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T O P I C    R E V I E W
Icelander Posted - 06 Apr 2018 : 13:39:14
I have seen Ed's 2004 quote on underwear in the Realms and try to reflect that in play. The more colourful novels often include some notes on the kind of lingerie that go under character's finery for revels, but less often mention the more mundane smallclothes of rangers, soldiers and adventurers. Which is usually fine.

quote:
Originally posted by Questions for Ed Greenwood (2004) p. 21


Which brings us to lingerie. First, utilitarian underwear for men and women: women with large breasts that get in the way, or when doing activites that are going to cause chafing or discomfort (crawling on rock while mining, rowing, etc.) often wear a tight cloth breast-binding or sling (the equivalent of a modern sports bra, although instead of stretchy fabric covering a lot of skin, the Realms version is more like a trough or shelf of tightly-stretched cloth sewn to cords (precisely because elastic fabric is largely unknown in the Realms). In colder climates, soft hide bras are worn most of the time.
For the lower half of the body, both men and women wear clouts: a very tight leather, cloth, or cord (listed here in descending order of perceived quality and durability) belt worn around the hips, and usually held tight by multiple hooks (like a modern bra) at the front. Then a long, diaper-like strip of rectangular cloth (usually cotton) is passed between the legs, up through the front of the belt to dangle down, and up through the back of the belt to dangle down. In other words, the “breechclout” of some native American tribes. In many cases, the dangling front and back ends are designed to be tied together, and the cloth may be folded in on itself for extra absorbency or padding (especially when the wearer expects to be riding a mount). Menstruating women usually place another layer or two of red-hued cloth inside the clout and change this as necessary, and yes, clouts can be purchased that are decorative and ‘made to be seen.’ Freshly-perfumed clouts are often sold in Waterdeep and other large cities.
Among simple backcountry folk in cold climates, women often wear leggings, leather skirts, long hide shirts (tunics), and fur cloaks -- and a woman wanting to signal her willingness for some hanky-panky either aggressively tells her chosen partner so, or hikes up her skirts briefly to reveal that she, ahem, seems to have forgotten to put on her clout! (Prostitutes trolling for strangers often expose their breasts and hold up a lantern to spotlight this fact -- and probably also to keep the bared skin a little warmer.)
Okay, on to the alluring stuff. The concept of wire for breast support and shaping is unknown in the Realms, but corsets (laced-up, tight boiled hide, not whalebone or any sort of stiffeners) and stomachers that cinch the waist tight are popular, and many of them have shaped panels for the hips and a top ‘shelf’ to thrust out and support the breasts. Low-cut peasant blouses and even lace trimmings (as one can see from examining the covers of Volo’s Guides and much Realms interior artwork) are widely used. In hot climates, panties and translucent silk pantaloons, vests, and the like are often worn by women (Hollywood “harem” wear), also as established by some Realms artwork.
So black lace, black leather, and red (the other erotic hue) straps can be worn. Black lace dresses, garments that expose the crotch and nipples, and what we might call ‘bondage gear’ (such as tassel-adorned nipple clamps) are okay, on festhall dancers and in private, among couples. Prostitutes dress in whatever garb is allowed locally; in more conservative places, they are usually fully dressed, but in garments that show a strip of bare flesh all the way up the outside of the leg and torso (i.e. held together with a series of rings). This signals to would-be clients that this particular woman wants to be approached, rather than being someone who’ll offer instant violence AND scream for the Watch if propositioned.
Men trying to signal their interest in sex or courtship will often wear an artificial flower perched on one shoulder: a red rose for “I’m looking for courtship,” a black rose for “I’m looking for sex,” and a steel rose to signal homosexual interest (a device also used by lesbians). In ‘my’ Realms, there’s no stigma attached to homosexual relationships, only to any sexual behaviour that involves exploiting children, and any sexual behaviour that involves force or coercion (please note: WILLINGLY undergoing pain or bondage doesn’t count).
Fops or boisterous types (such as Mirt the Moneylender) might wear four or more such roses to signal that they’re interested in multiple partners for the night, but except in the right sort of festhall, such displays can often cause mirth or ridicule.
Other than the rose, men seldom wear “lingerie” per se, but may shave, perfume themselves, or wear a single black legging (usally on the right leg) decorated with scenes of heroic prowess (usually depicted in red). Tiny bells on nipple-rings are sometimes worn by individuals of either gender to ‘appear sexy,’ and some priests are reportedly excited by sexual partners who tattoo symbols of their deity on the palms of their hands.
And a glance at the published Realms should make it obvious that erotic dancing is a big part of foreplay and sexual entertainment. Elaborately-decorated (with bells, etc.) garters (we’re talking here not the modern straps between belt and silk stockings, but rather the slender belt worn around a single leg with ends a-dangle) are often worn by dancers, both professionals and houswives wanting to excite their husbands, and undone and thrown aside during the dance.
In warmer climes, both genders often signal their desire for sex by walking naked in moonlit gardens, or naked except for finely-made, ‘show’ high boots, headgear (often with face veils), and to-the-elbow gloves (an overcloak is usually worn to reach the gardens -- and if the gardens aren’t private, kept on until a desired partner is met).
Foreplay among elves and half-elves (particularly strangers) often includes the wearing of full-face masks or hoods that leave bare only the ears -- and caressing, kissing, or licking of ears (plus throat, backs of knees, and palms of hands) for and by both partners leads to more ardent activities.



