Culture Class # 5

Pre-Class Rules:  Please don't chat during class.  Please do not post until you see the word QUESTIONS, and stop posting question when you see CLASS.  I'll be glad to discuss any of this material later if there are any questions.

Welcome to Lee Killough's Checking on Culture -- A checklist for Cultural Building, Class 3.  The Killough book is the primary work I've used for this class.  Definitions come from the Random House Webster's College Dictionary.

Lee Killough has several books available from Meisha Merlin Press: Blood Walk and Blood Games, Bridling Chaos, and the upcoming Wilding Nights.  You can find more information on these books here: http://www.meishamerlin.com

You can also learn more about Lee Killough and contact her through her AuthorsDen website at: http://www.authorsden.com/leekillough

Lee Killough's book, Checking on Culture, is available.  Anyone who wishes to can order this little gem by sending $5.00 plus $3.00 for postage and postage materials:

Lee Killough/PO Box 1167/Manhattan KS 66505-1167 (Be sure to tell her it is for Checking on Culture.)

Starting with today's class we are only going to cover four topics per meeting. That means we'll have lots of time to go over thoughts for each one subject.  Most of today's material is fairly short, but there should be lots to consider with it.

Part Two: Community Interaction (Continued)

10. Class

Definition: A social stratum sharing basic economic, political, or cultural characteristics, and having the same social position...the system of dividing society; caste... social rank, especially high rank.

Killough:  Look at the basic structure of your society. Decide... is it egalitarian or does it have a class structure?  If so, what are the classes?  Based on what?  Bloodlines...money...education...professions?

More importantly, how rigid is that structure?  Is it a caste system, or can there be movement between classes?  If so, what are the mechanisms of upward mobility?

In ancient China, the ranks of the civil service, from which all government officials were drawn, were open to any male who could pass the necessary examinations on the classics.

Zette:  This is another section where you can create a really unique society.  When we think of class we tend to either associate it with monetary systems, ethnic background, or with a caste system.  There are other options.

Heinlein did something different in Starship Troopers by creating a society where only those who had served in the military could vote.  Class is about power.  Who controls your society?

Japan had the Samurai class; a group set a part from the rest of the society, and with their own code and laws.  Military class systems are an easy way to set up a segregation of different peoples.

Religious class systems are also workable, where certain high-ranking members of the religious establishment have the most power and the most privilege as well.

But try other possibilities.  If there is some sort of work that requires expertise and is necessary to the existence of your society, then you may have the first step in a class system.

The ability to use magic could be a good division.  How about one based on height?  In a habitat where tall people have some advantage, that might cause a division.

If you set up a class system, remember that in any society with an advanced amount of income or technology, it's seldom as simple as rich and poor.  Our middle class was created following the increase in industrialization of the 20^th century.

It stands to reason that further technology will drive more divisions in class. Our middle class has fragmented further, with an upper middle class and lower middle. The poor are not just poor, but also  trailer trash, and homeless.

How rigid is the class? Are you born to the class, and no matter what you will remain in that class? If you are not of a certain class, can you ever become part of it?

Are there distinctions within each class that might not be apparent to those on the outside?  Rich and nouveau rich are not the same in our society. What about old families versus new?

Not only define if one is born into a class or must show a potential of some sort (or make enough money) to become a part of it, but also show the privileges of each class. What do they get other than to step on those below them?

And what are the requirements of the class? What do they give to the rest of society?  What limitations are put on each class? Even the highest class will have taboos to make certain that they do not act like the lower classes.

In a religiously structured class, the higher classes would have to be considered closer to their gods. Would that make the lowest class considered godless?  What sort of restrictions/requirements would that put on both.

Class structures are potentially rich fields for conflict.  If you put one into place, don't ignore it.  If you have a danger from outside the system, how much cooperation between classes can you expect?

