choice and act. But he met one who said he knew how to enter the city and escape again, as that one's grandmother had done so in her youth, and that great riches were within and strange objects that Kartz of Lan recognized by description as books, though the locals knew nothing of them. So Kartz of Lan claims to have only paid tribute as deception, he said, to get close enough to the city walls to make his way in and steal the book. This would, I think, be more believable if it were what he told me when he returned but, so says he, he was frightened that he had risked my anger for nothing when he learned that my singers and table-rulers and I myself did not know the script in the book. What should I do about Kartz of Lan?"
[Liar] Kill him
[Liar] Main him
[Liar] Reward him for his report
[Liar] Set him to train others to similarly steal from the Sovereign of Asule
[Liar] Write in
"From far to the west, there comes word of a great spirit being headed toward the Lands of the Ten Nations with ill intent. The spirit appears as a multitude of ancestor spirits of Forest People, though in the company of no live Forest People. This is a manner in which none of their ancestor spirits are known to appear. It is said that some have interceded with the spirit or spirits on behalf of their people and their lands, to beg them to turn back, and were told that they must continue onward to punish a great evil, which the wise suggest may be in reference to the events that led to the cursing of the woodland to the east. These spirits travel slowly and are said to bring misfortune and suffering to the lands they cross, so that many people now move out of their way. It will be some years before they reach the Land of the Ten Nations, if that is indeed their goal, and I mean to prepare to combat them. But in the meantime they will pass through lands ruled over by others who pay me tribute. In which manner should I face this storm of angry spirits?"
[Tempest] Tell subordinates to move their people out of the way
[Tempest] Warn subordinates but let them respond how they see fit
[Tempest] Travel to meet the spirits at the edge of the furthest land whose rulers pay tribute to Bianca
[Tempest] Order everyone between the spirits and the core of the Ten Nations to combat the spirit or at least delay it
[Tempest] Write in
"The high chieftains of five tribes, Tash, Burgeck, Galugr, Sleomjash, and Naumo, have come to my great house to personally ask me to demand of the Giantess of Liavint that she and the people she rules should follow the Ten Ways Pact. They see the riches that are brought back to the Ten Tribes. And they know of the riches that never come this far north, and of the chosen of the warriors of the Free People of the Ten Nations who take to living richly in the south instead of returning to their homeland and sharing their gains. The Giantess and her ways serve me well, now. And they serve the Ten Nations well, also. But still, there is merit to this complaint, as the Giantess is permitted to pay tribute to others, most notably to divinities, and to enjoy their blessings and the Free People of the Ten Nations are not. What should be done?"
[Interloper] Cast down the Giantess and give her cities to the tribes
[Interloper] Make the Giantess follow the Pact, but allow the people she rules to continue as they are
[Interloper] Tell the chieftains that they can also stop following the Pact if they don't want Bianca's protection
[Interloper] Call for more tribute from the Giantess, to be shared with the Ten Tribes
[Interloper] Write in
"Both the Yulaites and the Noarites call for my people to attack the other. What should my people do?"
[Standoff] Threaten both with a promise to ally with the other unless paid tribute
[Standoff] Ally with the Yulaites against the Doarites
[Standoff] Ally with the Doarites against the Yulaites
[Standoff] Attack both indiscriminately as opportunities to do so arise
[Standoff] Write in
In regards to your question about the health problem caused by mold, lung diseases and less resilence against various germs, so poorer average health, are the most common. But especially though not only lung issues, difficulties with breathing, chest tightness, cough.
That is, if we talk about living in a dampy and moldy house. Eating moldy foods can cause food poisoning.
If you are curious what exactly mold is: something close to germ-sized poisonous mushrooms. That is not a perfect comparision, just as germs are different than big animals, but closest possible comparision to bigger things.
