>Note that Lunars use red and black inks the other way around in their
>ledgers -- they always want to lift their business "out of the black" and
>"back into the red". (Cf. also my "Letter from a Monopolist" in Tales #16
>for the criminal "blue market"...)
I like this; it suggests that Etyries focusses on "efficient" means of capitalist expansion, compared to the Issarion model of the "Art of the Deal." Someone (I have no idea who) suggested that the big difference between Irrippi Ontor and Lhankor Mhy was that the Grey Sages were much more about hoarding knowledge, while the Ontorites wanted to transmit knowledge. It's nice to see a little difference between the matching Lunar and Lightbringer cults.
Topi Pitkanen says:
>Mostali have paper-machines. Mostali have small paper-factories!
>And aldryami HATE mostali for cutting trees to make pulp and paper.
>Aldryami of the Stinking Forest have a darkness age myth about horrible
>wood-harvester machine the mostali unleashed upon them. (RQA6)
>
>I believe that mostali produce a significant amount of paper.
>In my game paper is a product mostali trade in Dragonpass Dwarf Mine and I
think
>this contributes for example to the lunar bureocrasy...
>(Lunar provincial goverment gets exclusive buy of the paper produced and
usually
>little is left to others seeking the "first choice of a writer")
I certainly don't want to disparage "horrible wood harvesters," which should be good for a scenario or two ("The Lorax" tranlated to Dragon Pass, if nothing else), but I can't imagine that the Mostali have much use for wood-pulp paper. In the RW, wood was used for paper only because demand outstripped the supply of rags and discarded cloth that had been used in the west. (As a sidelight, the demand for cotton cellulose fibers coupled with the development of the cotton gin made slavery profitable in the U.S., giving that institution a new lease on life in the late 18th century. Which shows how technology affects history.) Anyway, unless the Mostali have an enormous need for paper, wood pulp is not a very practical source. And Rome had a very large bureaucracy without any paper at all (as did the Hittites and, no doubt others). I suppose Mostali could use groundwood becasue they like to cheese off elves, but it's not all that practical.
Peter Larsen
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