Generally, any female PCs or NPCs that adventure with the PCs will tend to be fairly slender in build, especially if they are active physical types, like warriors or rogues. As such, it's rare for them to need extensive support for their breasts, even when performing athletic activities, simply because it's rare for them to have breasts larger than A-cups, B-cups at the largest.

This is largely for the same reason that few endurance athletes in the real world have curvy, buxom bodies. It's hard to be a full-time professional at a physically demanding, exhausting activity while also retaining a high body fat percentage.

Also, pre-modern soldiers on campaign generally lost a lot of their body weight during the active months of warfare, because it was extremely difficult to eat enough to match the very high energy expenditure involved in hiking and patrolling on foot all day while laden with 100 lbs. of gear. Hell, modern soldiers in the infantry or special operations forces often lose a lot of weight during tours in Afghanistan and those units who have done a lot of foot patrols found it very hard to maintain a healthy body weight during times of extreme exertion.

Basically, the lifestyle of most adventurers is such so that they'd better put on a few pounds while living the good life wintering in cities, because their day job will burn every spare ounce of fat from their bodies. All the more so if they are also martial artists who spend a lot of time training, aside from the demands of their jobs, which, in my experience, a lot of PCs tend to be.

With body fat percentages of 6% to 20% (majority 11% to 16%), many PC and NPC adventurers have irregular or no periods and they certainly do not tend to have issues with breast support. With AA to A cup sizes, support is evidently much less of an issue than for more typical women, with healthier body fat percentages.

Magic-users tend to be wealthy enough so that they can afford clothing with such minor magical touches as automatically fitting the wearer, which at least in earlier editions of D&D was a feature of any magical garment.

As such, even if a sorceress or female wizard has a healthy, abundant build, she'll often have the means to ensure as much support as her breasts require without recourse to tailoring technology, as her upper body garments may fit precisely and provide optimal comfort, due to magical reshaping for every wearer. So for such characters, this concern, at least, can be brushed over more easily.

Now, however, I have several characters who are dedicated martial artists and swordmasters, some of them being part of the reconstituted Nine Swords Company. They are full-time students of the Sublime Way and spend hours per day doing form drills, sparring, strength training, endurance training and katas. Some of them even practice acrobatic fighting styles, which means they are effectively professional gymnasts.

And two of these characters are, well, considerably bustier than adventurers usually are. They are both slender (one is 5'9; 125 lbs. and the other is 5'11" and 140 lbs.), but have C-cup breasts. And neither of them is yet successful enough as an adventurer to have access to any expensive magical items that help. One of them is a priestess of Selune, granted, so if there exist spells that might help, that would be nice, but otherwise, they'll have to rely on tailoring.

Okay, from what I can gather from people I know who have breasts, modern athletic wear and sport bras make a considerable difference to comfort while jogging. Unfortunately, I don't really know anyone who runs long distances who has more than A-cups, but even she reports that having breasts at all is a torment during anything longer than 10 km. Then again, male nipples also bleed from chafing during longer runs.

Serious dancers and gymnasts I've known also tend to have very small breasts, so haven't had to deal with the issue of support as much as they might have. Well, two ballerinas both quit dancing once they developed to and beyond B-cups, one being told that she didn't have any chance of a career because she was 'fat' (at 50 kg).

I understand that a 'normal', average woman in Western countries today has a breast size of approximately 36C to 38DD, depending on country, but that is also because quite a lot of 'normal' women are overweight in medical terms. Professional athletes are quite a bit slimmer than average people, especially in today's well-fed society.

No one I personally know with C-cups or larger is very serious about a sport. At least, not today. And I unaccountably neglected any opportunities in my youth to ask my better endowed friends about the mechanics of breast support during athletic endeavours. Which means I don't have any reliable information on just how uncomfortable it is to, for example, play football, run marathons or do martial arts with poorly supported breasts.

But it certainly seems like it would be a major problem. And from what anecdotes I have gleaned, it seems that without the benefits of modern, elastic sport bras, a lot of girls with healthy builds claim that athletic activity would be intensely painful for them. None of the, to my knowledge, had actually done a lot of deliberate testing on the theory, however.

First of all, can someone with breasts or an intimate knowledge of them provide insight into just how uncomfortable it would be to perform gymnastic routines or fast, physically demanding martial arts / fencing drills while naked or dressed in a way that provided little to no effective support for the breasts?

Considering the state of the art in support technology in the Realms, it seems to me that inelastic cloth bindings would be woefully inadequate for support during intensive athletic training.

Can someone provide insight into how binding breasts with cloth would compare to modern sport bras?

What kind of materials would be most comfortable and effective?

Cotton and linen are easier to clean, whereas silk may be strong for its weight and is obviously soft, but aside from expense, might not be ideal for absorbing sweat. I honestly don't know whether silk cloth would make better binding material than high-quality linen or cotton. It seems obvious, though, that this is an area where cheap, rough fabric would be... contraindicated.

I'm also looking for thoughts on how breast-support 'slings' work, without any elastic materials. What kind of cords are we talking about?

How is chafing avoided?

And what about hide bras? How much support do they provide?

Basically, what are the best ways to use Realms-ian fabric technology and tailoring art to ensure optimal comfort for female adventurers with lusher builds than wispy gymnasts or rangy ultra-marathoners?

What would an effective upper body support garment for a 5'11", 140 lbs. martial artist with 36C breasts look like?

