Professions, jobs and roles.

[Rick]

Just been looking at resurrecting my idea of doing the WoT as an RPG, but using Gangrels excellent suggestion of the "Savage Worlds" rules, and I had a bit of a thought: simply put - are any professions, jobs or roles within fubarnii society that are restricted by gender? For example, I assumed that jenta, being quite young, would really only be eligible for apprentice status, maybe squire, but are engineers all kopa? Are clan leaders all kopa, for that matter (I'm assuming yes for this, given past discussions).

On a (slightly) related note, given that a Fubarnii lifetime is around 30 years, at what age does a jenta become a sempa? My assumption was around 6 years old or so?

[Carcharoth]

From some old ramblings:

Fubarnii tend to live for about 25 years, maturing from being Jenta after 10 to 12 years, and tending towards the eccentric lifestage at around 20 years. Development from Sempa to Kopa is often a matter of choice, with Sempa ingesting suitable chemicals to slow down or speed up the process.

Devanu are longer lived, even if far fewer tend to die from old age. Jenta are expected to look after themselves from 5 or 6 years of age, but will only become Sempa after 15 years or so. Development after that is governed very much by the tribe hierarchy, with the Kopa ensuring that none of his Sempa develop any further. If a Sempa does start to develop this will be seen as an act of defiance, and result in a leadership dispute. The developing Kopa will often be driven from the tribe, but may sometimes take over leadership and kill or drive out her Kopa. If the Kopa is killed then the dominant Sempa will tend to rapidly develop into a Kopa.

So they take slightly longer than you were thinking - the productive adult life is actually quite short. Older Jenta would be expected to work though and would have spent several years as apprentice before maturing to sempa.
Engineer is a very broad title and is certainly not limited to kopa. Senior engineers are likely to be kopa, but it varies. The oldest engineers have matured beyond those distinctions anyway and have entered what has been dubbed the 'eccentric' lifestage. Very few roles are actually limited to kopa, but leadership roles would most commonly be filled by kopa (it would be strange but not unheard of for the leader to be subservient to her kopa mate - that would inevitably lead to a strained relationship and the sempa would often look to move on and mature. Some cultures would have a heavier bias towards kopas).

[Rick]

Thanks Mike, that'll teach me to not read through the back-threads on this before I post! Should've known we'd covered this ground before. My basic idea of the rpg concept was that the players would all be Fubarnii Jenta or Sempa, and their personal long-term goal would be to become a Kopa. It makes it easier for there to be few restrictions on a Sempa's role.

[Carcharoth]

Make them social limitations implied by the town/clan. That'll give you plenty of freedom to make their lives difficult!

[Rick]

This all seemed so simple before - do a bit of an add-on to the Savage Worlds character generation, a few beasties and hey presto! Now it looks like I'm going to have to rework that idea completely! 

Ok, seriously - what might be a good idea is to do a bit of a breakdown of each main region with highlights of the social and political areas (and anything else I can think of), rather than trying to a gazzetteer for the whole of Anyaral. Do you have names for all of the bordered territories on Brandlin's map yet? That would help me sort out a few points. Also - any ideas on currencies? We've mentioned them before, but I don't remember a decision. I'm guessing theres some form of Imperial currency, a Delgon one and perhaps some clans have a local currency as well - I can imagine the Casani territories having there own, they do like to do things differently there, lol!

[Carcharoth]

I'd suggest you keep things reasonably simple to begin with. Select a clan or two to start with and we can pull together enough information to flesh those out.
I've done a very rough overview of social stereotypes within the Empire before, and that might be a good place to start. Not all the bordered territories have names yet, but I'd suggest we start on a slightly smaller region. More than happy to finalise more names, and that'll help Alan when we come to finishing off the map.

No firm decision has ever been made on currency, but that is certainly worth discussing and I'll then flesh out a bit more about the economy. Any initial thoughts on what sort of currency the Empire should use? I quite like the idea of currency that can be strung together - like chinese coins or perhaps more solid rings. That's by no means definite though!

[Rick]

Okies. What I'm working on at the moment is a more complete character generation system for Savage Worlds (you can download a lite set of the rules here: http://www.peginc.com/Downloads/SWEX/TD06.pdf - I'm using the complete Explorers edition, so these rules are the same, just a lot briefer), the religion aspect and a settlement generator. The settlement generator should be a good start for anyone fleshing out settlements from the map, the bare bones anyway (I hope).

As far as currency goes - there are 2 main ways of doing things, the first is that the currency IS the money, for example - a certain coin is an exact weight of gold (or other rare material), and what you buy with it is the value of that weight of gold. The second is that money is a token, backed by Imperial or Clan banks to represent a measure of rare material that could be redeemed for that token (this is what we use today). The only real difference is that in the first case, the value is set at a fixed amount, depending only on the rarity of the material, and in the second case the value is set by a - how much of the rare material the banks hold and b - how many tokens are struck to represent it. In the second case, the value can fluctuate a lot more. In game terms, the only real difference is what the coins are made of (and how easy to forge) and what it will buy, and I suppose what the exchange rate with other currencies is!

I like the idea of the chinese or japanese coins as well (as I recall the japanese coins were a token representing a measure of rice), not least because you can have different set denominations; the precious metal coins or bars were cut up for smaller denominations (hence the american "four bits" and the piratical "pieces of eight"). If this is the case, I would suggest the coins be made of bronze or copper, iron and steel are too useful to use as currency; maybe have different sizes, weights or number of sides to show denominations.
Another question is: can only the Imperial (or Delgon) mints strike coins, or do each of the clans have a currency as well?

