Discussion: Steam and Sorcery Dollars and Diseases

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 8:36 am

I've got two pretty big topics to go over with the folks playing Steam and Sorcery, or anybody that's really interested in building a world out of what's left of this one...

Money - Steam and Sorcery is going to use the same basic unit of exchange as every other D&D world. The humble silver piece. One silver piece is what an unskilled laborer earns in each day of work. It's enough to provide him with the basics of life, like food and shelter. However, with the amount of material wealth left behind (everything from tools to vehicles to clothing) what exactly does a silver piece buy you?

I'm also hoping to keep some Terran paper currency in Steam and Sorcery. Most important would be dollars. Because Lincoln (a powerful Gold Dragon who had been a political worker in Washington DC) rules the White City, and has access to the major treasuries there, he backs the Dollar at an exchange rate of 5sp each. Further from the White City (DC), the exchange rate drops. They might not be worth anything on the West Coast.

A great deal of the Steam and Sorcery economy is going to depend on barter and haggling. How much wine will a collection of DragonLance novels get you? Can you trade your dwarven-forged mail hauberk for that 22-foot boat with an alchemical engine?

Second major topic for discussion - I don't want to have to mess around with AIDS, Ebola, Mad Cow Disease or any other super nasty ailment in Steam and Sorcery. I am tempted to say that just like high end chemistry no longer working, the specific biology that allows 'killer' viruses to function no longer works. This also means that everything stored at places like USAAMRID no longer functions as well.

FlameBlade · Post by **FlameBlade** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 8:57 am

For terran paper currency. I would say that they are much more rarer, as much of currency that survived the changing of world are before the new notes. I mean, suppose take US's currency...right now, it would crumble down, and I would say that the system of making paper dollars reverted to original form...very basic paper notes, and due to very little technological availability, it is nearly impossible to counterfeit, especially, when there are several unique-signature magic signed on the dollar bills at near-random of certain mages' choosings.

Anguirel · Post by **Anguirel** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 9:14 am

I liked Fallout's bottlecaps.

Reverting to silver is good, but I'd do it by weight for most regions rather than stamped coins (the average coin will have a known weight, however). Less civilized regions will probably revert to using hacksilver for a while, as that works well in barter / haggle systems. Currency of any wort would be fine in civilized regions where a central authority can back up the value of the units. It'd be like a sliding scale from Viking to Roman and even up to paper currency in the area around D.C.

As for diseases -- yeah, since everything else is breaking down it'd probably be best if diseases at least temporarily quieted down. Once they merge with magic, though, major devastating epidemics could resume. Of course, magical cures, particularly from Paladins and Clerics with Remove Disease, are a bit more potent than the average modern antibiotic.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 11:05 am

Cazmonster wrote:Second major topic for discussion - I don't want to have to mess around with AIDS, Ebola, Mad Cow Disease or any other super nasty ailment in Steam and Sorcery. I am tempted to say that just like high end chemistry no longer working, the specific biology that allows 'killer' viruses to function no longer works.

We'd all be dead, though. We use the same biology they do. Of course, since you've got chemistry no longer working, reality ain't where you're coming from, so you can just ignore this, but it seems weird that you can catch a cold but not AIDS, when they're really very similar. I'd be tempted to leave all the killers out there, since most of them have /always/ been out there. That doesn't mean when someone gets AIDS, people say, "Ah, yon sir is HIV-positive." He's just sick for a while, and then gets pneumonia and dies.

Thorn · Post by **Thorn** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:04 pm

Second major topic for discussion - I don't want to have to mess around with AIDS, Ebola, Mad Cow Disease or any other super nasty ailment in Steam and Sorcery. I am tempted to say that just like high end chemistry no longer working, the specific biology that allows 'killer' viruses to function no longer works. This also means that everything stored at places like USAAMRID no longer functions as well.

Hi honey - just wanted to throw in a comment here. Well, okay, it's me, so there'll be a couple:

1. The stuff stored in labs like USAMRIID and such will probably die off because a) places like that, as the TechDeath begins, are going to go, "Crap! All the rubber and plastic that makes it possible to seal off our nifty Level IV Hot Zon is denaturing! Quick, get the bleach!" and that would be the end of that. Even ebola can't withstand bleach. So I think it would be damn unlikely for anyone to have samples of that stuff left, unless you've got some low-level lab flunkie who steals a couple petri dishes because he's really a Joker in the making, which could make for an interesting game idea, but really... not gonna happen. So I wouldn't worry about that.