What materials might it be made from?

Would she own many or would she wash hers daily and hope it dried completely overnight?
30   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
TBeholder Posted - 10 Sep 2019 : 00:58:32
quote:
Originally posted by Icelander

Aside from comfort issues with mail in direct contact with very sensitive skin,

Do you have bare concrete walls with reinforcing steel grid in plain view in your current room?
Structural materials don't need to be the same as surface materials, and thus in direct contact with anything in particular.

quote:
Originally posted by Icelander

No. 'Mail' means a fine mesh of metal wire, i.e. what Victorians erroneously called 'chainmail'.

I thought "chain" was originally about different weaving (whether sheet patterns or related techniques, e.g. adding a pre-made chain "thread").
grayhoss Posted - 09 Sep 2019 : 22:02:53
Reportedly, embrocation (aka 'wrapping the bosom and torso in tight-as-hells cloth wrapping') both bruises and chafes like a mother. Delia Sherman called this out in her 'The Brazen Mirror' when her character Eleanore Flower disrobed after abandoning her masquerade as a man.
cpthero2 Posted - 21 Sep 2018 : 12:26:13
Good morning Sr. Scribe Ayrik,

Thank you for that! I realized I had effectively, with one or two small edits I believe, posted the same reply without thinking on it much, in another location on the site. I think your diligence keeps the place squared away. So thank you.

I appreciate the warm welcome too!

Regards,


quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

quote:
I apologize if I have violated the posting/etiquette rules. My intention was only to get involved in the post.

No need for you to apologize, cpthero2, I apologize for the accusation.

Your posts seemed suspicious and strange to me, I thought that if they were a spambot then there would be no response to further interactions.

Don't worry, you haven't violated any rules of conduct (and they're loosely enforced anyhow, as long as everyone remains reasonably polite), feel free to join into any conversations you like (as you already have). No need for formal etiquette, our writings tend to be very ad-hoc, we often debate or disagree on finer details as all scholarly pedants do. Welcome to Candlekeep! And each of us is encouraged to write an introduction. But, lol, this is a public forum so I wouldn't recommend posting personal information.

Ayrik Posted - 21 Sep 2018 : 04:38:14
quote:
I apologize if I have violated the posting/etiquette rules. My intention was only to get involved in the post.

No need for you to apologize, cpthero2, I apologize for the accusation.

Your posts seemed suspicious and strange to me, I thought that if they were a spambot then there would be no response to further interactions.

Don't worry, you haven't violated any rules of conduct (and they're loosely enforced anyhow, as long as everyone remains reasonably polite), feel free to join into any conversations you like (as you already have). No need for formal etiquette, our writings tend to be very ad-hoc, we often debate or disagree on finer details as all scholarly pedants do. Welcome to Candlekeep! And each of us is encouraged to write an introduction. But, lol, this is a public forum so I wouldn't recommend posting personal information.
cpthero2 Posted - 21 Sep 2018 : 03:47:22
Good evening Great Reader Ayrik,

I apologize if I have violated the posting/etiquette rules. My intention was only to get involved in the post.

If you'd like, I will delete my reply.

Best regards,



quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

... If the above post by cpthero2 is SPAM SPAM SPAM (of an unwholesome non-Monty-Python variety) then y'all can delete this comment along with it, lol ...

Ayrik Posted - 21 Sep 2018 : 03:39:54
... If the above post by cpthero2 is SPAM SPAM SPAM (of an unwholesome non-Monty-Python variety) then y'all can delete this comment along with it, lol ...
cpthero2 Posted - 21 Sep 2018 : 02:59:13
Good evening Sr. Scribe Wrigley,

I was elated to take note of your post regarding economics analysis in the Realms!

I am currently about 40% through my studies in a Doctorate of Applied Economics in Cluster Development. I'd absolutely love to collaborate with you if you are still interested in such material? Though there are clearly tools that are used and were developed in modern times, within the confines of systems of government and economies that are frankly anathema to what it takes to establish a cluster in the Realms, I certainly know economics. I've done some research in my undergrad as well as in my MBA program regarding high Germanic, Manorial economics of the 15th century that I feel is quite relevant to what most people conveniently use in their campaigns.

Please do message me on the site if you'd like to discuss further.

I know its been a few months, but I'm quite interested. Please feel free to message me here on the site if you're interested.

Best regards,



quote:
Originally posted by Wrigley

I see adventurers more like hireswords or mercenaries if you will. They own weapons and armor, travel light and earn big money on contract and live from those money until next job. They tend to overspend enjoying their life as it could end any time they delve into some dungeon, forest, ... So they excercise mainly in real combat and only a few are wise enough to buy a trainer or practice themselves. Those are usualy the long living ones. For their hygiene I suppose they are not into it that much. They own a spare set of clothes and once they arrive into civilisation they go to local baths or order such in a tavern, pay some servant to clean their armor, boots and travel clothes. After they are clean they put on those clean clothes and go enjoy their money in town. On the road they may make a brake near some lake or river to wash themselves and their clothes - usualy person jumps in wearing those clothes and washing them on themselves.

You are actualy right that somebody owning a warhorse and plate armor should have a "sqire" who will clean, cook, help them don an armor and to get into the saddle. Usualy war horses were not used outside combat as they were too agressive and such noble man had a riding horse for traveling and pleasure rides. Also horse armor was transported separately on a cart with tent, poles, food, water, ... If he got more then one servant he needed a wagon for supplies.

