It has been repeatedly pointed out to me that my running the Bills of Lading project from the moment of release, I've excluded people outside the United States. Also, it's been pointed out to me that Christmas / New Year is the very worst time to attempt to get community participation in blogs. Bowing to the inevitable, there will be the following chnages to the project:
* a hiatus in Bills of Lading until 1 January 2007, Australian time.
* Questions regarding "Ancient Magic" will be accepted after 9 January 2007.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
The Serene Republic
Venice is one of the great cities of Europe. It has a name to conjure with, and, unlike Paris, which has been transformed by modernity, or Constantinople, which fell to the sword, it still looks much as we, the players who like our cities panoramic, hope that it might. It is still a city of canals and gondolas, bridges and carnivals, even if, in the game period, it was never quite what we hope and expect it was. Venice is one of those bits of Mythic Europe you can still get postcards of.
Like virtually all of this blog's readers, I have never been there, and am faintly ashamed of my worry that the real Venice, and the real Cairo, and the real Athens, will not stand comparison to the cities I've imagined. Then, of course, I realise that there's no way to really imagine the textures of a place. How it smells, how the light looks over a day. This, of course, makes writing about Venice, or anywhere, a bit presumptuous. Calvino has a character who knows less about every city that he describes, and perhaps this is true of those of us who write from a distance. I keep hoping Ars will take off in Europe and that our colleagues there will guide us through their cities and mythologies, because all I could offer is convicts and bushrangers.
The Serene Republic is one of those sites where you hope there will one day be a setting book. Next time, how about we not do yet another Tribunal? Well, maybe Greece, and then, let's just settle down and do Venice instead. Home to chapter houses from a dozen of the most powerful covenants in the world. A global power just grasping the possibility of its empire. This is a setting that's laden with stories: the sorts of easy obvious stories that don't require player to really know much history.
Venice is too large, too full of stories to be dealt with in a single blog entry, but I'd advocate it as an excellent place to set stories based on the new rules in "City and Guild". It has a developed financial system, is ruled by a merchant class, and wages wart to support its trade interests. It is a colonial power, and is willing to give financial aid to allies in distant places in exchange for trade concessions. As such, its presence can loom large in any part of Mythic Europe, as either an aide or rival for magi.
Like virtually all of this blog's readers, I have never been there, and am faintly ashamed of my worry that the real Venice, and the real Cairo, and the real Athens, will not stand comparison to the cities I've imagined. Then, of course, I realise that there's no way to really imagine the textures of a place. How it smells, how the light looks over a day. This, of course, makes writing about Venice, or anywhere, a bit presumptuous. Calvino has a character who knows less about every city that he describes, and perhaps this is true of those of us who write from a distance. I keep hoping Ars will take off in Europe and that our colleagues there will guide us through their cities and mythologies, because all I could offer is convicts and bushrangers.
The Serene Republic is one of those sites where you hope there will one day be a setting book. Next time, how about we not do yet another Tribunal? Well, maybe Greece, and then, let's just settle down and do Venice instead. Home to chapter houses from a dozen of the most powerful covenants in the world. A global power just grasping the possibility of its empire. This is a setting that's laden with stories: the sorts of easy obvious stories that don't require player to really know much history.
Venice is too large, too full of stories to be dealt with in a single blog entry, but I'd advocate it as an excellent place to set stories based on the new rules in "City and Guild". It has a developed financial system, is ruled by a merchant class, and wages wart to support its trade interests. It is a colonial power, and is willing to give financial aid to allies in distant places in exchange for trade concessions. As such, its presence can loom large in any part of Mythic Europe, as either an aide or rival for magi.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Forestalling
RARodger asked a question over on the Atlas Forum that ended much like this:
So even in off years (or in years where we're hiding from cruisaders) we have a truly unnatural amount of produce safely stored. Our wizards are fairly pious. Is this close enough to 'forebarance' or some other slight that (had we known better) our characters may have been uncomfortable with it?
Forestalling is holding material until the price rises: that is, it is commodity speculation. It's considered sinful in general in some period texts of theology, but in daily life it is considered sinful when it causes harm. For example, if it lets you gouge your neighbours, or damage their businesses by witholding raw materials.
For your wine lake to not be forestalling, you need to follow a couple of basic steps:
So even in off years (or in years where we're hiding from cruisaders) we have a truly unnatural amount of produce safely stored. Our wizards are fairly pious. Is this close enough to 'forebarance' or some other slight that (had we known better) our characters may have been uncomfortable with it?
Forestalling is holding material until the price rises: that is, it is commodity speculation. It's considered sinful in general in some period texts of theology, but in daily life it is considered sinful when it causes harm. For example, if it lets you gouge your neighbours, or damage their businesses by witholding raw materials.
For your wine lake to not be forestalling, you need to follow a couple of basic steps:
- The entire contents of the lake should be for sale. That is, if a king passed through with enough money, you should have no qualms at all about just selling the whole lot. That you can't find enough buyers to actually sell the lot is not your problem, theologically speaking.
- Your price for sale should not gouge your neighbours. That is, you can forestall by saying "I will not sell my flour until the famine gets so bad that people will pay me the weight of bread in gold." Now, a complication here is that the just priuce for a Hermetic wine lake may be far lower than that for a mundane producer, because its a lot easier and chaper to create Hermetic wine lakes. That being noted, selling at a far cheaper rate, and driving conventional producers out of businss, is likely to break the Oath, and its a sin to break the law.
- You are not required to produce as much as you can, and you are not required to sell it locally.
So, there may be a moral problem, in the sense that the return on your wine sold, is either far higher than your cost of production plus a just return, or breaks Hermetic law. That aside, though, provided you are willing to sell the lot, and you don't fix your prices artifically high, then this isn't forestalling.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The Trade Map
In response to a query over on the Ars list, I'd just like it to be clear that the map of trade routes is for land and river trade routes in the region dominated by the Order of Hermes. This means that it does not contain routes which cross seas. You'll notice, for example, that London is marked, but no route goes to it. So, similarly, virtually everything east of Constantinople trades through its ports, and so the trade map stops there.
There is a really simple method given for expanding the trade tables, and I'll help people who ask with the calculations, as my time allows. I'll edit them into this post so that we have a single place where all of the new points are accessible.
There is a really simple method given for expanding the trade tables, and I'll help people who ask with the calculations, as my time allows. I'll edit them into this post so that we have a single place where all of the new points are accessible.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Daqin: China Views the West.
