>>I don't think the medical care available to the average Orlanthi
>>is all that great.
>Compare it to the medical care available to the average mediaeval farmer,
>then. The availability of magic removes some of the threat of tetanus, at
>least.
And the medical care goes little or no way towards ensuring the longetivity of the average farmer in rural areas. A farmer is working out in the fields and has an accident which requires urgent attention. So there's a healer in town a few days away. He's still going to die coz he's got no cellphone to call for attention nor does he have effective transport to get him there in time. Healers are much more useful in urban societies because those factors are absent.
>>Again this is far too low IMO. The Heortlings are not Neolithic
>>farmers and so it is not reasonable to assume neolithic population
>>distributions for them.
>I was taking into account that harvests were "not so good" during the Grey
>Age. Farming seems to have been fairly abandoned during the Greater Darkness
>- - the youth of Heort the Swift doesn't exactly sound like much farming to
>me.
Nevertheless there were farmers among the Heortlings at the Dawn. And farming gives significantly higher population distributions than does hunting/gathering (10:1 is the general rule of the thumb).
>>The Lightbringer secrets would only make their magics more
>>powerful and not grant any of the other benefits that you
>>mention.
>There would have been a transfer of ideas as soon as contact was
>established. The recipients I had in mind were e.g. the Entruli
>tribes of Maniria, like the Ditali.
But the transfer of ideas alone is not enough to make the early Dawn Ages into a land of milk and honey with 3% growth for 200 years.
>>In particular, Chalana Arroy would not have much impact on
>>overall population. Healers are very rare then as now and
>>would contribute buggerall to the welfare of the common
>>farmer.
>There wouldn't be many full healers, but there surely would be an
>increase in lay healers after her missionaries spread lightbringer
>worship, wouldn't there?
To gain any of Chalana's healing magics, one needs to take a vow of not to kill. Thus I fail to see how there can be lay healers. The shamans and wisewoman would know healing magics but most gloranthans had them at the Dawn.
>>The Barntar cult and cattle are good things to have, but they
>>are not unique to the Heortlings AFAIK.
>"This is how Bless Crops works!" should make a difference...
I don't believe Bless Crops prevents famines outright and Bless Crops would not be unique to the Heortlings.
>>The Aldryami support
>>is minimal as their magics are suited to growing trees and wild
>>forms of vegetation. They are unsuited for adaption to human
>>cultivation.
>They cooperated. To mediaeval as Gloranthan farmers, keeping out the wild
>weeds was a major trouble. Now, if the Aldryami cooperated, this part of
>the work wasn't necessary.
Which would require an elf to be living near a farmstead and co-operating fulltime. I hardly think this is realistic.
>>The Lhankor Mhy Sages would still be illiterate bumpkins dressed
>>in sheepskins and strongly devoted to reciting lineages.
>And devoted to resolving law-suits, avoiding mutual slaughter.
Their effectiveness in reducing slaughter in modern day Sartar gives me grave doubts that this was so. And we've all seen how effective the Orlanthi Lawspeakers were in thwarting the Immolation.
>>I strongly
>>doubt that any technology the dwarves have can improve the plight
>>of the average farmer to any meaningful degree.
>Need I say Alchemical Transformer?
Which does what exactly? Turn the local creek any color you want?
>>I seriously doubt that such a population explosion [3% for 200
>>years] would have occured.
>So the Dawn Orlanthi were less fertile than the modern Pakistani?
Even the modern Pakistani are not capable of sustaining 3% growth for 200 years. One might look at the reasons why it is so difficult to reach a 3% growth rate.
>>You have the population increasing sixteenfold in less
>>than a hundred years. This would create a huge strain on all
>>aspects of Orlanthi society.
>I doubt people would have noticed...
Seriously, a significant proportion of the labor of your average Orlanthi is involved in repairing and replaced the deteoriation in his home, fences, fields and so forth. A replacement rate of 5% in the infrastructure would be expected (I'm using the rule-of- thumb 10% for industrial uses and halving it). Any work in expansion would be on top of this replacement.
A growth rate of 3% means that the Orlanthi would have to work significantly harder to provide for all the new mouths (ie building new homes). This is above and beyond the backbreaking labor involved in bringing the little 'uns into the world. At some point, they are going to get sick and tired of the work involved and not produce as many kids.
Powered by hypermail