We can all agree that economics of D&D is flawed and oversimplified. I have gone from bottom saying a commoner earn about 3gp per month, merchant about 30gp per month and calculated estimated prices of common goods from that. Beggining adventurers earn about 50gp per job. Easy help for me is to say that commoners pay mostly with copper and merchants with silver. Nobles and such have no upper limit on cost, usualy pay with gold and magic items (along with gems) are a form of currency for high volumes - paying 100.000gp is more convinient by sending a magic sword that wagon of gold.

Icelander Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 18:11:45
quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

I would say there are a few problems to over come, clean, fresh smelling and damp are all separate issues.

Good point.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Dry is likely the most important for health and comfort concerns. I imagine laying the cloths out on a sun drenched rock or by a fire would dry them in a few hours, especially if they were turned over/moved. So maybe not in time for the next session by definitely for the one after.

Ok, thanks, but that would be a major problem if the exercise periods are separated by several hours of marching, instead of staying put.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Chafing could be reduced by using salves similar to how modern runners use petroleum jelly. Drying agents could also be used like powder to absorb extra moisture. I also imagine chafing is less an issue with tight binding because body parts are less likely to move against fabric.

Ah, that's a good point!

There aren't a lot of petroleum products in Faerun, at least not that I've seen in sources. I imagine that the raw materials are there, but beyond a few alchemists, there aren't many people making use of them.

What kind of salves, lotions and lubricants are available?

What do the Nine Swords Company use to massage each other, to alleviate the muscle aches and stiffness of heavy exercising?

Olive oil would have to be imported from somewhere slightly further south, I imagine. What are good equivalents for people in more northerly climes than where olives grow?

What's a sweet smelling, sensuously pleasant oil usable for massages, oiling one's body (or someone else's) for skin care and similar uses?

And what kind of lubricants are available for those who require such during sexual activities?

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Clean would come next, this could be inconvenient. When wearing a bodice or corset they are normally not worn against the skin. A soft cotton layer is worn between the two to absorb sweat. The outer layer even by today's standards of hygiene could go several uses without a proper laundering. The cotton layer was the opposite with every use it needed a good wash.

Thanks, that's good information.

Incidentally, what would be 'today's standards'? Because a lot of people sweat enough during 1-3 hours of intensive exercise to soak through underlayers and basically drench every single piece of clothing they wear in sweat.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Many inns like modern hotels offer laundry services. Volo's Guides have been known to list such things as cold bath, hot bath, laundry, etc. I'd say starting at 5 sp a night you would have 50:50 odds at laundry service being offered once you get up to the 1 gp or more it better be included. I imagine most large temples and monasteries would offer the same.

This is true.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

In the wilds without a servant I imagine you would balance weight vs convenience. If it is only for a few days it might not be worth laundering at all, like so many college students bringing laundry "home" to do. For extended periods you may find a "day off" or light day of training might be required on laundry day rather than worry about it every day.

The Nine Swords Company are actually headquartered at the Inn of the Nine Swords in Swords Pool. When the PCs arrived there, their fellow adventurers had just got in the day before, with some party members wounded, and had been training in the morning and just before noon (light training for those who had not yet been completely healed).

They obviously put a lot of stuff into the hands of servants at the inn to wash, but the inn doesn't have the kind of massive numbers of servants needed to provide full household service for nobles or landed knights. As Melicent Mellicot would have told them, if they need more than one load of laundry a day, they need to pay her more, enough to hire a few extra hands on a permanent basis.

As the Nine Swords Company spend a lot of time on the road as well, that isn't worth it to them, I imagine. Also, they are a bit short on cash, having had a lot of expenses lately and not actually having a lot of adventures that lead to wealth. Apparently, mystic quests and a devotion to rediscovering ancient blade magic traditions don't actually pay.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Smells could linger even in clean dry clothing. Perfuming would be very common.

Yeah, most people would be used to a certain level of sweaty sports-wear smell, I imagine. Of course, a very good reason to make money is not to have to live like that any more.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Likely only a single bodice or corset would be brought along due to weight. These would unlikely get washed in the wild but would be just aired out and pleasantly scented. Leather is an interesting beast, our leather gear was never "washed" we would run a damp cloth over them and then air dry them. A couple times a year we would oil them to keep them supple.

Ok, thanks for that information. That's great to have.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

I think there may be two sides to this. Exotic dancers do perform in specific ways, I'm no expert, and likely they do avoid certain motions. They also often perform upside down and twirling quickly around a pole, think cirque du soleil. My understand of martial arts is that certain moves and stances are also preferred over others. If a culture where there is a fair share of female martial artists would there not be techniques tailored to them? I am under the impression that our world's martial arts vary wildly and often your body type could better suited to one versus another?

If you limit the type of motions that a martial art teaches to make it more convenient to train, safer, more exciting to watch or for any other reason than what works in combat, you're emphasising the 'art' part over 'martial'. The result is something like a lot of martial arts taught in a peaceful society where hand-to-hand combat isn't actually important for most of those who learn martial arts, it's about as much use in actual combat as soccer or baseball.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Nude exercising could be an option for certain activities. Running, jumping, hurdles probably not. Swimming, wrestling, sparring most likely yes.

Just so.