Medieval Europeans knew that China existed...well, they knew there was a place out there that silk came from, and they called it "Seres" or "Serica", both meaning "silk". There are records of several groups attempting to make contact between the two empires. It might be said fairly that the Chinese had better information about the Romans than the converse, although their information was still derived through intermediaries. In this post we see what the Chinese thought was in the far west. In a later post, we'll look from the perspective of the west, toward the east. It must be noted that being the state that lies between Constantinople and China is a valuable role, and that those who had it took pains to ensure that ambassadors going from one to the other were prevented for achieving success. A Chinese army reached the Caspian Sea in 97 AD, and one of its officers was sent as an ambassador to Daqin (Rome), but turned back at the shore of the Black Sea, due to stories that he had been told about the length of the journey. Excerpts from his report can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gan_Ying The son of the general also wrote a book called "The Records of the Western Regions". The Chinese general who had marched to the Caspian set up a series of fortresses which remained in Chinese hands for some time. The armies of Trajan, in their westernmost march into Parthian, came within a day of these garrisons. There are also stories, which lack archaeological evidence that is broadly accepted, that Romans were taken prisoner by Parthians at the Battle of Caharre, and were shipped east as warrior-slaves to man the Chinese border. These men are said to have founded a city, called Lijen ("Alexandria"). Note that this is not the same as any of the the cities of the same name founded by Alexander. Alexander did create a city Alexandria Eschate "Alexandria the Furthest", in Ferghana. The descendants of Alexander's army are found all over northern India, in ancient times, and some even seem to have settled as far away as Sri Lanka. In Homer H Dubs's History of the Former Han Dynasty we find this story: Between 110 and 100 B.C., there arrived at the Chinese capital an embassy from the King of Parthia. Among the presents to the Chinese Emperor are stated to have been fine jugglers from Li-jien. The jugglers and dancers, male and female, from Alexandria in Egypt were famous and were exported to foreign countries. Since the King of Parthia obviously esteemed highly the Emperor of China, he naturally sent the best jugglers he could secure. When these persons were asked whence they came, they of course replied “from Alexandria,” which word the Chinese who disliked polysyllables and initial vowels and could not pronounce certain Greek sounds, shortened into “Li-jien.”. When they also learned that this place was different from Parthia, the Chinese naturally used its name for the country of these jugglers. No Chinese had been to the Roman empire, so they had no reason to distinguish a prominent place in it from the country itself. The Romans moreover had no name for their empire other than orbis terrarum, i.e., “the world,” so that these jugglers would have found it difficult to explain the name of the Roman empire! In such a fashion there probably arose the Chinese name Li-jien which, for them, denoted the Roman empire in general.” Dubs (1957). In 166, a group claiming to be ambassadors from Rome appears in the Chinese court. They came by sea, from the south, which is technically possible because at this time Rome had Egyptian and Red Sea ports which linked to the Indian trade network, which linked to the Chinese one. The goods they offered the Emperor seems southeast Asian, so there is some question as to their credentials. The Liangshu notes: “During the 5th year of the Huangwu period of the reign of Sun Quan [= CE 226] a merchant of Da Qin, whose name was Qin Lun came to Jiaozhi [Tongking]; the prefect [taishou] of Jiaozhi, Wu Miao, sent him to Sun Quan [the Wu emperor], who asked him for a report on his native country and its people. Qinlun prepared a statement and replied. At the time Zhuke [nephew to Zhuke Liang, alias Kun Ming] chastised Dan Yang [= Jiang Nan] and they had caught blackish coloured dwarfs. When Qin Lun saw them he said that in Da Qin these men were rarely seen. Sun Quan then sent male and female dwarfs, ten of each, in charge of an officer, Liu Xian of Huiji [a district in Zhejiang], to accompany Qin Lun. Liu Xian died on the road, whereupon Qin Lun returned direct to his native country.” This is sourced from the link in the next paragraph. The author notes that Qin Lun means "Leon of Rome". In the Third Century, there's a book in China about the products that can be found in western countries. A translation is here. Before researching this for the blog I had not heard of this source, and commend it to those interested in such things. http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/weilue/weilue.html There are at least two embassies that claim to be from Rome that arrive in the Imperial court in the Third Century. Rome collapses in the 5th century, and Chinese power wanes after the seventh. This creates a power vacuum, and the Silk Road declines, which in turn cuts communication ties between each side. As the Mongol Empire expands, it stabilizes the Silk Road, which permits Chinese people to reach back out, toward Rome, to see what is there. They are remarkably well informed. For example, look at the Kandigo Map. It's from the 14th century, so its a far later stage of development, but it indicates that before European explorers reached China by sea, there was a great depth of knowledge of Europe in Korea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangnido
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Maintanence schedules as rewards for espionage
I hope people will pardon, again, a shorter post this evening. My notes on the Great Chinese Gold Sponge are on my desk at work, following a moment of foolishness. Strictly speaking, the rules say I should average 500 words a night, and so far, I have had two posts, and they total over 3000 words, so I could just spout banalities for the next few days and still obey my rules…but let us move on.
Tonight I watched the new Bond film. I liked it a great deal. It has me thinking, now, what forms of espionage would be effective in the environment of medieval trade. We consider this in the book in some depth, in the sense that we allow you to purchase supporters who are agents that supply information concerning your rivals, but what, really, do they tell you? We provide a few story hooks. I note also that remittance shipments are meant to have you thinking about the advisability of buying a parrot, raising the black flag, and slitting throats.
That being said, what else can you know, about the business affairs of others, that is of value? Ships usually make port during the winter to repair. Let's look at maintenance schedules. These look boring, but really, if you spin them the right way, they are a great prize for a character.
Sabotage: A limited number of sites that can perform repairs. This means that if you have any sort of interest in sabotage, it is possible to try to get an agent into a dockyard many months before the target enters for refit.
Scalping workers: Knowing the maintenance schedule also means you know when the crew is being paid off. Many merchants assume they will be able to just buy their crew back when the weather improves. If you were sufficiently deep pocketed, and if your rival paid off several crews at once in different ports you could, if you knew in advance, soak up their skilled crews and force them to hire green crews.
Damage noted: To speed repairs, clients often tell dockyards what is likely to be necessary. This allows the dockyard to store up the material needed for the repair, before the ship arrives in dock. If you know the dockyard is stocking up on braces that are shaped to fit the ship's port bow, then you might assume that the ship was damaged in the port bow. This is useful for three reasons:
- If you hear any rumours of naval engagements in which as ship was damaged in the port bow, you can identify the movements of your rivals.
- If you have shipboard artillery, knowing the damaged parts of the enemy ship can allow you to do far greater damage.
- Damaged ships do not sail as sweetly. This means you can predict that the ship will sail better or worse at various approaches to the wind. This makes chasing down the vessel far easier.
Specialised fit outs: If the ship is being refitted with stalls, you know the rival are getting into cattle. If the ship is refitted with a hatch on the side, you know they are carrying livestock, or horses for a military campaign. If they have rich trappings placed in one cabin, they have a special passenger.
Secret spaces: Many ships have small spaces hidden in them that allow crews to stash documents or small pieces of valuable cargo, like gemstones, if boarded. An agent of sufficient skill in shipbuilding, with advance notice of where the ship will winter, could establish cover and then find ways to inspect the ship, discovering these hiding spaces. It might even be possible to create a new space, of which only the player character's agents are aware, so that the rival ship acted as a mule for risky cargoes.
The Great Chinese Gold Sponge
One of the great puzzles of medieval economics is why it works at all. Essentially the European economy, if you are standing at the border of China and looking westward, is an elaborate method of shipping gold and silver to China in exchange for spices. Medieval European understood this. What they did not understand was that the price of Gold remained stable over hundreds of years. That, frankly, makes no sense at all.
Gold is not consumable: that is, you do not use it up so that you need more. Therefore, once you have it, you should want it less. Therefore, after the Europeans first send ten tons of gold eastward, the price should drop, so that you need more gold to pay for the same amount of spices. It does not. If anything gold gets slightly more expensive over time. The other possibility, that there is a limitless demand for gold, makes no sense either, because that just means the price should start very high and fall as Europe meets it. Steady prices and insatiable demand, coupled, make very little sense, and so, the European economy makes very little sense.
Now, there are ways of making this make sense, and we discuss them as plot hooks in the book. We don't however, say what was really happening: what the real source of the gold sponge is.
The gold sponge effect occurs for two reasons, in China and India, which are not modelled in Europe. Gold is used as a commodity, and gold is used as a method of storing value. In Europe, neither of these is really true.
Gold in Europe is used as a commodity: it is consumed to make things, and these things are used by people. In China, in period, however, the link between gold and the idea of a medium, for exchange is far weaker than in Europe. Gold is not money. Gold is the stuff you make jewelry and furniture out of. This means that gold is consumed, in the sense that it is turned into jewelry, rather than staying in circulation. That is, gold sinks into the ruling class of China and vanishes, because its function is to demonstrate capacity for conspicuous consumption. Unless there is a sudden sacking of a city, to liberate its gold, then there's no reason for this gold to circulate, and the gold does not make you want less gold, or the same gold at a lower price. The ability to get more gold, and give gold as presents, affirm the character's status far beyond gold's actual usefulness. Remember that what is being traded for the gold are spices and silks which are surplus to that which is required by the noble class off China. That is, there's no real opportunity cost to the ruling class of China to get all this gold, and no real opportunity lost to refuse to get it. It's precious, and reserved for certain nobles, but it's not "money" in the western sense.