[Rick]

Not all the bordered territories have names yet, but I'd suggest we start on a slightly smaller region.

Yeah. About that. Am I more or less correct in thinking that the territory or province might be named after it's city? So, you'd have Etarl and Elam Ros provinces, for example?

[Carcharoth]

Not all the bordered territories have names yet, but I'd suggest we start on a slightly smaller region.

Yeah. About that. Am I more or less correct in thinking that the territory or province might be named after it's city? So, you'd have Etarl and Elam Ros provinces, for example?

I wouldn't expect anything quite as neat as that. That'll certainly be true for some clan territories, but not all.

I'll have to have a look at the Savage Worlds system - always interesting to read through a new set of rules.
The currency question has a lot of knock on effects regarding the structure of the economy but we'll make a decision on it shortly. Do expect the Delgon to have their own system with their own currency, which I think is more likely to be a representative currency managed by the church.

[Jubal]

I think having some quite universally prized item for currency would be good, but not simply shiny metal linke we humans tend to use - as an example, the Aztecs used cocoa beans as currency. Possibly some sort of doughnut-shaped seedpod would fit both ideas? I can imagine that currency would be a central empire thing, too; the Casani would probably prefer a more barter-based system.

[Rick]

I think most cultures have used different items as representative currency over the years - celts used small iron bars, some island culture (I think) used seashells. The important thing is the control over the production of the tokens - if you can use commonly occurring items, it will totally devalue your system (think of Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - they used leaves as currency, lol!). It cannot be easy to forge (metal with complicated stamped faces is good) or reproduce, and ideally it should have only one function - that of currency. A seedpod would do fine, but after 1 growing season you'd have a lot more and the currency would be worth a lot, lot less. Oh, and with the Aztec's, I suspect the cocoa bean (being quite rare and highly prized) was the currency, not a representative token of the wealth.

If the Delgon church is as centralised economically as it seems to be, then I would have thought a representative currency would fit - perhaps food based (like the japanese koku was based on a measure of rice).

I have posted this link elsewhere, but if you want to get a copy of the lite version of the rules, go here: http://www.peginc.com/Downloads/SWEX/TD06.pdf - its the same rules, but a little less information.

[Rick]

Was just looking around the net for ideas and found a great idea - glass or clear resin coins. To develop it further, you could have a wire or patterned design inside that would show its authenticity, and different colours for different denominations.

And I beg most humbly to differ with Jubal. The Dhogu rely on barter quite a lot (especially with outsiders), but in Casani, we use a system more along the lines of a Clan-backed credit (more akin to a representative currency, but backed by the power and prestige of the Casani clans more than gold or precious gems). The system requires a little more haggling and diplomacy than in the central Empire, as the parties involved agree on a common value for the items involved, but it works.

[Carcharoth]

I've been thinking about money a lot...
The following isn't fixed yet and open to some discussion, but it's a start.

Individual clans have always had their own currencies, which vary vastly across the Empire. Many generations ago one of the Emperors decided to try and unify the currency and introduced the Gerrin. The central empire accepted the new currency, but more distant clans were less enthusiastic to abandon their own currencies. While the gerrin is now reasonably accepted as being the universal currency it is far from guaranteed that it will be accepted once you get further from the central empire. The gerrin are small strips of metal premarked in eighths. These can be clipped down to give smaller donominations.

The traders actually managed where the Emperor failed. The traders will often issue credit during their dealings, and these credit notes will be honoured by any trader that passes through the region. As such, those notes have in themselves taken value and will be traded as a form of currency. This effective currency has been around for a long time and in some regions has been formalised as lower denomination 'coins'. The Emperor is not happy with this state of affairs, but given the power of the trade guilds there is actually very little that can be done about this alternative currency.

I know that's only very brief, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!

[Brandlin]

The traders will often issue credit during their dealings, and these credit notes will be honoured by any trader that passes through the region. As such, those notes have in themselves taken value and will be traded as a form of currency.

thats effectively what uk bank notes are, a promisary note of credit. they say "i promise to pay the bearer the sum of .." on them

sounds good to me.

like the resin coin idea with things in them too.

[Rick]

Nice ideas there. like the idea of pieces of 8!

I had a very similiar idea for the Casani clan traders (wonder if the trading guilds "borrowed" it from the Casani, or vice versa, lol!), with the credit note being backed up by the wealth of the clan - presumably the traders notes being backed by the wealth and prestige of the trading guilds. What it means is that a trader will have his own seal to authorise a note with (similiar to a chinese 'chop'), which presumably has a guild mark on it and a unique mark to that trader.

The Casani clan merchants use a similiar system, and the bigger clans have agreements with Empire trading guilds where they can redeem each others notes, which extends the influence of the Casani clans beyond the Casani borders, but also gives Empire trading guilds more influence within Casani clan councils.
Because of the mostly local nature of Casani internal trade, clan merchants can use the 'credit note system' to set prices for several seasons in advance (in effect, a 'futures market'); in return for an exclusive trade deal over several seasons, a producer can draw on that extra credit, benefitting both sides. Sometimes the clan merchants can make a big loss on such deals, but rarely - most often it either breaks even or makes a tidy profit.
Empire traders rarely use this system, due to the longer distances involved, most of their trade is of a guaranteed market and speculative nature, where they know they can make a profit selling town A's goods to town B or C (where there's an established need), or if they see a nice, small volume product, they might buy some to see if it sells elsewhere.