Daily life expenses in Sartarite cities

[Joerg]

58 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Bread.   Is potato.

Fake potato - formed from maize starch,, or some form of beet like rutabaga (an unwelcome memory for many WW2 survivors, much like dark bread in France). No potatoes in canonical Peloria...

[soltakss]

On 2/4/2023 at 11:46 AM, Joerg said:

No potatoes in canonical Peloria...

The Cult Compendium has "Light Sons never eat fish, potatoes, or raw eggs in any form" and "Members may partake of the Poor Fund at any time
and find potato bread, onions, and red berries (when in season) to eat once per day there, and also be allowed to sleep under the roof of the Outer Temple" from the Yelmalio and Seven Mothers cults respectively, both canonical Pelorian cults.

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

The Cult Compendium has "Light Sons never eat fish, potatoes, or raw eggs in any form" and "Members may partake of the Poor Fund at any time
and find potato bread, onions, and red berries (when in season) to eat once per day there, and also be allowed to sleep under the roof of the Outer Temple" from the Yelmalio and Seven Mothers cults respectively, both canonical Pelorian cults.

Yes, but potatoes have been removed from the descriptions in the Guide. Your Glorantha may vary and have these spuds, but Greg pointed out that Genertela lacks the kind of highlands like the Andes from which potato farming conquered south and central America in pre-Columbian times.

The cults  are still canonical, but this little detail probably won't re-appear in the Gods Books. It will be a while before we find out, though, as neither the cults of Light and Fire nor the Lunar cults are among the first batch of the Cults books.

[mfbrandi]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Greg pointed out that Genertela lacks the kind of highlands like the Andes from which potato farming conquered south and central America in pre-Columbian times.

Interesting as an observation, but how does it work as an argument? If you find something in Glorantha that lacks its earthly origin or explanation, retcon it away? I have a horrible feeling that would thin the setting quicker than Argrath crashing the moon. 😉

(No, I don’t say this to argue for spuds in Peloria.)

[radmonger]

Most of the time, the answer is 'a wizard (or rune priest) did it'; I guess this is one of the exceptions.

Alternatively, you could have potatoes being native to the highlands of the Red Moon. as such, they only grow within the glowline, and so far are too novel to get widespread cultivation. What does gets produced is normally disdained by the wealthy, and so ends up in the poor ration. However elements within the imperial government do have great plans for the crop.

Some claim it can nearly match the yield of maize, while not requiring blood sacrifice...

 

 

[Eff]

Trying to find a rational reason why potatoes should have vanished but maize remained is a fool's errand- maize was embedded too deeply to be winkled out with other New World crops and plants. 

[Tindalos]

There are still potatos Glorantha, they're just found on the southern coast from Seshnela to Kethaela, where they attack boats to drain people's blood. 

Spoiler

Having fun with the Bloodbird's God Learner name of Scolopacidae potato cruentum.

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Tindalos

[Darius West]

On 1/26/2023 at 10:19 AM, Ali the Helering said:

No such thing as a free lunch😁

Tell that to the Bat.

[Nick Brooke]

Ipse dixit.

[M Helsdon]

I've heard that potatoes are grown in Sartar....

[Joerg]

51 minutes ago, Eff said:

Trying to find a rational reason why potatoes should have vanished but maize remained is a fool's errand- maize was embedded too deeply to be winkled out with other New World crops and plants. 

Maize is Mesoamerican and was a staple diet in the Mississippi and pueblo cultures, whereas the standard potato is Peruvian highland in origin.

Irish and Prussian potato agriculture with plowed fields is a modern theme (but then the combination of maize and plow is as modern). The difference is that we lack a Lunar heroine to bring back the potato. Write one up, and we'll see.

 

And yes, I am aware of the few occurrances of potatoes in the early lore. They probably grow in the area of Christian's Bay, or are served to the President of Caladraland by the Pharoah, or may have been introduced through the transuniversal nexus that produced Redbird.

