A day at the forge...

This is a picture of the 'Soot n Cinder' forge, a 'place' located on the forums in the Renaissance Kingdoms world. It is out the back of the cottage where my character lives with his family and friends, on a slope overlooking the Clyde above the town of Ardencaple. It exists purely in the collective imagination of those who read and write on the thread. To see it 'in real life', you'll have to travel to RK Ardencaple.

For a several months now, my character has been mainly occupying himself in his day to day actions (one a day) making things in the forge (his other main activity has been serving on a rostered basis as part of the Clan Guard, a voluntary self defence organisation which has put down about one attempted rebellion per month since our own 'great rebellion' late last year). At the moment there is a slow but steady trade in axes and knives on the town market. It is not a thriving trade so he is slowly losing money (albeit, while his capital stock increases).

In town, his tavern 'The Wounded Boar' makes a steady after tax loss, but well within the level of still being a 'hobby expenditure', so he keeps it open. At the moment he is selling cost price beer there in celebrations of the King's death. The tavern is the only one in town that has fish on the menu. For the regulars, there's (much cheaper) porridge. In about eight months, the tavern has only been drunk dry on the one occasion. My character sees this as a major achievement.

There's lots more happening in my world of the renaissance, even in the 'quiet times' we are presently experiencing there. I'll write more of it sometime soon.

The Week that Was

In RK I have been leading a discussion about how we can rationalise the town's production of wood from the forest. This is not a simple thing to do anymore (the rules have changed from what they were). We have formed the Autonomous Association of Ardencaple Axeworkers, or the "AAAA" for short. We have now got to the point of having to start circulating blunted axes from the foresters with sharpened axes from the smiths, via the open market. As we are a collective, we combine efforts to keep our prices down to each other. RK being RK, there will be people trying to manipulate the market for their own ends. So we are now setting up the mechanism of exchanging our items and creating chains of evidence for future prosecutions should anyone try and intervene. It really does have the feeling of being in a medieval guild, restricting trade for the benefit of the members.

In East Front, I have commenced a game after over a year's absence from the field. My opponent acknowledged the turn I'd sent him within a few hours of me having done so.

In blogosphere land, I have been joined as a contributor to the Interbellum Imagi-Nations site. Again, within hours of sending my enquiry. Very efficient indeed. In fact, I'd planned on being able to spend today mulling over the issue of what I'm gonna do in terms of my imagi-nation and maybe come up with a few ideas. Finding my name on the list of contributors so quickly adds a definite pressure to get on with this one.

Sadly, I wasn't able to do much today as I went to watch a game of football this morning and was then on family duty for the next eight hours. And then I was playing around with a glue gun on an textile-architectural project of the missus in the evening. So the imagi-nation-ing will have to wait till I find the mental space/time during the week.

Happy gaming.

Life in Arden, 1459 - Pt 1

My character in Renaissance Kingdoms continues to live his happy life at the port town of Ardencaple, County Glasgow. He has not traveled outside of town since he went for a picnic in Stirling with some cousins around new year (after the rebellion and siege) and it is over a year since he moved there with all his family and possessions. He had first visited the place several times since the town's formation in 1456.

When we moved Arden's natural resource was 'fish'. The young of the town could go fishing if there was no work available for them elsewhere. Life was easy. Since that time, a number of things have happened that will potentially change the sleepy seaside village for ever.

Firstly, the game underwent a major 'rationalisation' in terms of the number of towns and counties. Population had declined to the extent that some places were dying ghost towns, trade and commerce was grinding to a halt, the intensity of the 'community experience' provided by the game was diminishing. So, after a consultative process, entire towns and counties were 'mothballed' and their populations redistributed amongst the surviving locations. The intention was to recreate a critical mass.

Ardencaple remained on the map, as did Glasgow County. The county lost the town of Lanark, whose population was relocated to the capital, Glasgow Town. Lanark had been a 'fruit' town, Glasgow Town a 'wood' town. When the Lanark population was relocated to Glasgow Town, Glasgow Town was converted from a 'wood' town to a 'fruit' town. Unfortuantely, sadly, Ardencaple was turned to a 'wood' town and we lost our fishing grounds.

To make things worse, the county council (which, we later discovered, had actually asked for our town to be converted from fish, without actually asking (or even informing) us first) closed down the local gold mine, removing the one source of income left to our youth. And to cap it all off, the rules about axes and forests had changed before all of the above happened, so as to make running a 'wood' town a painfully expensive operation if organised the same way as it had been for years. With no warning that we were going to be faced with a forest one morning, we were rather unprepared.

Previously, mayors could buy some axes and then 'loan' out up to 20 of them each day for citizens to take into the forest where they would cut wood. For each loaned axe, there was about a 5% chance of its going 'blunt' per day, in which case the mayor would have to pay a smith to sharpen it before being able to loan it out again. And about every hundred days an axe would 'break' and need replacing. In return for loaning each axe, the mayor would receive one bushel of wood per axe per day (the forester would keep the rest), which they would then redistribute to the smiths and bakers and construction workers as required. It was all very neat.

Then, the rules for axes were changed. Now, axes break frequently unless the user keeps their character's 'mood' up (which is done by going to the pub a lot, or going to church - haha). This requires a workforce of socially responsible drinkers. A consequence of low levels of public education (or public spirit) has meant that this requirement has generally not been fulfilled. A consequence of that has been that the repair and replacement cost for mayors has rocketed up. Axes have become a serious drain on a town's resources. The young are discouraged from using (breaking) the declining number of axes in use and taxes need to be imposed.

Life has grown tougher all round.