I've got a question that I thought might interest
the great collective (though frequently schizophrenic)
mind of the digest, while helping me in my game. I
was checking up on crop yield figures (sparked by
Chris Graham's question), and wondered what numerical
effect Bless Crops (or any other similar ritual) would
have.
The more that I thought about it, the more that I
believed that this is one of the relatively few
occasions when you would get a real mini-max algebraic
calculation on the part of farmers. They keep track
of harvest yields year after year, plus they know how
much seed they need to sow each field. Given this
information, what would be the farmer's choice when it
comes to using crop blessings?
One opinion I've heard is that Bless Crops is
just basically crop insurance, in that a blessed field
will always yield an acceptable quantity for that
field. It won't make a marginal field give you great
yields for that area, just adequate. However, even
that definition should give rise to interesting
quandaries.
- Does Bless Crops have a multiplier effect on the
yield, or closer to an additive one?
- Depending on #1, would he use them on his best
fields only, worst fields only, or a mix (assuming he
has more than one).
- Does it make sense to change the fields that
receive the blessing depending on the omens for that
growing season?
- Will seed grain saved from a blessed crop be
better than from an unblessed field?
- How many Bless Crops spells is any farmer likely
to learn? Over enough years, does the family manage
to bless nearly the whole of their ploughed land each
year?
- Would cultural differences occur in the pattern of
use between, e.g., farmers in Sun County, Sartar and
the Lunar Heartlands?
- Is it more likely that the farmer decides where to
cast the blessings, or the local priest/priestess?
(I'd put that down to culture, but since the farmer
knows his land best, how much difference does that
make to the authority of the priestess?)
- Really esoteric question - how much has the
need/security of temples/congregations that can give
all the necessary agricultural blessings and other
services influenced the settlement patterns in
Glorantha?
Thanks for any speculations you can give me.
Alison
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