[Darius West]

On 1/26/2023 at 9:12 AM, Joerg said:

According to the Starter box, citizens of the Sartarite cities don't seem to buy their basic food piecemeal. They pay their real estate tax (which gives them citizen status) and receive their dividend from the city granaries, butcheries etc. according to their tax status. This will allow additional food for a certain amount of dependents and/or guests, the latter probably for a limited time.

This is a great topic Joerg, and well worth the time to discuss.

We are used to a game wherein society for our adventurers is very currency or livestock driven, as these are measures of wealth we have become familiar with.  Originally in RQ1 and RQ2 everything was currency driven.  At some stage in RQ3-Pendragon Pass-Hero Quest days, and when the KoDP computer game came out we became more familiar with running a cattle based economy for clans.

You are challenging us to remember that during the Bronze Age, if you lived in a city, you were likely an artisan paid for by a Ruler and a beneficiary of the tax and tribute a Ruler received.  We forget that the alleged "culture hero" responsible for the invention of currency was King Gyges of Lydia who died in 644BC, well after the Bronze Age, and that the great Kingdoms and City States of the Bronze Age had no coins.  Instead they traded bulk commodities like 60 amphorae of lamp oil for 20 measures of scented timber from Lebanon, not less than 1 Stadia in width and 3 Stadia long (etc.).

This idea of a top-down economy based on food allocation was normal for city dwellers and actually persisted in the world for a very long time.  For example, even today the Emir of Dubai pays for everyone's cooking gas.  This system of patronage was also prevalent in Europe but was slowly dismantled in favor of coin and the belief in the Market Mechanism. 

The top down system is heavily centralized; a command economy model.  The King takes tax and redistributes it to his artisans who make weapons for his army and wealth for him to distribute and maintain his prestige.  Of course it is not "communist" as it incorporates an implicit class system in the distribution model.  It is a very different way of thinking about Gloranthan economics however.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Darius West

[svensson]

It doesn't matter what the staple foods are when we are discussing the organization of the food supply at the city level. The issue at hand here is the method by which food is distributed to a high concentration of those who cannot grow their own and at what medium of exchange and price point of exchange.

Now, I'm not getting all 'MBA' here and substituting 'widget' for something as vital as the food supply. It's of obvious importance on a local level what can be grown, how often it can be harvested, and how it can be preserved. This is Glorantha not the Forgotten Realms and while the Earth Goddess are a necessity to the production of food, there isn't a friendly priestess bopping around the neighborhood casting Create Food and Water in times of famine. And for all the magic in Glorantha, famine and devastation of the land is just as important a tactic of warfare here as it was in Peloponnesian Wars on Earth. There are those in Tunis that strongly believe, for all their Muslim sterness, that Romans poured a curse in addition to salt on the land that was Carthage. [Brief note, the Romans did not sow tons of sand into the soil of Carthage. They used a couple of tons and cast it on the ground in ritual condemnation. But curses, be they true or false, often take on lives of their own.]

As @Qizilbashwoman pointed out, we have Cruciform tablets and earlier evidence that food, cooking, and taxes were communal and related [meaning that paid taxes bought access to the food supply on an annual basis] in early Mesopotamia before improvements in agriculture and husbandry drew in enough of a surplus that it could be done 'for profit'. This is partly because there was enough of a surplus of some foodstuff that the supply outstripped the food's 'shelf life' allowed by preservation techniques. Even grain kept in sealed granaries can develop ergot if the temperatures changes develop a damp/dry cycle and the sources like the Aramaic translations of the Bible and Gilgamesh speak of 'old grain' in terms that it was rancid and not fit for consumption.

[Eff]

32 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Maize is Mesoamerican and was a staple diet in the Mississippi and pueblo cultures, whereas the standard potato is Peruvian highland in origin.

Irish and Prussian potato agriculture with plowed fields is a modern theme (but then the combination of maize and plow is as modern). The difference is that we lack a Lunar heroine to bring back the potato. Write one up, and we'll see.