2. Biology is biology, and I don't think you can really tinker with it. Because, okay - so Ebola is gone... what about small pox and influenza and all kinds of things that /used/ to be killer disease? You can't get rid of them all, really.

However, the big thing that makes AIDS, Ebola, Mad Cow disease so scary is how far and how fast people can travel nowadays, and how many of them do so. If it weren't for the fact that a human can be any place on earth within 24 hours, we wouldn't think a damn thing of Ebola. It would just be this weird sickness that happens occasionally in the jungle, wipes out a village, then retreats. The only reason Mad Cow disease is an issue is because people eat meat that comes from really really far away, rather than having themselves a nice slab of Farmer McGregor's Bessie for dinner.

In S&S, most people aren't going to stray to far from their home towns. The food people eat is going to come from somewhere within 200 miles (at most!) of their homes. Diseases will still exist, but they won't be as seemingly terrifying, because any of these diseases that kill fast and have high mortality rates won't actually be able to get anywhere.

Lemme explain: Village A gets hit with Ebola. Well, one villager leaves Village A to go to Village B to ask for help. Well, Ebola kills so fast, and incapacitates its victims so quickly that Villager 1, en route to Village B, is going to keel over from the disease, go mad and be dead within a few days, all with Village B being none the wiser. Eventually someone from Village B will go to Village A to say "Hey, how are ya", and they'll get there and discover 90% of the population dead (assuming we're talking about E. Zaire here), but by then the pathogen will have been killed off or retreated and that's that. All done. Village B remains safe.

So I'd say you can leave diseases as they are, honestly.

FlameBlade · Post by **FlameBlade** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:09 pm

Still, it helps to have cure disease as a weapon in magic-arsenal

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:30 pm

I agree with Thorn and 32. The disease potential is still there, but it can't travel as fast. How is hygien and basic city planning in this world? By the 1800's people ahd a basic grip on stuff that helped start cutting down on disease.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:27 pm

Thorn wrote:1. The stuff stored in labs like USAMRIID and such will probably die off because a) places like that, as the TechDeath begins, are going to go, "Crap! All the rubber and plastic that makes it possible to seal off our nifty Level IV Hot Zon is denaturing! Quick, get the bleach!" and that would be the end of that.

Absolutely. These facilities have mechanisms for the destruction of the samples - incinerators, more often than not - which would be engaged as soon as there was a risk of release. No one wants to release the superflu; certainly some samples would survive sealed in glass vials, but we've dealt with epidemics for hundreds of thousands of years.

Thorn wrote:However, the big thing that makes AIDS, Ebola, Mad Cow disease so scary is how far and how fast people can travel nowadays, and how many of them do so.

For an excellent example of the rate the spread of disease, look at any of the millions of graphs of the spread of the black death on its various tramps through Europe and the Middle East. The history of disease is a pretty fascinating thing, given the factors of its spread: trade routes, quarantines, weather, religious standards, hygiene...the list goes on, and can make for some good storytelling.

The literature of the time periods you're playing with is full of diseases, from scurvy to the black death to tuberculosis to leprousy. Why take the romance out of it now?

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:30 pm

Hygiene and basic city infrastructure are fairly intact (or more precisely rebuilt). Most folks can count on clean water and safe disposal of sewage. Bethyaga mentioned before that most of today's water systems are gravity driven, with the central pump needed to get the water into the towers. Wind, water, steam, magic and muscle can all be used to power the main pump.

Water treatment would be somewhat difficult with technology only. However Purify Food and Drink is a 0 level spell. A twinked out Purify Water would be 0 level again, and would clean say 16 gallons of water per casting. A Cistern of Pure Water might be able to treat as much as 16 gallons every six seconds and we're talking about an item created by a 3rd level caster using a 0 level spell. [1,500gp to buy, 750gp to create]

Now I haven't done the research to know how much water a community consumes on a daily basis, so I don't know how many of those Cisterns would be necessary per say 1,000 people.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:40 pm

Welll that depends on their water usage per person, and what amenties they may have.

I agree with 3278, a book on that subject that is particularly fascinating is Charles Panati's book on endings.

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:44 pm

FlameBlade wrote:For terran paper currency. I would say that they are much more rarer, as much of currency that survived the changing of world are before the new notes. I mean, suppose take US's currency...right now, it would crumble down, and I would say that the system of making paper dollars reverted to original form...very basic paper notes, and due to very little technological availability, it is nearly impossible to counterfeit, especially, when there are several unique-signature magic signed on the dollar bills at near-random of certain mages' choosings.