Though magical means of breast support could, of course, allow any kind of motion. Which I'm guessing that might be something that Peryta Ghossil often does, though not, it seems, on the day where we are in play (she seems unhappy, cries a lot and tries to hide it). If she goes training at all, she'll probably improvise more padding than she's used to training with, covering her from head to toe, and try to spar with someone strong and skilled.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

As far as characters where everything needs to be perfectly clean and smelling like roses magic is really the only solution. I imagine rare is the commoner who develops this sort of issue, but I could see someone raised in a wealthy, even if not rich, background having such a distain/dislike for filth.

Atheen Leshan wasn't born upper class, but she's lived in great houses since childhood, as her mother is a very high class courtesan (informally, but practically), who not only has lived with a series of rich older men, but has amassed enough wealth in her own name to buy vineyards and a membership in the Threespires laern in Sarshel, as part of the Vintners' narnoth, or the Consolidated Society of Vintners' by Royal Appointment, in Sarshel.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

She is in luck the priestess of Sune should have access to a Purify Self, previously known as Cleanse, a Level 1 spell that removes all grime, dirt and stains from the caster and her vestments. See Prayers from the Faithful p.121 for further details.

Thanks! That's actually perfect.

Peryta Ghossil is a priestess of Selune, not Sune, but she'll have access to this nonetheless.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

This depends on your adventurers' style. Your scenario is very spot on. But a donkey or a mule with saddlebags makes for a poor man's Bag of Holding ~12 gp. Or add a cart to the mix, take a look at my signature for how amusing that can get.

It isn't just a question of having to carry all the calories. It's that it's physically difficult to consume enough food to replace all the calories that are expended during hard patrolling and few people are psychologically and physiologically able to do so.

Feeling dead tired, stressed and in constant pain isn't conductive to eating huge meals even when you don't feel like it and unless the food is varied, delicious and exceptionally easy to eat and prepare, most modern soldiers, SOF, mountain troops, etc., do not manage to eat enough to maintain weight during types of deployment which most resemble the daily life of adventurers, i.e. patrolling hostile land on foot while carrying full combat and patrol gear.

The most likely scenario is that adventurers gain weight during off-months and shed it quickly during adventures, like soldiers in pre-modern times did. And that adventurers who spend a lot of time on the road would most often have very low body fat percentages, as pre-modern soldiers did during the campaign season.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Ah I see your concern then. I also enjoy having my players roleplay out the day in the life material. Ever since I read Ed's Spellfire with the party being ambushed while Shandril was using the bushes.

One PC is sulking now, due to an NPC shadow mage not trusting him to be able to heal the shadow mage's apprentice (who OD'ed on Mordayn vapour, stopped breathing and would be dead if she hadn't been put into suspended animation). He's furious with some of the members of the Nine Swords Company for not backing his claims of awesome divine power, equal to any high priest or priestess, and fully capable of the equivalent of the 6th level Heal spell, even when it's clear that there is no time to try multiple time, if the magically-induced coma is removed, she'll either have to be healed instantly or die in short order.

Various NPCs are angry with one another, or suspect each other of crimes or are furiously jealous over something. PCs are, obviously, involved somehow in at least half of these dramas.

And the three Mellicot sisters are not at all happy that a dark magic using apprentice almost burnt down their inn smoking a poisonous intoxicant, overdosed and looks to have killed herself. When Melicent, the eldest, complained over the smoke and the danger of lighting fires in upstairs rooms, she was terrified by the response that the angry and afraid shadow mage gave, which she interpreted as a thinly veiled threat of death, serious injury or at least an unpleasant magical curse.

It's a soap-opera melodrama, but everyone is armed and some of them can call on awesome supernatural powers if they are unhappy enough with their fellow guests at the inn.
Gelcur Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 17:12:39
quote:
Originally posted by Icelander
Now, the cloth bindings and leather supports, how do you imagine these can be kept clean and fresh smelling?

For example, let's suppose that a character generally exercises two to three times a day, in the mornings (always), just before noon (usually) and then in the afternoon (usually). Training is strength exercises, conditioning, running, gymnastics and speed drills in the mornings, swordsmanship and martial arts in the later exercises in the day. Each period of exercise is generally from one to three hours, depending, with the goal being to get in at least four hours of exercise per day, an average of six hours and more during days where there is no other exertion.

I would say there are a few problems to over come, clean, fresh smelling and damp are all separate issues.

Dry is likely the most important for health and comfort concerns. I imagine laying the cloths out on a sun drenched rock or by a fire would dry them in a few hours, especially if they were turned over/moved. So maybe not in time for the next session by definitely for the one after. Chafing could be reduced by using salves similar to how modern runners use petroleum jelly. Drying agents could also be used like powder to absorb extra moisture. I also imagine chafing is less an issue with tight binding because body parts are less likely to move against fabric.

Clean would come next, this could be inconvenient. When wearing a bodice or corset they are normally not worn against the skin. A soft cotton layer is worn between the two to absorb sweat. The outer layer even by today's standards of hygiene could go several uses without a proper laundering. The cotton layer was the opposite with every use it needed a good wash. Many inns like modern hotels offer laundry services. Volo's Guides have been known to list such things as cold bath, hot bath, laundry, etc. I'd say starting at 5 sp a night you would have 50:50 odds at laundry service being offered once you get up to the 1 gp or more it better be included. I imagine most large temples and monasteries would offer the same. In the wilds without a servant I imagine you would balance weight vs convenience. If it is only for a few days it might not be worth laundering at all, like so many college students bringing laundry "home" to do. For extended periods you may find a "day off" or light day of training might be required on laundry day rather than worry about it every day.