QUESTIONS

• Linnet-- blinks in awe--
• @zette-- LOL!
• RobertnAri-- Academia seems to be a class in itself just looking at the present.
• @zette-- You'll have to go back and read the other four classes. They're actually fun.
• Linnet-- I have no doubt at all, milady.  But that just ... well... wow!
• RobertnAri-- Someone could write up a society where novelists were the ruling class.
• karenth-- ooh, robert!
• @zette-- LOL, Robert!
• Anne_Marble-- Yes!!!
• @zette-- There's a lot to work with in culture, Linnet.  It's really a fun subject.
• RobertnAri-- I came close with the Piarrans, their political class has things like the mandarin classics tests and each courtier MUST have an art form. Novelists are respectable.
• karenth-- suppose you have a religious class system and those closest to the gods might look upon the godless with...envy.
• Linnet-- What happens when you potentially have two ruling classes?  Church and state, as it were?
• @zette-- If novelists ruled, what would they have to offer to keep society going?  Dreams?
• Anne_Marble-- I like the idea of mages in charge. It makes more sense than most of the plots where mages are working for somebody else or getting burned at the stake. ;---
• @zette-- Sometimes there are conflicts, Linnet.
• RobertnAri-- Velvet had a matriarchy once where women's fertility determined class and the fertile women were at the top.
• @zette-- But if the religion wins over the state's rulers, then the conflict goes udnerground.
• Anne_Marble-- The Celts admired men who were both warriors and poets.
• @zette-- And I can't type today, as usual.
• karenth--
• RobertnAri-- I liked that idea of different religions for the different classes and may use that.
• @zette-- Linnet -- there can be all kinds of reasons for conflict, including the merging of different cultures and classes.
• Kay-- Linnet, there were two times in GB, or 3 where those conflicts became serious -- King Stephen & the Bishop of Winchester, his brother, King Edward and Thomas A Becket and Henry 8 and the split with the pope
• Linnet-- Yep... and we're still feeling it, I think
• @zette-- Right, Kay.  And we see it here in the US, to some degree.
• Linnet-- When two major powers clash, they do it with a big bank
• Linnet-- umm bang
• @zette-- A big bank... there's a thought for a story!
• RobertnAri-- I liked your first version, economic warfare can get intense.
• Linnet-- lol
• @zette-- Okay, about ready for the next section?
•  

CLASS

11. Commerce

Definition: An exchange of goods or commodities between different countries or between areas of the same country.

Killough: How do your people do business?  Are we looking at hunter-gatherers who practice a bit of barter to enhance their food supply, or an interstellar trade empire?

What exchange medium do they use:  barter, coins, paper money, cashless electronic transactions?  If they have coins and paper money, what do those coins and bills look like?  What denominations are they?

Zette:  How is trade viewed by your society?  Is it a game to see who can out do the others?  Strictly regulated by guilds to make certain that they don't lose control?

How much control does the government have over trade outside it's own borders?  Do they impose tariffs for bringing material in?  Are they more concerned with items leaving the land?

Are there traveling markets?  Wandering salesmen?  Do the people who create the objects also sell them -- weavers in the courtyard and a shop out front?  Are there monopolies on certain types of trade?

What about taxes on sales and goods?  Even in medieval times the local aristocracy collected their share of goods either in kind or in coin, depending on the state of the monetary system. They, in turn, paid the king.

Do entire families run businesses?  Do cousins grow the sheep, older women make the yarn, and younger women weave... brothers sell the cloth, uncles travel to other cities to sell...

Are outsiders allowed to do business within your region or country? What about aliens? How do people within your society view a stranger setting up business? Do people flock to the shop, looking for something new and exotic?  

If they are allowed, do they have to pay special taxes to set up?  Do people avoid him for months until he proves himself harmless?  Does he have to have to approval of a special committee even if the laws of the land allow it?

What businesses are not allowed?  Which are regulated? What if your class system is tied to your business, or your function? Doesn't this impact the ability of others to be part of your region or your world?

For a look at building a monetary system for your society, take a look at the article from the first issue of Vision on creating a monetary system to match your world.