In both China, and more especially India, having gold is one way of storing your money. Money that is stored goes out of physical circulation. Although it continues to circulate as credit, the gold itself just gets put away in storage. Its function is to wait for disaster, and provided disaster does not strike, it stays out of the economy, in some cases, for hundreds of years. That is, gold flees the economy as a form of insurance.
Now, C&G offers some more mythic reasons for the Asian Gold Sponge, but it is important to recognise that Hermetic magi both know how the European economy operates and, likewise, know that it shouldn't work. There's an incongruity in Asia that should make it crash. If Marco Polo goes to China in Mythic Europe, he will make matters worse.
Polo says there is gold -everywhere- in China. Given that gold is valuable because it is scarce, it makes even less sense. He also notes that gold is never used as a currency in China. When you turn up, the Khan makes you hand over all of your treasure, and gives you pieces of paper which merchants will treat as money because he says so, and he's willing to kill anyone who refuses his scrip. So, gold is everywhere and actually, there's only -one- customer. After Polo, the gold price makes even less sense than before.
Gold is not consumable: that is, you do not use it up so that you need more. Therefore, once you have it, you should want it less. Therefore, after the Europeans first send ten tons of gold eastward, the price should drop, so that you need more gold to pay for the same amount of spices. It does not. If anything gold gets slightly more expensive over time. The other possibility, that there is a limitless demand for gold, makes no sense either, because that just means the price should start very high and fall as Europe meets it. Steady prices and insatiable demand, coupled, make very little sense, and so, the European economy makes very little sense.
Now, there are ways of making this make sense, and we discuss them as plot hooks in the book. We don't however, say what was really happening: what the real source of the gold sponge is.
The gold sponge effect occurs for two reasons, in China and India, which are not modelled in Europe. Gold is used as a commodity, and gold is used as a method of storing value. In Europe, neither of these is really true.
Gold in Europe is used as a commodity: it is consumed to make things, and these things are used by people. In China, in period, however, the link between gold and the idea of a medium, for exchange is far weaker than in Europe. Gold is not money. Gold is the stuff you make jewelry and furniture out of. This means that gold is consumed, in the sense that it is turned into jewelry, rather than staying in circulation. That is, gold sinks into the ruling class of China and vanishes, because its function is to demonstrate capacity for conspicuous consumption. Unless there is a sudden sacking of a city, to liberate its gold, then there's no reason for this gold to circulate, and the gold does not make you want less gold, or the same gold at a lower price. The ability to get more gold, and give gold as presents, affirm the character's status far beyond gold's actual usefulness. Remember that what is being traded for the gold are spices and silks which are surplus to that which is required by the noble class off China. That is, there's no real opportunity cost to the ruling class of China to get all this gold, and no real opportunity lost to refuse to get it. It's precious, and reserved for certain nobles, but it's not "money" in the western sense.
In both China, and more especially India, having gold is one way of storing your money. Money that is stored goes out of physical circulation. Although it continues to circulate as credit, the gold itself just gets put away in storage. Its function is to wait for disaster, and provided disaster does not strike, it stays out of the economy, in some cases, for hundreds of years. That is, gold flees the economy as a form of insurance.
Now, C&G offers some more mythic reasons for the Asian Gold Sponge, but it is important to recognise that Hermetic magi both know how the European economy operates and, likewise, know that it shouldn't work. There's an incongruity in Asia that should make it crash. If Marco Polo goes to China in Mythic Europe, he will make matters worse.
Polo says there is gold -everywhere- in China. Given that gold is valuable because it is scarce, it makes even less sense. He also notes that gold is never used as a currency in China. When you turn up, the Khan makes you hand over all of your treasure, and gives you pieces of paper which merchants will treat as money because he says so, and he's willing to kill anyone who refuses his scrip. So, gold is everywhere and actually, there's only -one- customer. After Polo, the gold price makes even less sense than before.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Second Bill of Lading: Crime, and how it pays
I hope you'll all pardon that this post is shorter than last night's.
Graham said... There are a few pages on the subject of Crime in City & Gild.One of the book requests on the Berklist was for a Mediaeval Underworld sourcebook.Can you expand on this topic?
This is an excellent question. I know that at least three of the Ars authors have, at one stage or another, commented favourably on a particular book about medieval crime and said"Hey, we should use this for something." When I can find my copy of the book again I'll edit this post to put the title in. I'm not saying we are working on a book on crime: I'm saying there's a really good historical work already around that several of us have praised.
In City and Guild crime is something you do at one remove, with hirelings. Their skill is a representation of your skill at finding people willing to do illegal things, which is covered by your Intrigue Ability. So, to have a minion commit a crime, you give him orders and then roll on your Intrigue. There are exceptional cases: men hired by your father, for example, if you are new to business, may use his Intrigue score.
Crime, though, is having its golden age in the game period. It is the very best time, since the fall of Rome, for you to be virtually any type of criminal. This is an effect of monetarisation. We consider the process of monetarisation in the book, but we do not really consider this particular effect. A cash economy makes crime a lot easier.
Consider burgulary in the modern day. You steal something and hope to sell it or use it yourself. Now, its unlikely you'll steal for personal use, because you can only carry so much. You are much more likely to steal the most valuable things you can find, and sell them, then buy whatever you wanted to use yourself. So, you steal, and then someone who is British slang is called a "fence" changes your stolen goods into money for you, and then sells your goods on.
Now, in a barter economy, this doesn't work. If you steal, say, eight barrels of ale, what exactly do you do with them? You barter them, one at a time, for other goods. You can't just shift them for cash. Everyone you try to barter with knows you have them. Everyone who might buy them in bulk is unlikely to have bulk amounts of a service you want in exchange. Theft for personal consumption works better in barter economies.
Sale of goods in many small batches works really well in barter economies. If you kill a deer in a cash economy, you just find the right guy in the city to buy it. In a barter economy, you need to sell bits of it, which takes a lot more time, and involves you telling a lot more people. Many will be your accomplices, but what if one is an informant?
Dubious services also need money. You want to pay a guy to kill for you? A bag of cash is great! What else could you give him? Gemstones? Silks? Barter goods? And how do you get enough of these stockpiled without arousing suspiscion? All other illict services work better if you aren't haggling with oxen and chickens and can just drop a bag of utterly anonymous cash.
Also, the trade networks, and the large number of commercial travellers, give criminals a means to sell on stolen goods, and a ready excuse to flee if suspected. Two hundred years ago, a poor merchant would have a lot more explaining to do for why he wasn't at home tending crops.
So, I can't give you a great deal of information concerning the underworld in Mythic Europe, because it is just now getting itself going. Organised crime is far more likely in the large, wealthy, monetarised, cities. Large scale crime, run like a business, is very new. It follows the trends in business development, and this is in its earliest stages.
Graham said... There are a few pages on the subject of Crime in City & Gild.One of the book requests on the Berklist was for a Mediaeval Underworld sourcebook.Can you expand on this topic?
This is an excellent question. I know that at least three of the Ars authors have, at one stage or another, commented favourably on a particular book about medieval crime and said"Hey, we should use this for something." When I can find my copy of the book again I'll edit this post to put the title in. I'm not saying we are working on a book on crime: I'm saying there's a really good historical work already around that several of us have praised.
In City and Guild crime is something you do at one remove, with hirelings. Their skill is a representation of your skill at finding people willing to do illegal things, which is covered by your Intrigue Ability. So, to have a minion commit a crime, you give him orders and then roll on your Intrigue. There are exceptional cases: men hired by your father, for example, if you are new to business, may use his Intrigue score.
Crime, though, is having its golden age in the game period. It is the very best time, since the fall of Rome, for you to be virtually any type of criminal. This is an effect of monetarisation. We consider the process of monetarisation in the book, but we do not really consider this particular effect. A cash economy makes crime a lot easier.
Consider burgulary in the modern day. You steal something and hope to sell it or use it yourself. Now, its unlikely you'll steal for personal use, because you can only carry so much. You are much more likely to steal the most valuable things you can find, and sell them, then buy whatever you wanted to use yourself. So, you steal, and then someone who is British slang is called a "fence" changes your stolen goods into money for you, and then sells your goods on.