Smells could linger even in clean dry clothing. Perfuming would be very common. Likely only a single bodice or corset would be brought along due to weight. These would unlikely get washed in the wild but would be just aired out and pleasantly scented. Leather is an interesting beast, our leather gear was never "washed" we would run a damp cloth over them and then air dry them. A couple times a year we would oil them to keep them supple.

quote:
Originally posted by IcelanderMartial art drills often require fast changes of direction and rapid sideways motion, much more rapid than anything I've heard of exotic dancers doing. Certainly much more athletic than anything I've seen during a visit to such places, which have been woefully infrequent in my life, largely because I fail to see the appeal of sad-eyed single moms with surgical scars and the like.

On the other hand, if fit women ranging from 19-26 in age require much less athletic breast support than I am assuming, from limited anecdotal evidence, exercising naked to save laundry seems much more viable.

I think there may be two sides to this. Exotic dancers do perform in specific ways, I'm no expert, and likely they do avoid certain motions. They also often perform upside down and twirling quickly around a pole, think cirque du soleil. My understand of martial arts is that certain moves and stances are also preferred over others. If a culture where there is a fair share of female martial artists would there not be techniques tailored to them? I am under the impression that our world's martial arts vary wildly and often your body type could better suited to one versus another?

Nude exercising could be an option for certain activities. Running, jumping, hurdles probably not. Swimming, wrestling, sparring most likely yes.

As far as characters where everything needs to be perfectly clean and smelling like roses magic is really the only solution. I imagine rare is the commoner who develops this sort of issue, but I could see someone raised in a wealthy, even if not rich, background having such a distain/dislike for filth. She is in luck the priestess of Sune should have access to a Purify Self, previously known as Cleanse, a Level 1 spell that removes all grime, dirt and stains from the caster and her vestments. See Prayers from the Faithful p.121 for further details.

quote:
Originally posted by IcelanderPatrolling all day while carrying all the supplies needed for a fighting man is quite simply such a calorie-intensive activity that it's all but impossible to consume enough food while you are doing it not to lose weight, starting with any body fat you might have.

This depends on your adventurers' style. Your scenario is very spot on. But a donkey or a mule with saddlebags makes for a poor man's Bag of Holding ~12 gp. Or add a cart to the mix, take a look at my signature for how amusing that can get.

quote:
Originally posted by Icelander
Roleplaying the interaction between PCs, the NPCs that arrived with them and a party of newly encountered adventurers in the Inn of the Nine Swords is fun. And for organic, plausible interaction between them, I need to know what the adventurer-athletes are doing with their time between bouts of exercise.

Ah I see your concern then. I also enjoy having my players roleplay out the day in the life material. Ever since I read Ed's Spellfire with the party being ambushed while Shandril was using the bushes.


quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I would think there would be a lot of spells for laundry and such. People with access to magic are going to use it to avoid tedious, time-consuming work and/or improve their lives. It's just that a lot of this stuff doesn't have much use in a game where downtime is hand-waved away and where simply daily maintenance of your person is mostly ignored (eating, hygiene, going to the bathroom).

Life in Faerun from 3E Campaign Setting is what I use as my go to:
quote:
magic still rarely touches the life of the common Faerûnian.
quote:
Most magic items fall into one of two broad categories - gimmicks and adventuring magic. Gimmicks are commonplace because they're not hard to make and not very expensive. They amuse, delight, and entertain, and on occasion do something useful in a small way.
quote:
Nearly all Faerûnians, no matter how humble or removed from the adventuring lifestyle, have seen minor magic gimmicks at some point in their lives. Fewer actually own such treasures, but it's not unheard of for well-off merchants or low nobles to save their money for minor trinkets such as a pot that can make itself hot, or a broom that can sweep itself.

I know people play the Realms with varying degrees of magic but this seems like a fair middle ground.
Icelander Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 17:06:42
quote:
Originally posted by Gyor

If everyone smells horrible for along enough time, you don't even smell it eventually.


Yes, but everyone with a similar income level as PCs who isn't a hopeless eccentric will have a household and retinue of servants, which is comparatively cheap in a world without the Industrial Revolution, and won't smell awful.

Anyone middle class and above can smell as sweet as they wish, without any magic, as long as they are willing to be surrounded by servants all day, as actual humans that weren't of the absolute lowest social class have done in all societies, all through history.

In any society, realistic or fantasy, where there aren't any equivalent of jobs in factories, middle class is pretty much defined as 'anyone who can afford a servant'.

Not having a servant to handle personal hygiene, laundry and the like would be regarded as weird and off-putting as a modern person who refuses to use effective soap and cleaning supplies (preferring inferior home made ones), washing machines (using rain puddles instead), showers (rain, again) or mass-produced clothing (wears ancient cast-offs or just canvas bags). It makes you stand out as a fancy kind of hobo, one who could choose not to look filthy, but prefers it.
Gyor Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 17:06:18
Good magic spells for hygene in 4e are Shape Water Cantrip, Wall of Water, Create Water, Purify Food and Water (this is a ritual and allows you to use any availible water, and reuse bathwater), Creation (to make magical soap), Unseen servant (someone to wash your back), Find Familiar (to lick you clean), Prestigiation to clean your clothes and blankets, Magificent Mansion (servants, water, facilities), Mighty Fortress (same as Magnificent Mansion but a fortress instead of a demiplane and can become permanent).
Gyor Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 16:59:09
quote:
Originally posted by Icelander

quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

As far as cleaning and hygiene ... I'm thinking such details have been left deliberately vague in D&D and Realmslore. A sweaty brassiere can't be less offensive than a full suit of armor worn day after day while marching through the muck of adventure (as often as not by a PC who insists on also sleeping in his armor). The game and lore are written to tell stories about characters and adventures, the epic stuff of heroes and villains and monsters and swords and magic - it's not about explicitly detailing how often a character scrubs his loincloth, brushes his teeth, picks his nose, or wipes his butt.


