Hey mister tally-man......

From: bethexton_at_...
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:21:03 -0000


....tally me barley-sheaves?

Actually, what I wanted to ask the joint wisdom of this list has to do with the Issaries "tally" skill and the Harst sub-cult.

According to Storm Tribe tallying is an Issaries cult secret skill. However I would think that of all the sub-cults, that of Harst would find this skill the most useful. After all, you can manage the communities stocks better if you can actually count what comes in and goes out, and perform a little simple arithmetic.

However, the Harst sub-cult is shared with Orlanth Allfather. This implies that Harst Allfather worshippers wouldn't have access to the Issaries-only secret of tallying. If this is true I'm thinking this makes an occasionally difficult job even more challenging. I suppose with experience you can eyeball things and know roughly what the stead will consume, how much a feast will use up, and so on. Still it sounds like something that would be a lot easier with a slate and chalk (or bark and stick, or whatever). So would it be reasonable to let Harst Allfather worshippers share in Issaries tally skill?

I note that, magic aside, this skill could give Issaries merchants a real advantage over their non-Issarian Heortling merchant counterparts. The Issaries merchant can accurately tally up all his costs, and so better figure out what is good business or not, while other have to rely more on gut instinct, and in odd deals may occasionally screw up ("I can buy these lumps of lead cheaply, then sell them for much more if I travel to troll lands, it will be very profitable" But after paying guards, writing off at least one mule lost to trollkin, renting the wagons to haul the lead, etc, maybe the margin is worse than what you'd make doing the usual circuit of clan markets).

-Bryan

Powered by hypermail