Now, in a barter economy, this doesn't work. If you steal, say, eight barrels of ale, what exactly do you do with them? You barter them, one at a time, for other goods. You can't just shift them for cash. Everyone you try to barter with knows you have them. Everyone who might buy them in bulk is unlikely to have bulk amounts of a service you want in exchange. Theft for personal consumption works better in barter economies.
Sale of goods in many small batches works really well in barter economies. If you kill a deer in a cash economy, you just find the right guy in the city to buy it. In a barter economy, you need to sell bits of it, which takes a lot more time, and involves you telling a lot more people. Many will be your accomplices, but what if one is an informant?
Dubious services also need money. You want to pay a guy to kill for you? A bag of cash is great! What else could you give him? Gemstones? Silks? Barter goods? And how do you get enough of these stockpiled without arousing suspiscion? All other illict services work better if you aren't haggling with oxen and chickens and can just drop a bag of utterly anonymous cash.
Also, the trade networks, and the large number of commercial travellers, give criminals a means to sell on stolen goods, and a ready excuse to flee if suspected. Two hundred years ago, a poor merchant would have a lot more explaining to do for why he wasn't at home tending crops.
So, I can't give you a great deal of information concerning the underworld in Mythic Europe, because it is just now getting itself going. Organised crime is far more likely in the large, wealthy, monetarised, cities. Large scale crime, run like a business, is very new. It follows the trends in business development, and this is in its earliest stages.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Dowry bargaining from Shakespeare
Let's talk dowries, and bargaining, and let's use the Bard. The following passages are modernisation of Shakespeare, from "The Taming of the Shrew". To set the scene: Baptista is a medieval merchant, who has no sons and two daughters, Kate and Bianca. Bianca has four suitors. Kate has none, because she's a shrew. Bianca cannot marry until Kate does. Baptista and Bianca's three suitors want to find Kate a husband. Petruchio is of a wealthy family and arrives in Padua looking for a rich marriage. He doesn't much care about what his wife is like, provided he gets a lot of money for her. Let’s just pause it here for a second, our players waiting on the stage, frozen, while we consider them to a degree not envisioned by Shakespeare.
Baptista has no heir. Technically, in period this is not correct, there are ways for a merchant family to continue its business in the female line, but even then, the guy has a problem with regard to posterity. Neither daughter is married. So, no grand-children. So, no heir. Oddly, he doesn't seem to have the sorts of hanger-on nephews that people in his situation seemed to attract. He wants to get a daughter married off quickly, and won't marry off the young one before the older one.
The problem is Kate, the elder daughter, who, to use the musical again, hates men. Actually, she hates having to be a wife to them, because its so bloody ghastly, but in her explanation you kind of wonder if she's not laying it on a bit thick, because she talks about the labour of cleaning up after them, and the first thing you ask is "Does she plan to marry a man too poor to have servants?" Obviously she has no intention of it: be damned to love in a cottage, to quote Diana Maturin. She wants her own time, her own space, her own money. And until she marries, its an embarrassment for her younger daughter to marry.
So, that's the setup: rich guy…daughters…suitors for the youngest.
Petruchio talks to one of Bianca's suitors, and the suitor jests that he might marry Kate. Petruchio hears she's lovely and rich by shrewish, and says "I've braved thunder and canon fire…why not, mate?" The joking guy goes "Are you, like, serious dude?" and Petruchio is all like "Yes, dude. If the bag's full of gold, who cares if it’s a bit old?" and so the suitor introduces him to all of the other suitors, who shout him drinks, and the suitors agree to all be cool with each other, and hang. Rivals in love, but the best of mates. See, that's an adventuring party, right there. Really, it is that teenage boyish, even though one of the suitors is old enough to be Bianca's father.
Now, why, exactly, Kate doesn't just step out of line and join an Italian nunnery is an interesting question. Some Italian nunneries were quite liberal, even by modern standards. Let that go: it seems to be that Baptista genuinely loves his daughters and wants them to be happy. For those of you who might have considered criticising the take on love and marriage that appears in the book: you are wrong, and if you want to know why, ask me a question about it and you'll see, OK?
So, we wave a hand and the people upon stage, like coin operated simulacra, come to life, and move, and speak thusly:
PETRUCHIO Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste, And every day I cannot come to woo. You knew my father well, and in him me, Left solely heir to all his lands and goods, Which I have better'd rather than decreased: Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love, What dowry shall I have with her to wife?
BAPTISTA After my death the one half of my lands, And in possession twenty thousand crowns.
PETRUCHIO And, for that dowry, I'll assure her of Her widowhood, be it that she survive me, In all my lands and leases whatsoever: Let specialties be therefore drawn between us, That covenants may be kept on either hand.
BAPTISTA Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd, That is, her love; for that is all in all.
So, the deal is done. Let's look at the deal:
Baptista offers half his stuff once he's dead. Well, he has two daughters. That's no big deal. He has offered not to give all his stuff to Bianca's kids if she has sons and Kate daughters, but that's about it. As the spice for the deal, he offers a whole heap of cash: 20 000 crowns.
How much is 20 000 crowns? A crown's five shillings. A crown is a quarter of a pound. That's 5 000 pounds. Now, in Shakespeare's time that's silver not gold, but still, that's about 500 actual pounds of gold in money right there. So why is he willing to drop that down as his opening offer? "Here – have a roomful of gold."
Well, first he is very rich. Very, very, very rich. He wants Petruchio to know he's very, very rich. He wants –everyone- to know, he's very, very rich.
Baptista, you see, isn't making one deal, he's making two. He's looking at the Bianca deal.
His problem isn't his youngest daughter: she is lovely, and loved by many, and would love many if she could. Kate's dad, who knows that time is not on his side, because, among other things, the younger daughter may go boy crazy and get pregnant before things are formalised legally with a husband, decides to go for Petruchio's offer, because it clears the way for the second deal.
Cole Porter gives Bianca "Any Tom, Harry or Dick!" as her signature tune, and it's clever, but when in the final lines she repeatedly says she'll take any...well, any not Tom or Harry, you can see he's doing the thing he does where he pushes the sex angle as hard as he thinks he can get away with. Spot the references to homosexuality...the sly mistakes where the actor accidentally refers to female characters as men. Anyway, homosexuality in Ars another time.
Baptista is, however a bit of a softie: he says that Kate needs to consent. Now, legally this is true, but what he means is that he won't threaten her until she consents. He doesn't do this with Bianca.
PETRUCHIO And therefore, setting all this chat aside, Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on; And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, this is just wrong in canon law. Kate must give free consent – practicalities often intrude.
PETRUCHIO Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice, To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day. Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests; I will be sure my Katharina shall be fine.
Note that Baptista provides the wedding feast.
So, let's look at the second deal. Baptista gets the two suitors, Gremio and Triano (who is pretending to be a nobleman named Lucentio, who was his foster brother) and he auctions Bianca's future on her behalf.
BAPTISTA Content you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife: 'Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both That can assure my daughter greatest dower Shall have my Bianca's love. Say, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her?
GREMIO First, as you know, my house within the city Is richly furnished with plate and gold; Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands; My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry; In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns; In cypress chests my arras counterpoints, Costly apparel, tents, and canopies, Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl, Valance of Venice gold in needlework, Pewter and brass and all things that belong To house or housekeeping: then, at my farm I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail, Sixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls, And all things answerable to this portion. Myself am struck in years, I must confess; And if I die to-morrow, this is hers, If whilst I live she will be only mine.
TRANIO That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me: I am my father's heir and only son: If I may have your daughter to my wife, I'll leave her houses three or four as good, Within rich Pisa walls, as any one Old Signior Gremio has in Padua; Besides two thousand ducats by the year Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure. What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?
GREMIO Two thousand ducats by the year of land! My land amounts not to so much in all: That she shall have; besides an argosy That now is lying in Marseilles' road. What, have I choked you with an argosy?