QUESTIONS

• RobertnAri-- Hitchhikers Guide had a coin worth about the GNP of a planet that weighed a hundred tons, it wasn't popular except with collectors and only about two were minted?
• karenth-- I like the idea of the division of labor between members of a family.
• Anne_Marble-- What if the currency has the king on it? Are there effects from changing it each time?
• RobertnAri-- Well you can tell who raided a tomb for old money
• Linnet-- and what types of metals or synthetics would the coins be made from?  Would you even NEED a new coin if there were so many still in circulation?
• @zette-- Anne -- there were different people who were given the right to mint coins at different times.
• Nathan-- {Sneaks into the back row}
• @zette-- When a new king began a rule, quite often it began with minting new coins, but the old ones stayed in use for some time.
• @zette-- Just like now.
• Anne_Marble-- Like the Euros
• RobertnAri-- Yeah. I think even coin collecting goes back quite far.
• Linnet-- it had to be something durable though.
• Linnet-- What if your material wealth was something less ... solid?
• @zette-- Coins were all durable in those days... for the most part.  Paper money is very new.
• Anne_Marble-- The Egyptians probably had the first attempts at archaeology.
• Anne_Marble-- But by the time even the ancient archaeologists dug up stuff, the coins and such were usually gone.
• @zette-- Coins with kings faces, kings sitting on horses in battle dress, victory symbols, etc... These were all used for propaganda.
• Linnet-- sort of a mini-PR campaign?
• RobertnAri-- Various deities sometimes showed up with the king or the queen.
• @zette-- And, of course, sometimes the coins were debased with lesser metals when times got hard.
• RobertnAri-- As they have been most of my life.
• @zette-- Commerce is a good way to define relationships with other countries/worlds in your stories.
• Anne_Marble-- That happened during World War II
• Linnet-- Here's a question then... if your towns or provinces are far apart, would some have coins while others used barter?
• @zette-- It works that way today in some areas, Linnet.  Most societies are combination of many different trade systems.
• Linnet-- They don't mesh well, though, do they?  It would get confusing for traveling
• Linnet-- 3sellers
• @zette-- Farmers in this area often trade goods for other supplies, but the local Gateway employees trade coin for the same things.
• @zette-- Sometimes the kingdom (or country like the US) only allowed their own coin to be used.  You had to trade in foreign coin for local currency.  Moneychangers...
• @zette-- It depends on the society whether it works or not.  Some are set up that way.  They will make it work.
• karenth-- how do other countries manage multiple currencies?
• Linnet-- The moneychangers, for one
• @zette-- I don't think many do, Karenth.  It's not something I really know much about... However, usually it came to weights.  X amount of silver, in whatever form equals X amount of money.
• Linnet-- You can get your notes or dollars or whatever exchanged at almost any bank
• Nathan-- Or you could just use that money that works in any country
• karenth-- i guess i was wondering if anyone did it without money changers (weighing makes sense for gold and silver, etc.)
• Linnet-- Or the bartering system, they could use something common.  Three bushels of wheat or grain for a suckling pig...
• RobertnAri-- More common I think in the ancient world and the black market.
• karenth-- i see your suckling pig and raise you a chicken and a goat
• Linnet-- goes to grab her kid off the rocking chair arm - afk a sec--
• RobertnAri-- Which must get a section of its own, I guess, there was no real mention of black markets and smuggling.
• Anne_Marble-- Nathan-- Master Card and Lady Visa
• Nathan-- Huh?
• @zette-- The trouble with barter, Linnet -- is carrying around all those bushels of grain to get everything you need.
• Anne_Marble-- That's what they call credit cards at the Ren faires. Master Card and Lady Visa
• @zette-- Haven't hit black markets, but that goes in under what is allowed and not allowed.  Good point.
• @zette-- Okay, on to section three!
•  

CLASS

12. Labor

Definition: Productive activity, especially for the sake of economic gain... The body of persons engaged in such activity, especially those working for wages.

Killough:  How is labor divided?  Do particular individuals perform particular jobs?  In our country, new immigrants take many of the unskilled, low-paying jobs... custodial work, dishwashing.

Do you have an untouchables group or slaves who do the dirtiest work?  Maybe convict labor?  Is work divided by sex?

Zette: Is labor tied to class?  Are only certain types of people allowed to do certain jobs?  Can only women be nurses and only men teach school?  Do kids work in factories or carry packages through town?

In villages and smaller collections of people, work can usually be divided up between family members or extended clans.  Building a hut for a newly wed couple might be the work of all the unmarried males.

If you have cities, however, you have building projects that will serve more than a single individual, and therefore need to have some sort of community commitment to get the job done.

Some places depended on levies chosen from within the population.  These groups were required to work on projects for a certain number of months per year.

Most often the levy would be called up at a time when other work, such as farming or other seasonal jobs, were not likely to be badly affected.  However, if there is threat of an invasion, a levy might be called to make new walls around the city.

But in normal times, who does the work within your society.  If you have a large settlement, how is the care of the whole divided up among your group?  How are people who work for the betterment of the city paid?

Are convicts used for dangerous labor?  Some societies used convicts for mining work and other hazardous activities. Slaves often found themselves regulated to the same sort of work.