I have no memories of a healer. To be honest, my knowledge of mold is more like knowledge of a table-ruler that had seen very reputable book about healing once. I can see what Empire of many cities could look after additional 5000 years and sometimes I can read their books. If your mold wisdom is deeper than mine, obviously share this deeper understanding.
I think that the above may sounds slightly hostile, that's only some roleplaying, do not be offended ^.^
Let us get right into things. Firstly, on the topic of religion, priesthoods and rituals. You are correct that your singers and table-rulers already fulfill the majority of the roles that a priesthood would. Certainly, you could manage just fine without one. However, there are two markant advantages I would point out.
Firstly, religion begets loyalty. Having a religion in your lands that worships you, however beneficial or not, is better than having a religion that worships some other force. In the latter case, loyalties may conflict - you say one thing and their deity says another, and from such division conflict is born. This would be solved just as well by having no religion as having your own, but preventing the presence of religion entirely is easier said than done. Better a leashed wolf than one that runs wild, no? At the very least you know where you have that one.
Secondly, I am reminded of a particular religion. One which worshipped knowledge and complicated devices which were far beyond even us voices' ability to teach the workings of. Their machines were complex, beyond understanding, but through ritual they needed not understand the meaning of their actions, only the actions themselves and their effect, whilst at the same time paying heed to their principal deity. This is perhaps of much less use to you, who do not have devices as complex as theirs, but nevertheless it shows that religious rituals can be a great tool for getting people to correctly do complicated things without needing to understand why it works.
That is not to say that religion is something you must have, nor that it is even a good idea. I myself heed no deity, and I do just fine. Do what you will.
You also enquire about better writing implements. I shall present to you here two alternatives.
Firstly, for writing that is not meant to last more than a few years, you can instead use graphite to write. Graphite is a particular coal formation (one could only somewhat incorrectly call it a self-alloy) which can sometimes be found in certain rocks. Graphite is consequently blackish-gray, but can possess a silvery sheen due to the way it is structured. When dragged across a sufficiently rough surface (including what you use as writing sheets), tiny pieces of graphite will come loose, leaving a grayish-black streak which can last for ten years. It can thus be conveniently used in the place of ink for those writings which are not meant to be saved for a very long time, and whilst it would be a good idea to have something to hold the graphite with (lest your hands likewise be painted grayish-black and need thorough cleaning), it does not run or drip or otherwise make marks outside of where it is used.
Secondly, the ball-point pen. This is a somewhat fiddly thing to create, but I shall do my best to explain its workings. Take a small tube of metal, sized to be conveniently held when writing. In one end, narrow the opening - it should still be round, but smaller in width than the rest of the tube; the ink streaks made by the pen will probably be about as large as the narrowed opening is wide. Then, create a small ball. It must be a smooth ball which is round (as must the narrowed tip of the tube), or the ball-point pen will quickly stop working when used as the ball will become stuck - even a small imperfection can render the ball-point pen a leaking, unusable tool, like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. From my experience, this ball would be made of metal, but in both the cases of the tube and the ball you could try to make it out of wood or some other material and see what comes of it - maybe it will work, maybe it will not, either way we will learn something. The ball must be large enough to not fit through the narrowed opening of the tube, but large enough to slide through the rest of the tube, yet not so large that sliding the ball into the tube does not let part of the ball peek out of the narrowed end. After this comes the fiddly part. You put the ball inside of the tube such that it pokes out of the narrowed gap at the end, then you must pin it in place such that it remains pressed against the narrowed tip with no gaps that would let, say, ink through (though you can test this with water or some other liquid in creation), yet it should still be able to roll around when pushed or the ball-point pen is otherwise moved across surfaces. If this is correctly done and the ball is held in place, then you should be able to fill the tube with ink, and it should not leak out, yet when the ball is rolled around it will come into contact with the ink, and so coming around it will have ink on it which you can use to write. Done correctly, the ball-point pen should not create these ink stains you struggle with, and a sufficiently large ink reservoir should last you for a good amount of writing, saving you from frequent ink-dipping pauses. If this all works, then seal the wider end of the tube up such that it remains sealed and does not leak or soak up the ink, yet so the seal can still be removed (with some effort) when the pen needs to be refilled.