TRANIO Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less Than three great argosies; besides two galliases, And twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her, And twice as much, whate'er thou offer'st next.
GREMIO Nay, I have offer'd all, I have no more; And she can have no more than all I have: If you like me, she shall have me and mine.
TRANIO Why, then the maid is mine from all the world, By your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied.
BAPTISTA I must confess your offer is the best; And, let your father make her the assurance, She is your own; else, you must pardon me, if you should die before him, where's her dower?
TRANIO That's but a cavil: he is old, I young.
GREMIO And may not young men die, as well as old?
BAPTISTA Well, gentlemen, I am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know My daughter Katharina is to be married: Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca Be bride to you, if you this assurance; If not, Signior Gremio: And so, I take my leave, and thank you both.
GREMIO Adieu, good neighbour. (Exit)
BAPTISTA Now I fear thee not: Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool To give thee all, and in his waning age Set foot under thy table: tut, a toy! An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy. Exit
TRANIO A vengeance on your crafty wither'd hide! Yet I have faced it with a card of ten. 'Tis in my head to do my master good: I see no reason but supposed Lucentio Must get a father, call'd 'supposed Vincentio;' And that's a wonder: fathers commonly Do get their children; but in this case of wooing, A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning. …
Now, we see here that Baptista is a smooth operator. He has stitched up Tranio-as-Lucentio like a goose. Tranio has bid things he, personally, does not have, and because he has gone too far ("My dad has seventeen ships!") Baptista has caught him and said "If you can get your Dad here, and offering all of that, in a fortnight, then you've got her. Otherwise, she goes to my dear old friend and neighbour here. Yes, she goes to my dear old neighbour who, because he was bidding against you, has just promised my daughter all of his stuff, to the absolute exclusion of the rest of his blood kin. And he's old, and if he dies and she's a widow, then she comes back under my care. Either they have kids and they get his stuff, or I do, and then Kate and her kids get it."
He even –tells- Tranio that he's an idiot. He says "This is how we roll in Padua: you take my stuff from my cold, dead fingers."
So, Baptista offers no dowry to anyone. He never even promises them the other half of his lands after he dies: he might give it to the Church, or to Kate's kids, or to his mistress or new wife or something. He knows Traniop is a dummy bidder, and uses him to gouge Gremio. Gremio, fortunately, doesn't care – he knows what he wants, and he's willing to go all in to get it, and if he can't have Bianca, then he's going to make sure she gets as much of the other guy's stuff as he can. Bianca does get a dowry of some kind, Petruchio tells her eventual husband's father than she is "well dowered", but that's at Baptista's whim. It's not part of the deal.
Baptista doesn't go for this "and only if she loves you" business, that he pulled with Kate. She's trouble and he needs to sort her out, and he's a bit inclined to the view that she mightn't care which one he chooses.
I have to say, I quite like Gremio. I wish he had a happy ending. This play is badly written, in the sense that minor characters just fade out when the playwright's plot wanders away from them.
Eventually, Bianca does what her father worries she might do: she just marries who she likes without asking him. She marries her tutor, who, as happy fortune would have it, is the real version of the guy that Triano was pretending to be. His name's Lucentio.
LUCENTIO Here's Lucentio, Right son to the right Vincentio; That have by marriage made thy daughter mine, While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.
"She's mine. You were distracted by a decoy."
This is perfectly legal. You don't need a father's consent. That being said, there are social consequences if you follow this route. Baptista, who is very, very rich, gets ready with the shock and the smiting:
BAPTISTA But do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter without asking my good will?
Fortunately, Lucentio's dad, who is a nobleman, is here by now, and he just says:
VINCENTIO Fear not, Baptista; we will content you…
Which, because he's frighteningly rich, and noble, is what he's meant to say. Compare this to Triano's bid. Vincentio's bid is all "I know my game. I know you know your game. We have your daughter. We don't want to annoy you so much you disinherit. We have a lot of money and prestige. We can deal. Privately. I have some revenge to deal with, and so do you. Let’s go get some revenge on Triano together, then we'll talk. By the way, my son's noble, so you have to just forgive all that lying to you he's done. That's how it works if you want to step up into the lower upper class. We've offended you, sure, but you'll forgive us as part of the package, and I'll go a tiny bit easier on you than I would usually." He can say this with: "We will content you.", because these guys have big Etiquette and Bargain scores, and they can both do the numbers.
Later, Baptista gives a second dowry to Kate, when she is changed in the final scene. Petruchio also gets a couple of other guys to bet him 200 crowns apiece she'll obey him, and she does. There is one read of the text that indicates that she can see the angles of the thing, and is playing along in his game, but that's a bit forgiving and post-modern for me. So, Petruchio comes out of this with, in Ars terms, ten thousand and eighty pounds. This is atypical, but is a great starting story for a merchant house. He grabs Bianca's suitors, and says…guys, I have a big idea…
And so we come to the end of our lengthy foray into Shakespearean dowries. I hope you can see the sort of story potential we wanted, here. I admit I was thinking Austen rather than Shakespeare when I first designed the section, and those are excellent sources for ideas, also, because they are generally about characters of middle class seeking advancement.
The other bills of lading will be shorter than this.
See you tomorrow.
Baptista has no heir. Technically, in period this is not correct, there are ways for a merchant family to continue its business in the female line, but even then, the guy has a problem with regard to posterity. Neither daughter is married. So, no grand-children. So, no heir. Oddly, he doesn't seem to have the sorts of hanger-on nephews that people in his situation seemed to attract. He wants to get a daughter married off quickly, and won't marry off the young one before the older one.
The problem is Kate, the elder daughter, who, to use the musical again, hates men. Actually, she hates having to be a wife to them, because its so bloody ghastly, but in her explanation you kind of wonder if she's not laying it on a bit thick, because she talks about the labour of cleaning up after them, and the first thing you ask is "Does she plan to marry a man too poor to have servants?" Obviously she has no intention of it: be damned to love in a cottage, to quote Diana Maturin. She wants her own time, her own space, her own money. And until she marries, its an embarrassment for her younger daughter to marry.
So, that's the setup: rich guy…daughters…suitors for the youngest.
Petruchio talks to one of Bianca's suitors, and the suitor jests that he might marry Kate. Petruchio hears she's lovely and rich by shrewish, and says "I've braved thunder and canon fire…why not, mate?" The joking guy goes "Are you, like, serious dude?" and Petruchio is all like "Yes, dude. If the bag's full of gold, who cares if it’s a bit old?" and so the suitor introduces him to all of the other suitors, who shout him drinks, and the suitors agree to all be cool with each other, and hang. Rivals in love, but the best of mates. See, that's an adventuring party, right there. Really, it is that teenage boyish, even though one of the suitors is old enough to be Bianca's father.
Now, why, exactly, Kate doesn't just step out of line and join an Italian nunnery is an interesting question. Some Italian nunneries were quite liberal, even by modern standards. Let that go: it seems to be that Baptista genuinely loves his daughters and wants them to be happy. For those of you who might have considered criticising the take on love and marriage that appears in the book: you are wrong, and if you want to know why, ask me a question about it and you'll see, OK?
So, we wave a hand and the people upon stage, like coin operated simulacra, come to life, and move, and speak thusly:
PETRUCHIO Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste, And every day I cannot come to woo. You knew my father well, and in him me, Left solely heir to all his lands and goods, Which I have better'd rather than decreased: Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love, What dowry shall I have with her to wife?
BAPTISTA After my death the one half of my lands, And in possession twenty thousand crowns.
PETRUCHIO And, for that dowry, I'll assure her of Her widowhood, be it that she survive me, In all my lands and leases whatsoever: Let specialties be therefore drawn between us, That covenants may be kept on either hand.
BAPTISTA Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd, That is, her love; for that is all in all.
So, the deal is done. Let's look at the deal:
Baptista offers half his stuff once he's dead. Well, he has two daughters. That's no big deal. He has offered not to give all his stuff to Bianca's kids if she has sons and Kate daughters, but that's about it. As the spice for the deal, he offers a whole heap of cash: 20 000 crowns.