If your society uses materials that must be mined, be certain they have a way of getting such material -- either through their own means or by trade.   Trade may not be cost effective; unless they have something equally important they can offer.

Are certain jobs assigned by the religious groups as penance, or by the government for basically the same reason?  Some people are given a number of hours 'community service' to work off a debt to society.

Consider all that it takes to keep a city of any size running.  Daily labor includes deliveries, utilities, police, maintenance, food production, transportation, schooling... any number of jobs to be filled.

In our world, immigrants could only get the jobs that no one else would take. (Thus, the stereotype of the Irish policemen, since at that time being a policeman was a poorly paid, hazardous job.)

Also look at special considerations for your particular society.  Do they live on islands? Who builds the boats that keep them in touch with other islands?  

Who mans the fleets?  Do they have pressgangs? Who are the shepherds, the people who train horses, and the people who chase the native carnivores out of the parks on a new world?

Consider what happens when labor is scarce. After the Black Plague the need for workers forced income to rise, and caused considerable bad feelings between the classes. 

The people paying the wages felt that the poor were taking advantage of the plague, while those seeking work felt the wage-payers were just making certain they held on to the money and were exploiting the poor.

Labor is not just getting work done, but who has to do it, who gets paid, and what happens when labor fails to get the work done. 

QUESTIONS

• RobertnAri-- Rich sources of conflict there.
• @zette-- It works in very closely with the class structure. 
• @zette-- LOL, Anne!
• Nathan-- What're pressgangs? Are they the people who bombard famous people with Questions?
• @zette-- No, they were the people who wandered through port towns, kidnapped young men, and forced them to sail on ships.
• RobertnAri-- Press gangs were gangs of sailors who'd go get random guys drunk and sign them on board ships, often literally kidnap them and they don't wake up till they're at sea working the ship.
• Nathan-- oh. That's sad...I guess
• @zette-- Then they're stuck for up to three years or more of their life, depending on the journey.
• RobertnAri-- I think the navies of some countries used to recruit that way.
• karenth-- wow
• Nathan-- that sucks
• @zette-- They were common even on the west coast in the 1800's, I believe.
• karenth-- "shanghai'd"
• RobertnAri-- Yep
• Anne_Marble-- Yeah, just before the War of 1812, I believe England used to "recruit" American sailors into their Navy that way.
• Kay-- Part of the War of 1812 between US & GB was due to Brits stopping US Merchant ships and taking their sailors to crew warships to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte
• Kay-- GMTA Anne!
• karenth-- gmta?
• @zette-- But there is a case of work that no one wanted to do, and so they forced the labor. There could be other jobs in your society that requires work.
• @zette-- Great Minds Think Alike
• Anne_Marble-- Hint: Always avoid a war on two fronts.
• karenth-- ah! 
• Nathan-- Why?
• @zette-- They both went for the 1812 reference.
• Nathan-- Two fronts?
• @zette-- Dividing your resources, Nathan.
• Anne_Marble-- England was fighting Napoleon in Europe and then had to fight America in America as well
• RobertnAri-- Your enemies may decide to ally against you and even if they don't, you don't have overpowering force.
• Nathan-- oh...I see.
• Kay-- Really really bad for the sailors Nathan, b/c very little space on board, work very hard, pay very low, bad food, rats on ship  major yuk
• @zette-- One good army facing one enemy might win.  A good army divided over two areas is not as strong, but the enemies both have their full forces.
• Kay-- also dangerous work.  got washed overboard and drowned , etc
• Anne_Marble-- Flogged
• Linnet-- scurvy 
• karenth-- sigh
• @zette-- Rickets were normal because of bad food, and of course there was a good chance of being shipwrecked somewhere.
• Nathan-- Limeys!!!
• @zette-- sigh?
• Kay-- Brits called limeys now b/c carried limes to avoid scurvy
• karenth-- floggings and such...
• Linnet-- I think rickets were caused by low milk intake in kids, actually, zette...
• Nathan-- Yeah, I know
• Kay-- EXACTLY Nathan!
• Nathan-- I think that that's funny.
• Anne_Marble-- And there were worse things, but we won't mention them because we want to keep it PG-13. :-
• @zette-- I've heard of rickets in ship cases too, I think.  I know about scurvy.  Hmmm... maybe I am getting confused!
• karenth-- shingles, maybe?
• Nathan-- rickets?
• RobertnAri-- Well it's a bit hard to get milk on a ship, and cheese was usually reserved for officers.
• @zette-- But keep all of these things in mind for your society.  Labor is a very important part of how well a society holds up, and how well it can advance.
• Nathan-- What's milk got to do with anything?
• Anne_Marble-- Didn't their legs get twisted from rickets? Or am I thinking of something else?
• Linnet-- yes, that's it
• Linnet-- bone development in kids.  Rickets wasn't common in adults at all
• Nathan-- What're rickets?
• Anne_Marble-- No milk = no vitamin D onboard = weakened bones
• Nathan-- oh.
• @zette-- Now we get vitamins in many forms, so it's not as common.
• Anne_Marble-- Or maybe it's calcium.
• Linnet-- so what's considered the easiest way to do labor in your society?
• @zette-- Vitamin D.  Just looked it up.
• Nathan-- Well then, why didn't they take cows with them. Coweys!
• karenth-- snarf
• Anne_Marble-- Seasick cows!
• Linnet-- they get seasick too Nathan...  ever cleaned up cow puke?
• @zette-- You have to feed cows, Nathan. 
• RobertnAri-- Visit a tall ship when they come into your area sometime, Nathan.
• @zette-- Most labor is done for pay, Linnet.
• Nathan-- No, never cleaned up cow puke
• Anne_Marble-- And watch your head. ;---
• Linnet-- so capitalist?
• @zette-- So you pay the poor to do the worse work, and it gets done. 
• Nathan-- Tall ships come into my area?? Cool1
• Nathan-- 1=!
• @zette-- That's generally the way it's always worked, except in the case of slaves and convict labor.
• Anne_Marble-- Australia!
• @zette-- There are things that just have to be done, and they'll get done, because even the poor suffer if, say,  the gutters aren't cleaned out and the city floods.
• @zette-- Okay, let's go to the next section.  After that we can talk about all of them.
• Nathan-- ping
• Anne_Marble-- They could live in Khuala Lampour, where the daily rain washes the stuff down the gutters