 

And yes, I am aware of the few occurrances of potatoes in the early lore. They probably grow in the area of Christian's Bay, or are served to the President of Caladraland by the Pharoah, or may have been introduced through the transuniversal nexus that produced Redbird.

I think that if we want an ecologically appropriate source for domesticated potatoes, a product of the Andean altiplano, we have two of them in the Blue Moon and Hungry Plateaus right next door to the Lunars proper. Or we could place them further afield, in hilly eastern Ralios, or somewhere off near Teshnos, and make them a product of diffusion through Dorastor/via the Celestial Empire. The options are plentiful for making them as innocuous as the flooded fields of domesticated wild rice or stands of maize plowed by ox-teams. However, as with the cities themselves, it is still an aesthetic decision. 

It is certainly possible to read Gloranthan cities as operating under the reconstructed distributive economy of very early Sumeria, or the hierarchical and extractive temple-state, or a city with a large agora and open marketplace. There are of course discordant elements that need to be pared back whichever you choose, whether you make it global or local. The main consideration is- what do you think cities should "look" like? What kinds of situations would PCs be enmeshed within, and how would the situation react to their decisions? (Much of this in turn has the potential to take on its own political character: heartless communal Lunars versus free, market-oriented Sartarites; the raw brutality of the Etyries commodification magic versus simple, primitive communist Issaries "merchants", Orlanth forbid, a political character where the Lunars are more ambivalent- but that's a table matter.) 

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Eff said:

I think that if we want an ecologically appropriate source for domesticated potatoes, a product of the Andean altiplano, we have two of them in the Blue Moon and Hungry Plateaus right next door to the Lunars proper.

The Hungry Plateau should not be the source of a nourishing tuber (however terrible its stench is to me). It was created when Gerendetho sheared off the top of that peak with his spear, creating the Jord Mountains range from the rubble, which suggests that the surface has little in the way of topsoil.

Now the movie "Man of the Arans" shows how a wind-ridden rock surface without any significant amount of topsoil can be used to grow potatoes, but that required composting of kelp, a resource unavailable on the Hungry Plateau.

The Blue Moon fallout isn't quite an altiplano with an elevation of between 3000 and 4000 feet. The Andean altiplano has that altitude in meters.

The presence of bugs and trolls (and trollkin) makes its use as agricultural altiplano difficult. But then, the troll and insect problem went for the Shadow Plateau as well (at the same elevation), and the Kitori managed to have a thriving agriculture there prior to the destruction of the Obsidian Palace.

Its proximity to the Glacier would make agriculture or in this case horticulture a short race against cold weather overcoming the unshakeable presence of Yelm.

(There should be a spin-off thread about how Gloranthan climate has been stable throughout Time, with only the Sunstop and the Windstop creating severely off-kilter events.)

The Duchy of the Blue Moon shown on older maps might have been a partially human horticultural society, but all descriptions of the Blue Moon Plateau (and a one-off improv HeroQuest game Greg narrated there at one of the Tentacles conventions) indicate a troll-only population there.

Annilla is connected with rice in Melib. Fonrit and Zamokil have the plants of the local "grain" goddesses, and Fonrit adds goats as livestock.

 

The Shadow Plateau prior to 1318 might have been the homeland for potatoes, now that I have compared the Blue Moon Plateau with it. It used to be rather lush, perhaps a bit too wet, but the human Kitori are just the right sort of horticulturalists to dig in the dark soil for their spuds. Perhaps Vanntar had potato fields rather than golden wheat or barley fields during the Kitori possession of the place. The only shadow on this theory is the presence of shadows - potatoes love sunlight.

[jajagappa]

7 minutes ago, Joerg said:

a resource unavailable on the Hungry Plateau.

And it is likely called the "Hungry" Plateau for good reason.