Why not?

Any kind of worldbuilding in a work of fiction where the creator/s did not bother to even consider the social and technological differences from our modern world on such fundamental levels as hygiene and health is going to feel pretty shallow, flat and artificial.

Besides, telling stories about characters and not just carbon cut-outs of stats and minimal background details, requires thinking about who they are as people. What are their habits? What is their daily routine? How fastidious are they? Are they self-sufficient or do they find it difficult and uncomfortable to exist without servants and other domestic staff?

These are vital questions for the kind of stories I like to roleplay. Thinking about the daily routine of characters allows for plausible, naturalistic chance encounters between people while staying at an Inn, and questions of hygiene matter enormously when it comes to determining whether a character is attracted to another character in a certain context, or finds them smelly and unappealing.

And yes, how the PCs handle hygiene on the road is absolutely a question that comes up in play. As young, purse-light adventurers, their armour padding was, indeed, usually smelly. Unarmoured magic-users could be far more comfortable, pleasant-smelling and attractive under adventuring condotions than anyone wearing armour (and therefore thick padding which is hard to keep clean). They chewed various things and used various organic substitutes for toothbrushes. And they wiped their asses with leaves and washed imperfectly in cold water, if at all.

Basically, for low-level parties without access to magical solutions or numerous servants, life on the road is filthy, unpleasant and everyone smells horrible. As assumed standards of hygiene and dress are much higher for ordinary people in most places the Realms than they would have been for the ordinary people of most medieval polities, adventurers, mercenaries, merchants and other travellers would be conspiciously foul-smelling upon reaching any outpost of civilisation. And unless adventurers were ready to shed their armour, likely to remain so, as padding can't be cleaned in the same short time as a character can take a bath.

As characters get wealthier and more successful, if they want society to regard them as anything other than weird hobos with expensive looted grave goods, they should pick up pages, squires, henchmen, valets and other people to help with their daily routine. Without magic or modern technology, it takes labour to stay clean and fresh smelling while engaged in activities that make you and your gear filthy. The lack of access to servants to clean their armour is how you can tell foul-smelling mercenaries and adventurers from respectable knights and noble warriors.

Adventurers who want to be accepted in society as knights or the equivalent, but do not want to travel with a retinue like historical warriors who wore armour, need to find solutions to their hygiene needs that are dramatically better than historical ones, as historically, no one could both train and perform the duties of a full-time warrior and handle all the work involved in keeping their gear pristine while on campaign. Armoured fighters without even a single body-slave, varlet or someone else to take care of their gear and person would have been extremely uncomfortable and regarded as slovenly, poor and unattractive.

My PCs, who have long employed a variety of servants, are now wealthy enough that many of them not only have herbal and alchemical hygiene supplies to make their tasks easier, they have full-on magical items like a comb that styles hair, a bristle of cleaning teeth, a magical bar of soap, magical razors, enchanted armour padding that keeps them cool and sheds sweat and other dirt automatically, etc.

But not all NPC adventurers they encounter can afforf these comforts.



If everyone smells horrible for along enough time, you don't even smell it eventually.

Icelander Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 11:39:28
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I would think there would be a lot of spells for laundry and such. People with access to magic are going to use it to avoid tedious, time-consuming work and/or improve their lives. It's just that a lot of this stuff doesn't have much use in a game where downtime is hand-waved away and where simply daily maintenance of your person is mostly ignored (eating, hygiene, going to the bathroom).

I agree and because I'm running a game where such things are not hand-waved away, I'd like to define a bit better who has access to which convenience and comfort spells. Which spells are limited to priests (and to which faiths), which are limited to wizards and the like and which spells require more power than a beginning magic-user has?

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Speaking of which, there are likely low-level priest spells like hold bladder, clean backside, and cures for nausea, diarrhea, and constipation.


I would classify such spells as falling under the 'Healing' sphere or the equivalent and allow priests of all faiths that have access to that sphere (or should have it, based on my interpretation of the god's portfolies and personalities) to pray for such magic.

Leaves enchanted with one use cleaning spells would also be popular with adventurers, as would, I imagine, cloths, sponges or other instruments which absorb and then destroy biological waste. The Realms are a setting where the 'three seashells' of Demolition Man fame might actually function, due to magic.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 10:51:48
I would think there would be a lot of spells for laundry and such. People with access to magic are going to use it to avoid tedious, time-consuming work and/or improve their lives. It's just that a lot of this stuff doesn't have much use in a game where downtime is hand-waved away and where simply daily maintenance of your person is mostly ignored (eating, hygiene, going to the bathroom).