CLASS

13. Professions

Definition: A vocation requiring extensive education in science or the liberal arts and often specialized training... any vocation or business

Killough:  I always look over the culture I am creating to see if that culture would result in any new or unique professions. Sometimes I find them. 

In The Doppelganger Gambit, the colonization movement resulted in the emergence of the Colonial contractor, an individual who for a fee organized everything necessary for colonization:

Selling shares in the colony, obtaining the charter, contracting for the star ship, buying supplies.

Remember that each profession uses its own specialized terms, and slang, for what it deals with...and what it does.  Stunt people in films perform gags; musicians play gigs; Broadway dancers audition at cattle calls.

Zette:  Look at the society you are creating for your story and decide what are the professions that will take more skill than common labor would.  What are the jobs your people aspire to have?

Is the prize job to be one of the chosen fishermen, because they sit by the river all day pulling in their catches, while everyone else has to provide them with all the other necessities of life?

Does your character long to be chosen as the village historian, to learn all the old tales and memorize the genealogies and land agreements?  Do they want to be a bard, and travel to the fairs?

Or is your society higher tech?  Do they want to be the computer techs or the starship pilots?  But even such worlds as that have to have people who want to be the farmers, and who might even long to escape the city and live out in the country.

Farmer?  Rancher?  Accountant? Tax Collector?  Physician?  Historian?  Librarian?  Civil Servant?  Salesman?  Bus driver, starship captain, sea captain? 

There are dozens of professions to look at and decide if the work is learned by apprenticeship or kept strictly in the family.

Does your society have a guild system that keeps much of its profession hidden behind locked doors, carefully guarding its secrets?  How long can a person be expected to train?

At what age does a person become apprenticed to a trade or profession?  In cases of apprenticeship at a young age, what are the agreements with the family? 

Are they happy to have the child taken off their hands and fed and clothed by someone else?  Is it a potential investment, since the child is expected to pay back the parents?

Does the (for instance) guild 'buy' potential members from their families, or do the families have to come up with the guild fee?  What qualifications would the child need?

Are there secret professions?  Is herbal medicine held to be dark magic and secretly taught?  Or are there schools for secret professions -- say assassin -- hidden away in the mountains and carefully guarded.

Are there professions that people regularly make fun of?  We make fun of lawyers, until we need them.  What sort of professions would your society dislike or find amusing?