The former alternative, should you find graphite, would likely be within your capability. The latter option may require quite a bit of detailwork and I know not if you have the capability for such exact craftsmanship, so making ball-point pens may yet be out of your reach even if they are far more convenient than using feather-pens or the like.
You also ask why mold is dangerous, and though Black Cat talked briefly about this -mostly in terms of the symptoms- I shall elaborate a bit on my own. There are several reasons, and though not all molds are inherently a threat they are best avoided. In fact, just like disease are made by something close to tiny creatures, mold is in fact close to tiny mushrooms. As you well know, some mushrooms are dangerous, and so eating moldy things is likewise generally unhealthy. Also, as mushrooms are wont to do, mold releases spores, which can be best described as airborne miniature seeds of a sort. In enclosed spaces, these spores will have nowhere to go, and so will fill the air, and breathing too many of these spores is bad for one's health, especially in regards to breathing. With dry environments, the spores will take root less easily and so less new mold will sprout, and with better air flow these spores will more easily leave for other places, allowing for cleaner air and for less of them to be breathed overall.
You also ask about acquiring certain substances. Lead, mercury, gold and so forth can all be mined or found, but they are all what we call base elements. You can no more make lead or mercury than you can make coal, iron or any other base material - aside from meddling with the base building blocks of matter as a whole, and the processes for doing such is so far beyond your level that I'm not even going to try and explain how, as you would only call it madness. As with other base materials, you would be best served to simply prospect for it - some people can travel around and look for it, and when they find some there is likely more nearby.
There was also some bringing-up of methods to measure the size of the world. At first, the guidance was sound, but soon it delved into terminology you were not familiar with and the words were wasted. To be frank, I don't quite understand the explanation either as it sounds like they tried to speak a mathematical formula by saying it out loud, though I know the base principles. Perhaps it would be better, then, were I to explain the theory, rather than the practice. You place two sticks in the north-south axis of the world. This part you understood. Then, at the same time of day on the same day, you can measure how the sun shines on both of these sticks. As one is more north than the other, the shadow will be different. The only difference between the two, then, is where the sticks are placed on the massive globe of the world. Since the world is round, it must make a full circle along the line which the two sticks align in order to traverse its entire diameter. By measuring the shadows made by the two sticks, you can calculate the angle that the sun's light comes at to each stick's tip. The angle, in this case, can be seen as thus: you take a third stick. You place one end of the stick at the end of the shadow produced by the first/second stick, and the other end at the top of said stick. The part in between the two, facing towards the ground, will have a particular angle. The angle you seek is how big a portion of a full circle the creek between the two makes up. What the other voice suggested, with the three-hundred-and-sixty degree approach, is to divide a circle in three hundred and sixty parts in order to better measure how much of a full circle you have between the shadowed stick and the measuring stick. Once you have then measured this, the two sticks' angles will be different, and how much different determines how far along the world this distance you have is. In a full rotation of the world, you would go the full circle around, so if the difference between how much of the circle the two sticks' respective angles make up. With that, you can figure out how many times you would have to move that much of a circle around before you go full circle, and so the number of times you would have to do so, multiplied with the distance between the sticks, should give you at least a somewhat decent estimate of how many steps it would take to walk around the entire world. Of course, this assumes that the two sticks are equally far from the core of the world, which may not be true, and your measurements will likely not be perfectly exact (hence the 360-method to increase accuracy), so your number will not be exact -- but it will at least give you an idea. I hope this is clearer than the prior explanation.
As for actions to take...
[Tome] Demand a reasonable gift in return
Let's not give away things freely, but let us not act unfairly either. We may part with the book in exchange for due compensation.
