Resources IX: Demoland's Iron Industry

Industry is kind of a strong word for what they've got. Remember, barely anyone lives here. They have a good bit of iron, and not that much money to buy it with. There are only three places where they even can buy it: Andox, Gerlin, and Malis. They also have no connection to any outside economy, so as far as they know, iron is just cheap as dirt.

It's possible that an economy this poor (or at least, lacking in the Big Three fantasy coinages of copper, silver, and gold) would be on the barter system. However, the trade system is still of use here because it provides a comparative measure of value. If a goat is worth 1gp, and a chicken is worth 5cp, then a goat is worth 20 chickens. Easy.

I'll be going through this a bit slowly, since I'm uncovering bugs as I go back through all my code.

Also, these numbers are constantly changing. Eventually, of course, this will all be generated, but I'm a strong believer in doing it by hand at least at a very small scale so that I can catch some of the bigger problems as they come up. So some of the reference numbers might be too small or too large. I already caught a problem like this for the wood reference. In large economies, this can get lost in the weeds, but in small economies like Demoland, it can have huge social ramifications.

With the same caveat of constant development, I haven't fully researched some of the ores that appear here, specifically copper and silver, at least in terms of putting them into the system. So they appear fully formed, for now. Clay also appears (since you need it to create the furnaces to refine iron).

Not all cities are markets. Market towns are displayed in small caps. I try to keep the resource symbols up to date here.

• Andox is the market for Kenor, Norys, Derl, and Cadewin
• Gerlin is the market for Llen and Betryn
• Malis is the market for Ffrith

The reference amounts are as follows:

I'll put up another post soon talking about the recipe system I use to integrate my version of the Tao's trade network. But already I can see that this place is a total backwater. It helps to remember that about 80% of people live around, not in, the villages. Andox, for example, has over 5000 people scattered around it. So even though the town itself might be very small, it directly administers hegemony over a much larger population (including the surrounding hexes, so almost 8000 all told), many of whom will have to do business in Andox itself, since it's the best place to get iron tools (among other things).