QUESTIONS

• Linnet-- I think my mountain people would be amused to find folks who pay to have others make their clothes
• RobertnAri-- In my Nomad series I didn't invent a faster than light communications because telepathy was the only thing that could perceive in hyperspace. Communications telepaths are SO well paid since the galactic Internet runs coded through them!
• Kay-- this looks like a good moment for the lawyer to step out of the room.
• @zette-- LOL!  I happen to have a few lawyer friends, so you can stay.
• RobertnAri-- rofl - lawyers are heroes too, Kay!
• Kay-- Actually, I'm beginning to fade. I may have to slip out soon anyway.
• @zette-- Linnet -- yes, that's a good point about the mountain people!
• Linnet-- I know when I moved, I thought it funny that people would get in the car and drive a mile to go to the park and walk the track
• karenth-- heh
• @zette-- Yeah, I can see that, too!
• Linnet-- culture within culture!  LOL
• @zette-- It's fun to try and come up with a new profession that suits some strange culture, though.  I haven't come up with anything really unique yet, but I enjoy trying to find them.
• Anne_Marble-- How about meteorologists? We always make fun of them! (From the West Northwest at 23 mph, chance of precip 40%. Sigh.)
• RobertnAri-- I like to twist professions around when a culture's taboos aren't the usual ones. My aliens, "courtesan" really encompasses personal therapist and a host of other things but sexual entertainment's taken for an art form as part of it.
• Linnet-- hee hee...
• @zette-- (grin)  Yeah, that's one Anne.
• RobertnAri-- Dentists are often made fun of and the only ones I know who are happy int he profession are also comedians and know all the jokes.
• Anne_Marble-- My hygienist is really funny. That reminds me, must floss...
• Nathan-- hygienist?
• RobertnAri-- And "assassin" subsumes everything from duelist to bodyguard, stunt man, all sorts of things besides murder for hire.
• Linnet-- cool
• RobertnAri-- Prizefighters and gladiators would fall under "assassin" and so would public art form aikido demo folks.
• @zette-- This is a good section to play around with and come up with not only new professions, but twists on the professions that you have to suit your culture.
• Anne_Marble-- Dental hygienist
• Nathan-- please, please, don't talk about Gladiators...please
• Linnet-- lol
• karenth-- I'm gonna have to go.  This has been excellent, zette, everybody.  Thanks!  g'night!
• RobertnAri-- Different planet, Nathan. Besides, the WWF are gladiators. They fight for entertainment.
• @zette-- That was, actually, a very important profession in Roman times.  It's a good one to look at.
• Nathan-- Yeah...I just did a 12 page report on Gladiators...
• Nathan-- Their cool...Until you have to do a 10 page report on them
• RobertnAri-- well, since you did some research, give us a good tidbit on gladiators we can use to write!
• Linnet-- Far Edge of Darkness showed some interesting sides to that.  You know sometimes they fought on sihips?  And since most couldn't swim, whoever sank lost
• Anne_Marble-- "I'm Spartacus!"
• Nathan-- I could E-mail the report to anyone who wants it, after I clean it up a little
• @zette-- I think the four sections per class works best. We'll stick with this from now on rather than trying to do six or more.
• Linnet-- sometimes there was no winner
• Nathan-- ping
• RobertnAri-- Why not post it on Research board, Nathan?
• @zette-- Keep in mind that professions don't just 'exist' in any society. They have to be trained.  In some cases, the training might come from some place outside their country.
• Linnet-- good idea
• Nathan-- I could do that...I guess...
• @zette-- And the people coming back home with 'foreign' knowledge were not always trusted for it.
• Anne_Marble-- According to The History Channel, the regular gladiators were often allowed to live. It cost too much to train them and then let them get killed. The Christians, criminals, and wild animals didn't fare so well.
• RobertnAri-- Right, to gain power the novelists must train themselves from scratch, by reading novels and being mentored...
• Kay-- for example, for a long time, NC had no veterinary school, and animal care providers had to train in Tennessee or other states
• Linnet-- I can see families saving up for a generation or two so that a son or daughter could travel to learn a skill and provide the hometown with a new skill
• @zette-- Right, Kay.  In some medieval societies, physicians had to train away from their own country because they weren't allowed to work on cadavers.