Why would paper currency give out? It's just really good paper. Sure, the inks may fade and some of the other anti counterfeiting measures may disappear, but they should still be bills even after 30 years. Also, Lincoln would most likely try to find all of the plates for printing money and keep them safe in his hoard. While he's happy to exchange some silver and gold for dollars. I don't think he'd be real happy turning over tons of the stuff.

And yes, there's a decent chance of new currency being circulated, just because of the convenience of folding cash. But at some level it has got to be backed up by hard currency or it won't work.

Also - while I haven't addressed this yet, the idea of community wealth could also work. You trade your time as a peaceforcer for fresh meat from Farmer McGee. As a teacher, you earn a stipend that you could use anywhere in town. So the hard currency there is the labor of the people.

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:47 pm

Anguirel wrote:I liked Fallout's bottlecaps.

I have no idea what you're talking about, but that's okay.

Anguirel wrote:Reverting to silver is good, but I'd do it by weight for most regions rather than stamped coins (the average coin will have a known weight, however). Less civilized regions will probably revert to using hacksilver for a while, as that works well in barter / haggle systems. Currency of any wort would be fine in civilized regions where a central authority can back up the value of the units. It'd be like a sliding scale from Viking to Roman and even up to paper currency in the area around D.C.

Ang, you're losing me more and more. Yes, we'd be taking about weights of silver here, as opposed to any minted coins. (although pieces of eight could easily come back into use.) Hacksilver - are you talking about silver items hacked up into bits? And the sliding scale thing makes no sense.

Anguirel wrote:As for diseases -- yeah, since everything else is breaking down it'd probably be best if diseases at least temporarily quieted down. Once they merge with magic, though, major devastating epidemics could resume. Of course, magical cures, particularly from Paladins and Clerics with Remove Disease, are a bit more potent than the average modern antibiotic.

I think Thorn's comments on this make the most sense. Her explanation was really what I was hoping for from somebody. Yay Thorn!

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 2:00 pm

Serious Paul wrote:Welll that depends on their water usage per person, and what amenties they may have.

I agree with 3278, a book on that subject that is particularly fascinating is Charles Panati's book on endings.

Okay, that's pretty damn cool.

I just checked and one cistern could purify about a 250,000 gallons per day. Yee friggen ha.

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 2:02 pm

Okay - so diseases will be there. But I'd still like to be real careful with the superkillers, even with Cure Disease and a good understanding of Biology, things can get out of hand.

Of course, the Necromancers in Paris may decide to do everything they can to bump off a lot of people to get more dead bodies to work with.

Anguirel · Post by **Anguirel** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 2:10 pm

Cazmonster wrote:
Anguirel wrote:I liked Fallout's bottlecaps.
I have no idea what you're talking about, but that's okay.

Fallout is a Post-Nuclear Apocalypse PC RPG. They use bottle caps from a junk heap as currency, backed by the trader's guild in the local major city. Don't worry about it, though...

Caz wrote:
Anguirel wrote:Reverting to silver is good, but I'd do it by weight for most regions rather than stamped coins (the average coin will have a known weight, however). Less civilized regions will probably revert to using hacksilver for a while, as that works well in barter / haggle systems. Currency of any wort would be fine in civilized regions where a central authority can back up the value of the units. It'd be like a sliding scale from Viking to Roman and even up to paper currency in the area around D.C.
Ang, you're losing me more and more. Yes, we'd be taking about weights of silver here, as opposed to any minted coins. (although pieces of eight could easily come back into use.) Hacksilver - are you talking about silver items hacked up into bits? And the sliding scale thing makes no sense.

Sorry... Hacksilver is the main currency used throughout the Nordic region for a good thousand years. It's essentially long wires looped up as bracelets and necklaces that can be pulled off, and then chopped up as necessary, then the remainder is put back on. The Vikings used it as it was easily transportable and difficult to lose on long treks (you wear your money). The Romans had minted coinage which was technically not as valuable (a single coin often had more value than the metal is was minted from) and Trade Bars (which were simply pre-weighed and density tested bars of precious metals which were stamped with their value for faster trade). As you got further from Rome, the value of the minted coins slipped until they were worth no more than the metal from which they were minted. By the time you reached the Nordic climes, you were better off carrying hacksilver than silver coins because they were worth equal amounts per unit of weight and the hacksilver was easier to manage. The sliding scale I was talking about would be that sort of slow decline in value as you travelled from highly civilized (paper money) to mostly civilized (deflated value paper and minted coins) to less civilized (only minted coins at deflated values) to uncivilized (hacksilver).