 

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Eff said:

It is certainly possible to read Gloranthan cities as operating under the reconstructed distributive economy of very early Sumeria, or the hierarchical and extractive temple-state, or a city with a large agora and open marketplace. There are of course discordant elements that need to be pared back whichever you choose, whether you make it global or local. The main consideration is- what do you think cities should "look" like? What kinds of situations would PCs be enmeshed within, and how would the situation react to their decisions? (Much of this in turn has the potential to take on its own political character: heartless communal Lunars versus free, market-oriented Sartarites; the raw brutality of the Etyries commodification magic versus simple, primitive communist Issaries "merchants", Orlanth forbid, a political character where the Lunars are more ambivalent- but that's a table matter.) 

If one's idea of Glorantha is an allegory on modern society, by all means follow these memes of Ayn Rand capitalism vs. state-ordained real-existing socialism/Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism... In my personal opinion the better backdrop for myths like this would be 20th or 21st century Cosmic Horror in Cthulhu, or some Cyberpunk setting.

 

What I aimed for with my initial statement in this thread is to inspect how the facts presented in the Glorantha booklet of the Starter Set translate into the daily lives of the citizens and the non-citizen residents. With the food stipend limited to resident households and their registered dependents, there still is a significant open market for the non-citizen residents without any formal dependence on citizens or temples.

Non-citizen residents who belong to one of the confederate tribes may survive as guests of the tribal temples for a while, or receive some amount of charity from said temples. Non-citizen residents who are cultists of one of the independent or city rex-dependent temples of the confederate city may receive temporary guest right or charity from their fellow cultists. Residents who have outlived any claims for tribal or (respectful) cult hospitality will have to market their work for cash or food given to them by temporary employers. These include refugee squatters, and stranded foreigners, or travel companions taking a rest between travels (like e.g. player hero parties). Those folk will have to pay individually for their food on the market or at the granaries or guilds.
 

[John Biles]

The obvious origin of the potato to me is that it was *grown on the Spike*.  Plenty of sunlight and high elevations.  (I also can't help but imagine there are wild potatoes in Prax but no one realizes because only the green leafy bit is obvious and gets eaten by herdbeasts.)  

[Tindalos]

6 hours ago, Eff said:

Or we could place them further afield, in hilly eastern Ralios, or somewhere off near Teshnos, and make them a product of diffusion through Dorastor/via the Celestial Empire. The options are plentiful for making them as innocuous as the flooded fields of domesticated wild rice or stands of maize plowed by ox-teams. However, as with the cities themselves, it is still an aesthetic decision.

This discussion could probably do with its own thread, but your mention of Ralios does remind me that northern Ralios had llama people, (guide 225, 389), which don't appear to be the same as the Aepycamelus riders of Prax, which suggests a similar terrain there as in the Peruvian highlands, and thus, ahem, fertile soil for our potential potato placement. 

[g33k]

Given how widespread the potato has become -- not nearly requiring the 3km-4km altitude as cited by @Jeorg -- I'm not at all clear that the terrestrial origin even needs consideration in regards to the Gloranthan origin...

[Jeff]

Re potato, I suggest you check the Guide to Glorantha. I think you will find that we do not have potatoes. YGWV, but in Chaosium publications that is something that gets cut out in editing. 

[g33k]

10 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Re potato, I suggest you check the Guide to Glorantha. I think you will find that we do not have potatoes...

Re the Guide:  should we expect it to be a comprehensive and exhaustive list of such things as food crops?

I hadn't thought that was any part of the intent, there.  Anything explicitly affirmed or denied there is "canon" of course; but anything upon which the Guide is silent is -- I thought -- still in a Canonically-Heisenbergian state of maybe / maybe-not.

Edited February 6, 2023 by g33k
punk'ed cheway shun

[Bren]

I agree the names of foodstuffs cannot be exhaustive. A quick search of the Guide to Glorantha Volume I shows many non-specific references to edible fish, but no entries for cod, herring, mackerel perch, trout, tuna, or whitefish. There is one entry for sea salmon on p. 97, and a few entries for a monstrous "black eel." 