How much is 20 000 crowns? A crown's five shillings. A crown is a quarter of a pound. That's 5 000 pounds. Now, in Shakespeare's time that's silver not gold, but still, that's about 500 actual pounds of gold in money right there. So why is he willing to drop that down as his opening offer? "Here – have a roomful of gold."
Well, first he is very rich. Very, very, very rich. He wants Petruchio to know he's very, very rich. He wants –everyone- to know, he's very, very rich.
Baptista, you see, isn't making one deal, he's making two. He's looking at the Bianca deal.
His problem isn't his youngest daughter: she is lovely, and loved by many, and would love many if she could. Kate's dad, who knows that time is not on his side, because, among other things, the younger daughter may go boy crazy and get pregnant before things are formalised legally with a husband, decides to go for Petruchio's offer, because it clears the way for the second deal.
Cole Porter gives Bianca "Any Tom, Harry or Dick!" as her signature tune, and it's clever, but when in the final lines she repeatedly says she'll take any...well, any not Tom or Harry, you can see he's doing the thing he does where he pushes the sex angle as hard as he thinks he can get away with. Spot the references to homosexuality...the sly mistakes where the actor accidentally refers to female characters as men. Anyway, homosexuality in Ars another time.
Baptista is, however a bit of a softie: he says that Kate needs to consent. Now, legally this is true, but what he means is that he won't threaten her until she consents. He doesn't do this with Bianca.
PETRUCHIO And therefore, setting all this chat aside, Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on; And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, this is just wrong in canon law. Kate must give free consent – practicalities often intrude.
PETRUCHIO Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice, To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day. Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests; I will be sure my Katharina shall be fine.
Note that Baptista provides the wedding feast.
So, let's look at the second deal. Baptista gets the two suitors, Gremio and Triano (who is pretending to be a nobleman named Lucentio, who was his foster brother) and he auctions Bianca's future on her behalf.
BAPTISTA Content you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife: 'Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both That can assure my daughter greatest dower Shall have my Bianca's love. Say, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her?
GREMIO First, as you know, my house within the city Is richly furnished with plate and gold; Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands; My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry; In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns; In cypress chests my arras counterpoints, Costly apparel, tents, and canopies, Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl, Valance of Venice gold in needlework, Pewter and brass and all things that belong To house or housekeeping: then, at my farm I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail, Sixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls, And all things answerable to this portion. Myself am struck in years, I must confess; And if I die to-morrow, this is hers, If whilst I live she will be only mine.
TRANIO That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me: I am my father's heir and only son: If I may have your daughter to my wife, I'll leave her houses three or four as good, Within rich Pisa walls, as any one Old Signior Gremio has in Padua; Besides two thousand ducats by the year Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure. What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?
GREMIO Two thousand ducats by the year of land! My land amounts not to so much in all: That she shall have; besides an argosy That now is lying in Marseilles' road. What, have I choked you with an argosy?
TRANIO Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less Than three great argosies; besides two galliases, And twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her, And twice as much, whate'er thou offer'st next.
GREMIO Nay, I have offer'd all, I have no more; And she can have no more than all I have: If you like me, she shall have me and mine.
TRANIO Why, then the maid is mine from all the world, By your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied.
BAPTISTA I must confess your offer is the best; And, let your father make her the assurance, She is your own; else, you must pardon me, if you should die before him, where's her dower?
TRANIO That's but a cavil: he is old, I young.
GREMIO And may not young men die, as well as old?
BAPTISTA Well, gentlemen, I am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know My daughter Katharina is to be married: Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca Be bride to you, if you this assurance; If not, Signior Gremio: And so, I take my leave, and thank you both.
GREMIO Adieu, good neighbour. (Exit)
BAPTISTA Now I fear thee not: Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool To give thee all, and in his waning age Set foot under thy table: tut, a toy! An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy. Exit
TRANIO A vengeance on your crafty wither'd hide! Yet I have faced it with a card of ten. 'Tis in my head to do my master good: I see no reason but supposed Lucentio Must get a father, call'd 'supposed Vincentio;' And that's a wonder: fathers commonly Do get their children; but in this case of wooing, A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning. …
Now, we see here that Baptista is a smooth operator. He has stitched up Tranio-as-Lucentio like a goose. Tranio has bid things he, personally, does not have, and because he has gone too far ("My dad has seventeen ships!") Baptista has caught him and said "If you can get your Dad here, and offering all of that, in a fortnight, then you've got her. Otherwise, she goes to my dear old friend and neighbour here. Yes, she goes to my dear old neighbour who, because he was bidding against you, has just promised my daughter all of his stuff, to the absolute exclusion of the rest of his blood kin. And he's old, and if he dies and she's a widow, then she comes back under my care. Either they have kids and they get his stuff, or I do, and then Kate and her kids get it."
He even –tells- Tranio that he's an idiot. He says "This is how we roll in Padua: you take my stuff from my cold, dead fingers."
So, Baptista offers no dowry to anyone. He never even promises them the other half of his lands after he dies: he might give it to the Church, or to Kate's kids, or to his mistress or new wife or something. He knows Traniop is a dummy bidder, and uses him to gouge Gremio. Gremio, fortunately, doesn't care – he knows what he wants, and he's willing to go all in to get it, and if he can't have Bianca, then he's going to make sure she gets as much of the other guy's stuff as he can. Bianca does get a dowry of some kind, Petruchio tells her eventual husband's father than she is "well dowered", but that's at Baptista's whim. It's not part of the deal.
Baptista doesn't go for this "and only if she loves you" business, that he pulled with Kate. She's trouble and he needs to sort her out, and he's a bit inclined to the view that she mightn't care which one he chooses.
I have to say, I quite like Gremio. I wish he had a happy ending. This play is badly written, in the sense that minor characters just fade out when the playwright's plot wanders away from them.
Eventually, Bianca does what her father worries she might do: she just marries who she likes without asking him. She marries her tutor, who, as happy fortune would have it, is the real version of the guy that Triano was pretending to be. His name's Lucentio.
LUCENTIO Here's Lucentio, Right son to the right Vincentio; That have by marriage made thy daughter mine, While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.
"She's mine. You were distracted by a decoy."
This is perfectly legal. You don't need a father's consent. That being said, there are social consequences if you follow this route. Baptista, who is very, very rich, gets ready with the shock and the smiting:
BAPTISTA But do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter without asking my good will?
Fortunately, Lucentio's dad, who is a nobleman, is here by now, and he just says:
VINCENTIO Fear not, Baptista; we will content you…
Which, because he's frighteningly rich, and noble, is what he's meant to say. Compare this to Triano's bid. Vincentio's bid is all "I know my game. I know you know your game. We have your daughter. We don't want to annoy you so much you disinherit. We have a lot of money and prestige. We can deal. Privately. I have some revenge to deal with, and so do you. Let’s go get some revenge on Triano together, then we'll talk. By the way, my son's noble, so you have to just forgive all that lying to you he's done. That's how it works if you want to step up into the lower upper class. We've offended you, sure, but you'll forgive us as part of the package, and I'll go a tiny bit easier on you than I would usually." He can say this with: "We will content you.", because these guys have big Etiquette and Bargain scores, and they can both do the numbers.
Later, Baptista gives a second dowry to Kate, when she is changed in the final scene. Petruchio also gets a couple of other guys to bet him 200 crowns apiece she'll obey him, and she does. There is one read of the text that indicates that she can see the angles of the thing, and is playing along in his game, but that's a bit forgiving and post-modern for me. So, Petruchio comes out of this with, in Ars terms, ten thousand and eighty pounds. This is atypical, but is a great starting story for a merchant house. He grabs Bianca's suitors, and says…guys, I have a big idea…
And so we come to the end of our lengthy foray into Shakespearean dowries. I hope you can see the sort of story potential we wanted, here. I admit I was thinking Austen rather than Shakespeare when I first designed the section, and those are excellent sources for ideas, also, because they are generally about characters of middle class seeking advancement.