• Nathan-- Sadly...I think it was about 50,000 or 60,000 animals were killed in the colloseum
• RobertnAri-- Happens to this day sometimes with doctors and small towns.
• Linnet-- It'd suck if he got robbed and killed while coming home, huh?
• Kay-- I can see children rebelling against that big time, too, though I'm hardly one to talk
• Nathan-- Plus there were several animals that were driven out of their homeland areas
• @zette-- That's good, Linnet.  Yes... I was going to say think of what happens ifthat person fails in some way.
• Linnet-- hehe
• Kay-- and sometimes the child decides to stay where s/he is
• Kay-- or was trained
• Nathan-- That could make a whole story
• @zette-- Right!
• Nathan--
• @zette-- Think about the family left behind.  Not only out that money, but shamed by the rest of the village.
• Kay-- Think about the cost of ivory
• @zette-- It would take a lot for someone, under those circumstances, not to return -- they would have to know that they could never go back to the village again, and their family would disown them.
• Linnet-- They don't know what happened. "Your Eric ran off with our best horse and left us!  How're we gonna get the field plowed now?"
• Nathan-- "With our worst horse"
• Nathan-- "then it will be our best horse"
• @zette-- Horses, by the way, were rarely used as plow animals until recently.
• Linnet-- zebra? (EG)
• Kay-- No, they kill the fatted calf and make a feast for the so and so
• Nathan-- "And then he'll come back and steal that one too"
• @zette-- Usually it was oxen. They had a stronger pull for the plow.  And the horse finally came into play when a new harness was invented that took the weight away from the vulnerable chest area.
• Anne_Marble-- Oxen in India
• Kay-- fading too fast.  Sorry guys, later.  Good class Zette -- sorry I can't last
• Linnet-- hugs--  Take care
• Nathan-- By Kay..TTYL
• @zette-- Thanks for coming by, Kay!  We're about done!
• Anne_Marble-- See out around!
• RobertnAri-- See you later, Kay! Happy writing!
• @zette-- Ooops, she's gone!
• Anne_Marble-- Yikes. "HOMEOWNERS SHOULD BRING IN OR SECURE LOOSE OUTDOOR OBJECTS." I hope I still have a patio chair.
• @zette-- We're about to close down here anyway, Anne. Go get it!
• Nathan-- What fer?
• @zette-- Bad weather, Nathan.
• Nathan-- ahh...
• @zette-- Any other thoughts and comments?
• Nathan-- none that I can think of
• RobertnAri-- As soon as magic comes in it would generate so many secondary professions the way tech does.
• RobertnAri-- Librarians and incense makers and magical paraphernalia makers and so on...
• RobertnAri-- Especially if magic takes specific conditions like "robe sewed by a virgin" and so on.
• Anne_Marble-- I wish more people would write fantasy novels about librarians and such! Conan the Librarian!
• Linnet-- palm readers...
• Linnet-- rofl Anne!
• @zette-- Depends on how the magic is created and who can use it, Robert. They might not need any of the other things.
• Anne_Marble-- I have one of those. ;---
• @zette-- Oh yeah, stuff like that is true, Robert.
• RobertnAri-- Right, I was more extrapolating that any ceremonial style magic that becomes that important will generate that kind of support industry.
• Linnet-- the person who gathers all the spell components... eye of a newt, dragon liver, tear of a virgin, ghoul sweat...
• @zette-- Yes, in those cases, the other stuff would be very important.
• Nathan-- eeewwww...gross
• RobertnAri-- It's a respectable profession for a single young woman selling her virginity as quality for planting herbs, gathering, weaving, putting crystals out by moonlight etc.
• Nathan-- Beside which...that stuff is typical....get that stuff, you can make anything
• RobertnAri-- So you'd get sixty year old spinsters still selling their virginity doing those things.
• Linnet-- Okay, your story would try following around a group of adventurers while they TRY to get it
• Linnet-- Rather gruesome if they have to torture a tear out of 'er
• @zette-- You could make an interesting story about that kind of profession.  Sounds like it might be fun to write.
• RobertnAri-- And she'd be able to press massive collateral damages for loss of occupation if she was raped.
• Linnet-- My favorite line so far from Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  "Do you poison the dragon, or just the liver?"
• Anne_Marble-- Imagine if the gatherer cuts corners and gets a happy tear instead of a sad tear, for example. All those angry wizards...
• @zette-- LOL!
• Nathan-- lol Anne
• @zette-- Okay, people... that's it for tonight!  Let's head over to the regular chat.  I'll be there a little later!