[Liar] Write in: Dole out neither punishment nor reward in any grand sense, the information was at the very least worth something, but make it clear that he would be wise to be honest with us from the start in the future, as the consequences of deception would be far greater the second time around. Maybe have him pay you some extra tribute as compensation for now.
The lie is bad, but we also learned something, and I'm not really partial to either extreme. Let's just let him off with a warning. We can escalate later if need be.
[Tempest] Write in: Warn people and let them respond how they see fit. Meanwhile, prepare what you can that may be used to fend off a host of aggressive spirits, with whatever magical or mundane methods Bianca sees as likely to work.
This feels like it would cause the least problems in the short run, local leaders won't have to go further than they have to. I would rather have them buying us time to come up with a better solution, but without direct knowledge in the workings of local magic I cannot say what approach would be the best counter. Let them buy time without forcing them into things, and Bianca can prepare a counter in the meantime.
[Interloper] Make the Giantess follow the Pact, but allow the people she rules to continue as they are
This is a bit of a minefield, I feel. Calling for more tribute is but a temporary solution, and is likely to incite resentment, but we cannot just let her run rampant lest she grows big enough to try and split off from the rest. Not entirely sure about this one, but it feels like it's a good approach without stepping too far. Fell free to suggest something better.
[Standoff] Write in: We're not looking for conflict. Make clear that whoever tries to force you to get involved or cause you trouble, you'd rather ally with the other.
Let's just tell them to not poke the sleeping giant, metaphorically speaking. We've enough to deal with without being dragged into their politics, so let's try to make incentives to not try and force us into things.
Giantess sounds too powerful. Maybe the Liavint Empire could be completely dismantled and replaced with control of more reliable servants and singers of Bianca?
Bianca's Empire?
We know what works in Biancvint. Use Biancvint system for internal rule of all conquered cities.
But over these cities place also Common Army of Bianca to conquer new cities and to punish these already conquered cities that refuse to pay tribute to Bianca.
The city guard may be well suited for enforcing order and extracting grain from peasants, but is worse at conquering. And as we see, when one city conquers much, like Liavint, it starts to be unreasonably rich and powerful. It's possible to have a separate Army to conquer in the name of Bianca only. Of course well paid in baubles and well regarded as honorable men for their work.
The Common Army could be supplied by all cities of the Bianca's Empire. First Commander of the Common Army could be selected out of intelligent, horourable and loyal to Bianca warriors, perhaps by a small council of Bianca's singers - perhaps these singers that were previously selected to oversee cities and know cities well.
No First Commander of the Army should serve for more than five years, to prevent Commander from becoming new King over other Kings, like Giantess. I think that this was a mistake. Appoint also a singer to oversee the First Commander, like First Judge of a city is overseen. And table-ruler to advise and to deal with things like constant and reliable food supply, or bursting dust supply.
As to the basic nature of cities, you once said, quote: "I don't know if a city can be managed such that all the wonders of a city come from it for the benefit of all the people, without at times doing the sorts of things to the people working that land that feeds the city that are only done by pushing some down underneath others". End of quote. Humph! Perhaps not fully, but isn't this problem much lesser than it was in the past? I mean, production of food greatly increased with our advice, isn't that right? And also, during the last few decades, more fine crafts were also invented, that can be done in cities and gifted to villagers, instead of extracting from villagers for no benefit. It seems to me that this problem increasingly diminishes and perhaps the Ten Nations could try to create a city that would benefit everyone, not only people in the city.
There is also no law of reality that says "no food can be made in a city". No. Something in between a city and village may be possible. Maybe Wreol is something like that, you were slightly unsure how to call them.
I also think that, especially with improvements in better seafaring techniques, a small city around the sea could catch pretty great numbers of fish. Though of course, eating only fish would be extremely unhealthy, so that's not a full solution, but again, give fish to villagers, receive wheat...
This reminds me, the last counting of people was a long time ago. Surely numbers changed. Maybe it's time to count again?