Spoiler

For example, Volume I has references on p. 18, 41, 46, 52, 55, 63, 103, 104, 205, 206, 227, 277, 284, 292, 311, 335, 362, 372, 375 as well as many, many references to fishers, fishermen, fisherfolk, and fishing.

 

[PhilHibbs]

  

On 2/9/2023 at 3:35 AM, Bren said:

I agree the names of foodstuffs cannot be exhaustive. A quick search of the Guide to Glorantha Volume I shows many non-specific references to edible fish, but no entries for cod, herring, mackerel perch, trout, tuna, or whitefish. There is one entry for sea salmon on p. 97, and a few entries for a monstrous "black eel." 

It would also mean that the raspberry leaf mentioned in Greg's unpublished story that he read at a few cons is now wrong, because The Guide doesn't mention raspberries either. Jeff seems to be implying that it is exhaustive though. Not in The Guide, not in Glorantha.

Edited April 9, 2023 by PhilHibbs

[Squaredeal Sten]

Outside of Pavis, as far as I know city distribution of food rations to citizens is a relatively recent addition to Sartar literature, however ancient it may be in lore.  So whatever we project from the few canon references has to be moderated by other canon information. Such as the high incidence of shops with goods for sale and manufacturing guIlds, both selling for coined money.   Rather than craft production beig centralized in temples and palaces with the product being distributed as royal favors.  So it appears to me that in Sartar we are not operating in a palace centered command economy reminiscent of Mycenae or Sumer.

How do I reconcile these things?  IMG the central control is the taxation of the grain crop.  Not meat (except under the Lunar occupation) , not vegetables. Maybe cheese. One way or another, this taxation feeds the non farmer classes. 

In cities that means commerce while in the countryside and in the villages it means the clan takes care of the nobles and also keeps a reserve against famine.   The farmer and  the country noble may both barter either grain or other ag products or may pay the clan's crafters with coins. 

Or alternatively the clan's  few crafters may count as part of the chief's extended household: They would be clients in the Roman sense, not living under the chief's roof but still dependent on him.

IMG the city Ernalda temples may provide  weekly or seasonal household grain rations but also sell and trade grain.  The brewer buys this grain, either trading beer for it or using money.  The baker sells bread for cash or takes your ration of grain, keeps a share, and returns bread.  The potter and redsmith deal with the temple and nobles using barter or cash but mostly cash, but they get their grain rations and swap them with the baker like everyone else.   

The wealthy household or rooming house or the average citizen's household  probably grind their grain themselves and make flatbread on the hearth  which is more economical than dealing with a baker.  IMG a baked risen  bread loaf is a city luxury and is comoarable to a pastry.  There is no oven in the average kitchen, just as there was no oven in most RW kitchens until recently.

Your wandering Adventurer or Issaries trader doesn't get a grain ration but pays the baker for bread, or pays the innkeeper for bread.  They are in a mostly cash economy.

The baker?  He or she has his retained share of the grain or flour.  Eats some as bread.  Sells the rest as bread to your Adventuer or to anyone who wants extra bread, a luxiry.  Buys fuel,  vegetables, pays rent etc cetera with a mix of money and bread.  He is in a mixed cash and barter economy.

What about vegetables? Country folks have gardens.  They give some vegetables as favors.  Sell some in a weekly market.  City people buy them in the city market.

Places like Apple Lane are special cases.  There the Earth temple gets a share from the apple orchards just like grain.

What about meat?  Most people don't eat much, mostly they eat it when a co- religionist sacrifices.  In the countryside they may trade with a hunter or may get it as an exchange of favors.  At slaughter time in early Dark Season the clan may feast on meat, may also smoke some and make sausage.  Cities will have a butcher, but he may only have fresh meat on some days. 

Inns will buy a meat animal or cuts thereof every couple of days, and any not eaten fresh will be in the stew pot.  The soup pot may be kept going for decades.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Last five paragraphs. And went back for an edit.