Thank you for the research! I would imagine that the basic building of this type would have fixed opennings, aligned to the predominant winds. However an obvious advance would be to make removable panels (or shutters) around the sails, so that you can open up the appropriate holes. Let's assume for the moment, with all their wind affinity, that the Orlanthi can live with the basic type.
I think that this type of windmill makes a lot more sense for Heortlings. Gears are tricky to make at the best of times, even harder in a society with no arithmetic or value for pi (unless there is a little know cult of Lankhor My the mathemetician?).
Following up on the discussion of wind daimones, it seems to me that
1) It would be considered rather impious to put magical shackles on a
wind daimone and put it to work.
2) "wild" wind daimones may not be amused that you were trying to get
work out of them, so simply building a mill mechanically may not be
very effective (it always seems to be in a calm spot, the winds swirl
around there, the winds blow so hard that it breaks, etc).
Putting together the mechanical and magical challenges, and thinking about how to make mills as interesting as possible, I think the way I'd suggest handling mills (at least wind mills, probably watter mills too) is to make them something you can learn about on a heroquest. There is a certain, probably not widely known, quest, that when you complete it lets you come back with plans and blessings for a mill. It will just happen to end up well enough built to survive for the ususal duration of community blessings brought back on quests. Part of the magic of the quest, of course, is that it helps you line up the building to best catch the winds, and that the winds happily blow through your mill without getting upset....in fact the essence of the quest is probably getting wind daimones to agree to power the mill.
I imagine the "Hiorl harnesses the wind" quest would go something
like:
1) You asseble the materials for the mill (including the millstones--
a major investment to make and transport!).
2) You build a shrine on the location (to whom?)
3) You gather the community at the site, go through various
ceremonies, and start the quest.
4) You start off in the silver age. Large amounts of grain need to
be ground for some reason, too much to do in the hand mills (or maybe
they were all destroyed somehow?)
5) The hero goes to some wise person, who instructs them to build a
giant mill, but can't tell them how to power it.
6) The hero performs some task to win the massive grind stones
needed, and the community builds the basics of the mill
7) Then the hero tries to get the people to power the mill, but every
strong hand is needed for other tasks (defense mostly)
6) The hero sets off and tries to find an animal strong enough to
power the mill, but almost all of the animals are dead, and those
that are left are too weak to help.
7) Finally the hero turns to the only thing that is still strong, the
wind. He/she travels to (somewhere) and pleads/bribes/beats a great
wind daimone into agreeing to turn the mill. If the hero succeeds
the daimone explains exactly how he will blow, so that the hero knows
where to place the opennings on the mill, and the daimone promises to
blow constantly and evenly on the mill.
8) The hero returns from the other side to find the community has
almost completed the mill, and he or she gives the final few
instructions, and just as they finish the wind starts blowing and
powering the mill.
Voila, we now have an explanation of how the heortlings came up with mills, how they build them, but also of why they aren't more common.
Regards;
Bryan
Powered by hypermail