The other bills of lading will be shorter than this.
See you tomorrow.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Swilling cheap beer with criminals: a prelude to Bills of Lading
A question posed by Mark Lawford over on the Atlas Forum:
Is there any evidence/historical precedent or story that can support a storyguide wanting to tell more mundane stories of the aristocracy using the city's low-life for their own ends? Within cities, what distinguished the young, wealthy and ruthless from those they used or associated with?
The division between the rich and ruthless, and the poor and ruthless, is based in most areas on pre-existing patterns of patronage. That is, the rich are often found with the poor and ruthless because the poor are their retainers. Now, the poor may or may not be the friends of their rich patrons, but the poor certainly have their uses.
Rich people in the three heavily urbanised bits of Mythic Europe are peers and socialise because it's a way of making money. As a group, they grab hold of as much power as they can, and pervert the state into a money making mechanism. The fullest extent of this is Venice, which has a a huge navy that safeguards the Great Convoys which are a source of the city's wealth. You pay for your cargo to be on the Great Convoy, sure, but you also have the might of Venice ready to slap down anyone who tries to attack your cargo, and you have a primitive form of insurance in case one ship gets lost at sea, or held up by pirates. If something disrupts trade, the Venetians are perfectly willing to go to war, or have a client state go to war, to make the annoyance go away. The keep the profits personally, but socialise the costs.
It goes further than this, though. The Convoys are as close as you can get to being guaranteed money. You get the right to buy from Venice's colonial production, and sell back home at going rate. To be allowed to have cargo on the Convoy, you need permission from the committee who runs it. They apportion space based on your prominence in the merchant, ruling class. That is, Venice has a government which all but gives you free money, provided you are the right kind of guy. It doesn't matter if you and the other guys in this class hate each other: you don't call in outsiders. Some try to get nobles involved, and then every other player bands together to smash them to paste for breaking the basic rule, which is that no-one gets to flip the board over.
Hanging with poor, nasty, people doesn't help you with this part of your life. You need to work this bit out yourself. Poor people help you when you feel that your life would be deeply enriched if another wealthy, ruthless guy was wash up headless in Murano. Criminals are handy as a way o giving your legitimate dealings an edge - and your competitors are likely using them anyway.
Poor people help you when you are dealing with others, particularly in those cultures who believe that nobles should never be involved in trade. The lowest of the English aristocracy, particularly, have good reason to hang with criminals. Primogeniture means that you have a lot of younger guys who have the right to inherit wealth, but not land. These guys need to find something to do with this money. Crime is a really good way to make money. In Paris, you tend to find younger sons of noblemen hanging out with criminals, just because that's a fun thing to do when you are going to University in Paris.
This highlights an additional difference between the rich and the poor: people that are slumming take fewer chances. They are less desperate, and their skills in urban survival are less finely honed. There's a fundamental difference between a highwayman who needs the money for bread and a highwayman who is doing it for kicks. This is one of the reasons the rich need to hire the poor: because other people's poor can sense if they are slumming. This social division works really well for party formation.
As to if there is any historical precedent for this mixing of the rich and poor: sure, but not quite in the way you are envisaging. They don't really mix as equals, because they aren't "equal" in Mythic Europe. In Mythic Europe, your status is closely linked to your power, and power is not shared around. The rich and poor mix because the poor have skills and the rich have capital. That being said, there's nothing wrong with a nobleman being sentimental about his retainers, or a retainer feeling strong bond with his employer.
Friendship between the classes is possible: it's just unexpected. Robin Hood, for example, is a friend of Little John's even though they are of different clasees. Tristran and his squire (an adult man of the peasant class) have a close friendship.
Is there any evidence/historical precedent or story that can support a storyguide wanting to tell more mundane stories of the aristocracy using the city's low-life for their own ends? Within cities, what distinguished the young, wealthy and ruthless from those they used or associated with?
The division between the rich and ruthless, and the poor and ruthless, is based in most areas on pre-existing patterns of patronage. That is, the rich are often found with the poor and ruthless because the poor are their retainers. Now, the poor may or may not be the friends of their rich patrons, but the poor certainly have their uses.
Rich people in the three heavily urbanised bits of Mythic Europe are peers and socialise because it's a way of making money. As a group, they grab hold of as much power as they can, and pervert the state into a money making mechanism. The fullest extent of this is Venice, which has a a huge navy that safeguards the Great Convoys which are a source of the city's wealth. You pay for your cargo to be on the Great Convoy, sure, but you also have the might of Venice ready to slap down anyone who tries to attack your cargo, and you have a primitive form of insurance in case one ship gets lost at sea, or held up by pirates. If something disrupts trade, the Venetians are perfectly willing to go to war, or have a client state go to war, to make the annoyance go away. The keep the profits personally, but socialise the costs.
It goes further than this, though. The Convoys are as close as you can get to being guaranteed money. You get the right to buy from Venice's colonial production, and sell back home at going rate. To be allowed to have cargo on the Convoy, you need permission from the committee who runs it. They apportion space based on your prominence in the merchant, ruling class. That is, Venice has a government which all but gives you free money, provided you are the right kind of guy. It doesn't matter if you and the other guys in this class hate each other: you don't call in outsiders. Some try to get nobles involved, and then every other player bands together to smash them to paste for breaking the basic rule, which is that no-one gets to flip the board over.
Hanging with poor, nasty, people doesn't help you with this part of your life. You need to work this bit out yourself. Poor people help you when you feel that your life would be deeply enriched if another wealthy, ruthless guy was wash up headless in Murano. Criminals are handy as a way o giving your legitimate dealings an edge - and your competitors are likely using them anyway.
Poor people help you when you are dealing with others, particularly in those cultures who believe that nobles should never be involved in trade. The lowest of the English aristocracy, particularly, have good reason to hang with criminals. Primogeniture means that you have a lot of younger guys who have the right to inherit wealth, but not land. These guys need to find something to do with this money. Crime is a really good way to make money. In Paris, you tend to find younger sons of noblemen hanging out with criminals, just because that's a fun thing to do when you are going to University in Paris.
This highlights an additional difference between the rich and the poor: people that are slumming take fewer chances. They are less desperate, and their skills in urban survival are less finely honed. There's a fundamental difference between a highwayman who needs the money for bread and a highwayman who is doing it for kicks. This is one of the reasons the rich need to hire the poor: because other people's poor can sense if they are slumming. This social division works really well for party formation.
As to if there is any historical precedent for this mixing of the rich and poor: sure, but not quite in the way you are envisaging. They don't really mix as equals, because they aren't "equal" in Mythic Europe. In Mythic Europe, your status is closely linked to your power, and power is not shared around. The rich and poor mix because the poor have skills and the rich have capital. That being said, there's nothing wrong with a nobleman being sentimental about his retainers, or a retainer feeling strong bond with his employer.
Friendship between the classes is possible: it's just unexpected. Robin Hood, for example, is a friend of Little John's even though they are of different clasees. Tristran and his squire (an adult man of the peasant class) have a close friendship.
Monday, October 30, 2006
A prelude to Bills of Lading: Augie March
Tonight I was watching the ARIA awards, which are the major music awards for Australian bands. Best Single for 2006 went to a band called Augie March for their single "One Crowded Hour", the chorus of which might serve as useful colour in a scene with merchants, because it uses nautical motifs. A sample is here:
http://www.augie-march.com/newsEvents/archive.do?newsId=20030829002889
The name of the song is a quote from Sir Walter Scott, but the performance of the song indicates that it takes an opposing view to his. Scott's an interesting figure for Ars Magica fans, as the reviver of the historical novel in English, the romaniticiser of chivalry that led, perhaps to Twain's satire "A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", and a godfather of the sort of faux Celticness that pervades roleplayerdom. His work is partially set in the 12th Century...have any of us ever translated "Ivanhoe" to Ars Magica?
