[on the impact of healers on the Dawn ages]
>I didn't claim that casualties due to injuries disappear, but it is
>a clear fact that there is medical care. There are healers who walk
>around and prevent diseases from growing into epidemics.
They can only prevent epidemics after there is an outbreak. Secondly the populations are far too small and too rural for epidemics (ie communities are in effect quarantined).
>If a healer is around when such a rare lethal (though not
>immediately so) injury occurs the lethality could be stopped by
>the healer.
And given the extreme rarity of healers in Orlanthi society, the chances of a healer being in the vicinity is not good. Hence the effect of a healer on the rural death rate (in which most deaths would occur) is minimal.
>Yes, there were farmers among the Heortlings - but farming alone
>wouldn't have sufficed to bring them through the Darkness.
Why not? If there were Pine Forests growing in the Darkness, then farming would have been effective. It would have been subsistence but it still would have been effective.
>I doubt farming would have yielded much. A lot of effort would
>have had to go into supplementary activities to feed them.
Such as? The only alternative is hunting/gathering in which most of the nutrition comes through gathering activities. Since agriculture is a more advanced method of gathering, to take up hunting/gathering to supplement agriculture is a non-starter.
>>But the transfer of ideas alone [between different peoples such
>>as the Ditali]is not enough to make the early Dawn Ages into a
>>land of milk and honey with 3% growth for 200 years.
>It isn't just the people whose mortality rate goes down and whose
>fertility increases - their cattle, sheep, and grain do so as well.
But the Heortlings already had sheep and cattle. So what difference does the exchange of ideas with the Ditali make?
>>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.
>To gain any of Lhankor Mhy's magics, one needs to take a vow
>of not to lie. I fail to see any Orlanth Lawspeaker really doing so.
And where are lay healers in modern Orlanth society? Chalana Arroy is an extremely specialized cult whose impact on Orlanthi society is minimal. A healer is about as common as a neurosurgeon in modern RW society and has as much impact.
>>The shamans and wisewoman would know healing magics but most
>>gloranthans had them at the Dawn.
>The Ernalda cult does have powers over fertility, and may have a
>healer specialisation which, while far from as powerful as CA herself,
>may provide adequate basic coverage for all but the most unlucky
>mishaps.
In other words, no more or less effective than the healing magics available to most gloranthans at the Dawn.
>>and Bless Crops would not be unique to the Heortlings.
>Bless Crops would be known to some of the agriculturalist societies at
>Dawn, but they still knew the old, pre-Darkness forms of addressing their
>deities. Even the fairly sophisticated Ralians of Hrelar Amali altered their
>techniques of worship towards the more effective Theyalan model in the
>long run.
All rituals of addressing the gods are pre-darkness in origin and would be equally effective. And since Flamal died at Hrelar Amali, I strongly doubt that the Galanini changed to get a better version of bless crops. In any case, they converted well after the years in question (ie the first century after the dawn).
>>[Weed control] would require an elf to be living near a farmstead and
>>co-operating fulltime. I hardly think this is realistic.
>Tarndisi is a fixture in Colymar lands, and should easily be able to control
>the tributary vally towards the stream. She could help harness the newly
>abundant fertility of the land, and probably did for the local Orgovaltes.
And Tarndisi is not an Elf. And she cannot distinguish between the fertility of useful plants and the fertility of weeds.
>>[The] effectiveness [of lawspeakers] 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.
>They delayed it by several years, no mean feat. The Icelandic sagas
>are full of lawsuits going slowly bad, but the alternative would have
>been direct, genocidal slaughter of one of the parties, genocidal
>slaughter of the perpretators in revenge, and a strong war between
>the avengers and the perpretators' further kin.
The slaughter cannot be 'genocidal' for then there would be no survivors to take revenge upon. If there are no lawspeakers to mediate, then the outcome would be clan feuds which can fester for ages. Given that these feuds happen in Orlanthi society anyway, one wonders whether the lawspeakers are actually needed.
[Alchemical Transformer as Farmer's best friend?]
>>Which does what exactly? Turn the local creek any color you want?
>Check RuneQuest Adventures #5, the Dwarf inlay. I suppose the
>Transformer "boosted the Bless Crops rituals" by providing magical
>fertilizer.
Promoting 'growth'. Can anyone see how unmostali this would be for the average dwarf? Let alone Isildian whose 'hatred of Aldryami impaired his judgement' KoS p103. On the other hand, RQA merely speaks about the humans having 'limited access' to the alchemical transformer with no mention about its use.
If it were used for fertilizer then IMHO it would have resulted in massive eutrophic growth in the local river valley making it uninhabitable for humans. The sooner gloranthans get the idea that Dwarf technology is totally illsuited to human wants and needs, the better off they'll be.
>>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.
>The modern Pakistani don't live in a vast, under-populated fertile
>land. Granted that fertility returned only slowly after the Dawning,
>but large numbers of people who had inhabited the land prior to
>the Greater Darkness had disappeared.
The underpopulation or fertility of the land is not relevant to whether a 3% growth is sustainable. The problem is that the proportion of fertile women in the population decreases and so the growth rate is under pressure to slow down.
>Make it 10% for repairs, and 10% for expansion [of infrastructure].
Why would they be expanding at 10%? This is far beyond their capabilities!
>Against this stands
>an increase in productivity by a factor of at least three, if not higher,
>so that labour previously going into agriculture now could be applied
>to infrastructure.
But one still has to weed the field. The increased fertility cuts both ways. It's simply not a case of 'I can sit on my fat arse and drool like a village idiot all day long'.
>In other words: people got the relief from the daily
>struggle for survival and could specialize on their crafts once more.
And crafts are not conducive to maintaining a 3% growth rate. Have you any idea what that implies? Consider the fertile women. If 1/2 the population are kids, then the women would need to be pregnant at a rate of least 12% (depending on the proportion of post-menopausal women). Figure in statistics for infant mortality (assume 0%) and women who don't have families (assume 15% from 'all Orlanthi women have families'), you end up with the fertile women each having 6 kids apiece in the span of their fertile lifetimes (assumed at a generous 30 years).
Tinker around with those statistics and they get worse. One would have to start buggering Nandans to keep up the growth rate.
>>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).
>Not in the first years.
Given that we are discussing the first few decades (up to 200 years was the original claim), I am not concerned with 'the first few years' but rather the growth rate over four or five generations.
>>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.
>While worshipping O&E rather than Eurmal?
I fail to see your point.
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