As for disease -- yeah, Thorn and 32 covered it excellently.

Bethyaga · Post by **Bethyaga** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 11:18 pm

IIRC, the average useful lifespan of paper money is about a year. So within about five years of the presses shutting down, I would imaging 90% of the paper currency is simply gone or unusable. Coins are durable as all hell, with a life of about 30 years. But after the spellcoming, what is the actual value of their component metals? Do the coins have significant value on their own? Is there still some government or organization backing the value of the currency?

Personally, I've always thought US Postage Stamps as a form of currency would be cool. The US Govt dissolves, but the USPS is technically an independent operation. The USPS perseveres and it guarantees the continued value of a first class letter stamp. The stamps unwittingly become the only constant across the mish-mash of chaotic systems arising, and thus they become the defacto hard currency. For convenience and durability, stamps of various denominations are made in different sizes, and their perforations are removed so that you can more easily carry larger sheets.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 1:43 am

For whatever reason, I find I'm something of an expert on coin minting and ciirculation. What level of technology are we talking about here, post-spellcoming? 1800s? 1700s? I can give you a pretty good idea of what's /possible/ from that, and then it should be easy for you to decide what's fun.

Thorn · Post by **Thorn** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 2:13 am

A good way to describe it (says I post-consultation with Caz) is "early Industrial Revolution", with magic in there to gum up the works from time to time. That's what - 1870s or 1880s? Somewhere in there. I think. Don't quote me - I suck at history.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 3:24 am

Thorn wrote:A good way to describe it (says I post-consultation with Caz) is "early Industrial Revolution", with magic in there to gum up the works from time to time. That's what - 1870s or 1880s? Somewhere in there. I think. Don't quote me - I suck at history.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 4:27 am

I guess it's all in how you define Industry. Some people would say Ely Whitney and the cotton gin in the 1700's were the beginings, others might credit the rail road rush of the 1850's thru 1890's.

My bet with no idea, having not read any S&S reference material is pre civil war, or civil war tech.

Thorn · Post by **Thorn** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 5:01 am

Rail road-y stuff. The printing presses used in roughly Civil War-era newspapers exist and work all right (though probably better with a little magic to er... grease the wheels). Steam power works well and is fairly prevalent.

Um... crap. Brain power running low. Coherence... failing. Will stop speaking for my hubby now.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 5:08 am

I then highly reccomend the The Lost Regiment books by William R. Forstchen by ROC books. (1-800-788-6262) The books are about 7 bucks each plus about 2 for shipping. If you haven't read them, they are brilliant.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 5:18 am

Oh, hell, then there's no reason that every government wouldn't produce its own paper and coin currency, just as they did at the time. The barter economy simply can't work on a large scale, and the instant touchstones were discovered, any idiot in the world could tell the worth of a gold coin in seconds. Government stamps grant incredible economic power to anyone willing to guarantee the quality of metal used in coins, just as they did for Lydia, and then Miletus, Phocæa, Cyzicus, Mitylene and Ephesus.

I assume, given that steam power's the dominant force, that there's no electricity, correct?

Thorn · Post by **Thorn** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 5:32 am

*Thorn makes little "puppet-faces" out of her hands. "I talk you talk I talk you talk."*

Okay, so t'hell with letting Caz answer his own questions. As a general rule, no electricity. There are a few magical things that sub in rather nicely for electricity, but that's pretty rare. It's certainly not electricity as we know it today. It's treated as the sort of eldritch thing magic would be treated as today, more or less.

Most homes run the way they would have in 1870 or so, lamps and candles provide light, fire provides warmth, and "purify food and water" and "traditional" curing, canning and other food preservation techniques keep food edible long-term. Some of the richer homes might have light provided by um... light elemental creature-things or some other bit of magic, but not by electricity.

(Caz, sweetheart, please feel free to correct me wherever I'm off here - I don't wanna fuck up your creation here.)

3278 · Post by **3278** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 5:49 am

I gotta ask, because I'm usually the only person who's all gonzo about realism, but how much do you know - or want to know - about things like lighting and power generation in 1870? It's another one of those things I find I accidentally know a lot about, but I don't know to what degree you're just handwaving things like gaslight and "the Soho Stink" by just saying, "light works like it did back then. Read a book if you don't know."

