The gazzam economy

From: David Gadbois <gadbois_at_cs.utexas.edu>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 23:10:58 -0600

   Sandy reasons: Obviously your typical landholder can't afford to    own his _own_ triceratops. Hence we have the job of    Triceratops-owner, in which the fellow owns his own triceratops and    rents it out to those in need.

Hmm. Lately, I have been wondering how the Dara Happans, the incompetent twees that they are, could have possibly managed to lord it over big chunks of Peloria for so long save a few minor interruptions by random Carmanians, Pentans, and Dragonkin. One way I proposed is a certain largesse that makes the peasants want to partake in degrading Yelmic rituals. The gazzam offer another possibility: Of all the Pelorians, only the Dara Happans own, and, more importantly, know how to control, the gazzam. Joe Random Lodrilite, when faced with the decision of whether to spend weeks of back-breaking labor to plow his fields himself or to spend a few moments brown-nosing Count Khorfooelm in order to get him to have his triceratops do it in a few microfortnights, has a powerful incentive to lie back and enjoy it.

There is still the question, though, of how the Dara Happans, with all their inbred snobbery, secret depravity, and overwhelming uselessness, could have managed to survive in an apparently culturally intact way these 400 or so years since the Glorious Revolution of Our Goddess.

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