The title actually reaches us not from Scott, but from the biography of Neil Davis, an Australian cameraman who covered the Vietnamese and Cambodian sides of the Vietnam war. Davis was killed on assignment: the first piece of his work I ever saw was his final one. He was shot while his camera was running, and the clip was shown on the national news. One of his colleagues attempts to drag Davis to safety, across the field of his still-recording camera. Americans are more likely to know his work from the images of a North Vietnamese tank coming through the gates of the Presidential Palace of South Vietnam.
It would be easy to bridge from Davis's life, in which he said he craved combat, and his obsessive desire to be in the most dangerous places possible to record them, to a character type for the game, but let's let that pass. I mention him only to point out that the song quoted above is not, really, just a song about a love affair gone wrong. There are levels, and levels again, and in each of those levels there are potentials for story material, if you are willing to go after them with a trowel. This is a theme we will come back to...one of the comfortable ports of the Bills of Lading Project.
The name of the band comes from a novel, "The Adventures of Augie March" which might also serve as useful material for storyguides considering a saga set around aspects of trade. The novel has two elements which might serve storyguides well, when designing arcs for characters in merchant stories. It is picaresque, and it is a bildungsroman.
A picaresque story is one in which a quick-witted character, of low social class, uses his talents to impersonate members of the upper class for personal benefit. "His" is used advised here: the protagonists are generally male, although female picaras appear, particularly in raunchier or modern works. The picaro is often an anti-hero, and his successes are not lasting, so that he leaves a trail of chaos, of dramatic success and equally abrupt failure, in his wake. The recent BBC series "Casanova" (with David Tennant in the lead role, not the also excellent movie with Heath Ledger) shows the sort of perpetual migration this lifestyle engenders well.
The migratory aspects of the picaresque antihero do not well suit covenant-based play, so they might need to be restricted to the past of a character. An obvious example would be Casanova himself, who is serving as the librarian in an obscure castle, waiting for his Story Hooks to catch up with him, as they finally do. The intention of the picaresque novel is satirical, and satire needs to be topical. Players wanting to play a picaresque character will need the storyguide, and the players, to develop character who show parallels to modern institutions.
Picaresque stories also require a society to be corrupt, because the picaro infiltrates the society by demonstrating its outward signs of status and conformity, without his lack of substance being detected. Among the wealthy, rising classes of Mythic Europe, such pretence is possible. The nobility response by clamping down, excluding from true nobility anyone who lacks the blood of landed ancestors, but as travel becomes more popular, it becomes increasing easy to pretend to be a low nobleman for another place.
Augie March is also a bildungsroman, a German term meaning a story in which a young person grows to the mastery of his profession. Ars Magica suits this style of story particularly well. Stories are spread across the lifetime of the character, because of the seasonal experience mechanics, and the relative lack of combat makes character death less likely. These are stories which begin with a green young man or woman, and lead him or her through the life-stages of a profession, ending at a contented retirement or honoured death. This prelude has been written before "City and Guild" comes out, so the contents can't be discussed, but this sort of story is traditional for magi and companions, and as the rear cover blurb indicates, merchant characters may track a similar path, if that's what groups of players desire.
http://www.augie-march.com/newsEvents/archive.do?newsId=20030829002889
The name of the song is a quote from Sir Walter Scott, but the performance of the song indicates that it takes an opposing view to his. Scott's an interesting figure for Ars Magica fans, as the reviver of the historical novel in English, the romaniticiser of chivalry that led, perhaps to Twain's satire "A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", and a godfather of the sort of faux Celticness that pervades roleplayerdom. His work is partially set in the 12th Century...have any of us ever translated "Ivanhoe" to Ars Magica?
The title actually reaches us not from Scott, but from the biography of Neil Davis, an Australian cameraman who covered the Vietnamese and Cambodian sides of the Vietnam war. Davis was killed on assignment: the first piece of his work I ever saw was his final one. He was shot while his camera was running, and the clip was shown on the national news. One of his colleagues attempts to drag Davis to safety, across the field of his still-recording camera. Americans are more likely to know his work from the images of a North Vietnamese tank coming through the gates of the Presidential Palace of South Vietnam.
It would be easy to bridge from Davis's life, in which he said he craved combat, and his obsessive desire to be in the most dangerous places possible to record them, to a character type for the game, but let's let that pass. I mention him only to point out that the song quoted above is not, really, just a song about a love affair gone wrong. There are levels, and levels again, and in each of those levels there are potentials for story material, if you are willing to go after them with a trowel. This is a theme we will come back to...one of the comfortable ports of the Bills of Lading Project.
The name of the band comes from a novel, "The Adventures of Augie March" which might also serve as useful material for storyguides considering a saga set around aspects of trade. The novel has two elements which might serve storyguides well, when designing arcs for characters in merchant stories. It is picaresque, and it is a bildungsroman.
A picaresque story is one in which a quick-witted character, of low social class, uses his talents to impersonate members of the upper class for personal benefit. "His" is used advised here: the protagonists are generally male, although female picaras appear, particularly in raunchier or modern works. The picaro is often an anti-hero, and his successes are not lasting, so that he leaves a trail of chaos, of dramatic success and equally abrupt failure, in his wake. The recent BBC series "Casanova" (with David Tennant in the lead role, not the also excellent movie with Heath Ledger) shows the sort of perpetual migration this lifestyle engenders well.
The migratory aspects of the picaresque antihero do not well suit covenant-based play, so they might need to be restricted to the past of a character. An obvious example would be Casanova himself, who is serving as the librarian in an obscure castle, waiting for his Story Hooks to catch up with him, as they finally do. The intention of the picaresque novel is satirical, and satire needs to be topical. Players wanting to play a picaresque character will need the storyguide, and the players, to develop character who show parallels to modern institutions.
Picaresque stories also require a society to be corrupt, because the picaro infiltrates the society by demonstrating its outward signs of status and conformity, without his lack of substance being detected. Among the wealthy, rising classes of Mythic Europe, such pretence is possible. The nobility response by clamping down, excluding from true nobility anyone who lacks the blood of landed ancestors, but as travel becomes more popular, it becomes increasing easy to pretend to be a low nobleman for another place.
Augie March is also a bildungsroman, a German term meaning a story in which a young person grows to the mastery of his profession. Ars Magica suits this style of story particularly well. Stories are spread across the lifetime of the character, because of the seasonal experience mechanics, and the relative lack of combat makes character death less likely. These are stories which begin with a green young man or woman, and lead him or her through the life-stages of a profession, ending at a contented retirement or honoured death. This prelude has been written before "City and Guild" comes out, so the contents can't be discussed, but this sort of story is traditional for magi and companions, and as the rear cover blurb indicates, merchant characters may track a similar path, if that's what groups of players desire.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Bills of Lading: A project for "City and Guild"
In November, the folks at Atlas Games will release "City and Guild". It's the first in the current line of Ars Magica books that has had mundane people as its primary focus. I feel it is likely to be contentious, because the larger arguments on the various Ars lists always arise from the conflict between real versions of, and mythic perceptions of, things. Cats and crossbows are two historical examples. In response, I'm beginning the Bills of Lading Project.
The Bills of Lading project is a kind of game. It has rules. Here's how it works:- For the first thirty days after the release of City and Guild, I will write one post a day.
- For days of tremendous significance, I may cheat by sending posts in early.
- Each post will provide material related to a question posed by a person who has purchased, or promised sincerely to purchase, "City and Guild".
- Each answer will be, at average, 500 words long, but both longer and shorter are likely.
- People may ask as many questions as they like, and I'll answer as many as I have time for in the Atlas forum or Berklist. The Bills of Lading answers will be longer, and more thoroughly researched.
- Lacking a suitable question I will provide material which expands on "City and Guild" in some way.
- People may suggest questions in advance of the release of "City and Guild", but I can't begin the project, or comment on their questions, in any detail, until the book is released and my non-disclosure agreement is completed. That being said, I'm probably going to prepare a few posts in advance, so that if I have a busy day, I need not work too hard on a particular evening.
So - the blog, and the game, start now.
Welcome aboard.
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