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 6:08 am

3278 wrote:I gotta ask, because I'm usually the only person who's all gonzo about realism, but how much do you know - or want to know - about things like lighting and power generation in 1870? It's another one of those things I find I accidentally know a lot about, but I don't know to what degree you're just handwaving things like gaslight and "the Soho Stink" by just saying, "light works like it did back then. Read a book if you don't know."

Power Generation - I wanted to keep electricity from being too important in Steam and Sorcery so one of the major cutbacks it has suffered is that it cannot be generated using a dynamo. You can create alchemical batteries about as powerful as a large maritime battery. There are also batteries that store Potential Spellworks which power technomagical appliances like your Larder of Preservation or your Repeater Crystal Viewer.

Continual Flame spells work very nicely for lighting as well. Although I am going to be tweaking 'permanent' spells slightly as I write more down. Basically, in order to create a permanent effect, even something as ephemeral as an illusion, you've got to reroute a small portion of the World's dynamic mystical energy. I'm not prepared to go into the Cosmology of Steam and Sorcery, but it is quickly coming together.

FlakJacket · Post by **FlakJacket** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 6:46 am

Thorn wrote:A good way to describe it (says I post-consultation with Caz) is "early Industrial Revolution", with magic in there to gum up the works from time to time. That's what - 1870s or 1880s? Somewhere in there. I think. Don't quote me - I suck at history.

Hhmm, do we have a definate time period? Just that I was getting a kind of turn of the century/early 1800's vibe to begin with, but the 1870/80's threw me off. Round about that period or a bit before, here in the UK we had things like the building of the central London sewer sytem, building of the Great Eastern ocean liner, Bell Rock Lighthouse, or in the US the Brooklyn Bridge and Panama Canal were being thought of/implemented IIRC - what can I say, there's a television series about stuff like this on at the minute.

So are we going for that kind of level of industrialisation or something a bit earlier? Sorry to be awkward.

Serious Paul · Post by **Serious Paul** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:49 am

As I was working on my character I realized a few questions I have, and was wondering is there an online description of this world I could read?

I am searching as I post this, so hopefully I answer my own question.

FlameBlade · Post by **FlameBlade** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:57 am

One place to start:

(apologies for popups in advance)

Technology.

More to come...

Thorn · Post by **Thorn** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 11:12 am

Flak: It's possible I'm way off on my years here, to begin with (note to self: more history research). Also, it's kind of a funky situation, because...

Okay, I started to try to explain and it got huge. Suffice to say, for now, that while immediately following the Spellcoming, things are fucky-fucky pretty much all over the place, within 15 years, there's been a lot of progress. And 30 years post-Spellcoming, even more progress. And by 60 years post-Spellcoming... it's entirely possible that the civilization of the changed Earth would be about as advanced as our current culture, or the culture of Martayak before the worlds colliding. Because the thing is, the knowledge is still out there. The books haven't disappeared. People still know (or can read to find out) what all is known and not known and what /was/ possible. So it's not so much re-inventing the wheel and figuring out a new material to make it out of.

So all that kind of makes pinning down a particular era... sketchy, at the current moment.

Hmm. I think what needs to happen is we need to work out a clearer timeline of what happens post-Spellcoming, to be able to more accurately say what the tech level is. Because seriously - there could be easily 200 years worth of advancement in about 60 years, but (practically) all of it would be re-building toward what was possible pre-Spellcoming.

FlakJacket · Post by **FlakJacket** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 12:52 pm

Ah, gotcha.

Big Jim · Post by **Big Jim** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 3:22 am

For everyone that was on Earth before the spellcoming, there's going to be nostalgia for the way things were. That always translates to value in some way, even if it's only to a select group of people. I think old currency would have some of this value as well, especially 20 or 30 years later, when old bills begin to get rarer.

Cazmonster · Post by **Cazmonster** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 3:57 am

There is that. I think for now, dollars are going to belong only in the White City Supplement.

FlameBlade · Post by **FlameBlade** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 11:38 am

probably a good idea.

Threadbare · Post by **Threadbare** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 11:50 am

One think I was thinking about: Thaumatological Resistance. Diseases mutate around our latest supercures eventually, what's to say that Cure Disease doesn't have to be updated every few years?

Discussion: Steam and Sorcery Dollars and Diseases

Discussion: Steam and Sorcery Dollars and Diseases

Re: Discussion: Steam and Sorcery Dollars and Diseases