Speaking of which, there are likely low-level priest spells like hold bladder, clean backside, and cures for nausea, diarrhea, and constipation.
Icelander Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 10:09:21
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

Is there even a Realmslore list of spells available for clerics? Even in 2e, deities had some unique spells among a baseline list; Velsharoon's entry specifically calls out allowing clerics to prepare spells from the Complete Book of Necromancers, so there has to be a starting point for a cleric's spell selection. I don't think Bane's going to begrudge an adventuring cleric preparing 'create food and water' or 'detect poison'. There would of course be taboos and common sense adjudications.


In 2e, when most of the lore-rich books on deities were written, priests of different faiths had access to different groups of spells, called 'spheres'. The basic spheres were All, Animal, Astral, Charm, Combat, Creation, Divination, Elemental, Guardian, Healing, Necromantic, Plant, Protection, Summoning, Sun, and Weather. Future lore introduced others, such as Chaos, Law, Numbers, Thought, Time, Travelers, War and Wards. I think that there might have been some others, in Dragon magazines and other sources, and it was certainly encouraged to define the mechanics of gods not written up through such spheres, adding new ones if a god's portfolios demanded.

A priest of Bane and a priest of Eldath might have shared a few basic spells that were considered 'universal' to priests, but the vast majority of their potential spell selection was fundamentally different.

I've always felt that Ed's description of faiths and the way clergy work in his Realms represents a system like this, where priests of different gods are a lot more distinct than the Cleric class of D&D mechanically represents.

Thinking about it a bit more, considering that I would put spells for doing laundry more easily in the Travellers sphere as priest spells, which priests and priestesses of Selune had major access to, I think that it would make sense for these spells to be available to them, if they are available to priests at all.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 10:06:55
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

quote:
Originally posted by Icelander

quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

Unless those spells involve transgressing against the rules set by the faith, I don't see why Selune would care. She's got better things to do than police her worshippers' spell choices for the day unless they're praying for animate dead or ravage.


Yes, but Selune is the one who makes the decision whether the spell exists at all for her worshippers to pray for.

Simplistic D&D rules aside, Realmslore has never featured identical spell selections for clerics and priests of different gods. It isn't that the gods personally scrutinise every act of daily memorisation, but rather that the spells available to priests reflect the portfolios and personality of their divine patron.



Is there even a Realmslore list of spells available for clerics? Even in 2e, deities had some unique spells among a baseline list; Velsharoon's entry specifically calls out allowing clerics to prepare spells from the Complete Book of Necromancers, so there has to be a starting point for a cleric's spell selection. I don't think Bane's going to begrudge an adventuring cleric preparing 'create food and water' or 'detect poison'. There would of course be taboos and common sense adjudications.



Yes -- in 2E it was the spheres the priests had major or minor access to.

I recall an issue with the Ruins of Zhentil Keep boxed set -- I think it was Fzoul that generally had a spell prepped that wasn't on the list of spells he could have.
LordofBones Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 09:51:33
quote:
Originally posted by Icelander

quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

Unless those spells involve transgressing against the rules set by the faith, I don't see why Selune would care. She's got better things to do than police her worshippers' spell choices for the day unless they're praying for animate dead or ravage.


Yes, but Selune is the one who makes the decision whether the spell exists at all for her worshippers to pray for.

Simplistic D&D rules aside, Realmslore has never featured identical spell selections for clerics and priests of different gods. It isn't that the gods personally scrutinise every act of daily memorisation, but rather that the spells available to priests reflect the portfolios and personality of their divine patron.



Is there even a Realmslore list of spells available for clerics? Even in 2e, deities had some unique spells among a baseline list; Velsharoon's entry specifically calls out allowing clerics to prepare spells from the Complete Book of Necromancers, so there has to be a starting point for a cleric's spell selection. I don't think Bane's going to begrudge an adventuring cleric preparing 'create food and water' or 'detect poison'. There would of course be taboos and common sense adjudications.
Icelander Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 08:42:18
quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Corsets and bodices, even un-boned, provide an amazing amount of support but even more compression and retention. They are uncomfortable and take a lot of getting used to and can reduce mobility. This is very similar to armor. Like armor enough training/experience and proper fitting works wonders. I've known a couple of women who wished they could wear their bodice/corset as daily wear because of the superior support these articles of clothing provided. Though I never witnessed any of them fight, at least not with weaponry, I did have the pleasure of seeing them dance, run, do somersaults and other acts of exertion. Most of these outfits left little room for jiggle or bounce, the breasts were confined such that they often looked unnatural, nothing like today's cupped lifting bras. Any lift that occurs is done by hand before the binding to keep them in place. No magic and affordable easily by most adventurers.

Thank you for the benefit of experience.

Now, the cloth bindings and leather supports, how do you imagine these can be kept clean and fresh smelling?

For example, let's suppose that a character generally exercises two to three times a day, in the mornings (always), just before noon (usually) and then in the afternoon (usually). Training is strength exercises, conditioning, running, gymnastics and speed drills in the mornings, swordsmanship and martial arts in the later exercises in the day. Each period of exercise is generally from one to three hours, depending, with the goal being to get in at least four hours of exercise per day, an average of six hours and more during days where there is no other exertion.

After the morning session, any cloth next to the body will be... well, as sweaty and disgusting as everyone who has exercised wearing anything knows that sportswear and underwear you wear during training gets. Even if you (or a servant) has time to wash everything before the next bout of exercise, it certainly will not be dry in time.

So, what do you do? Do you carry six or more sets of cloth bindings, to give your servants time to wash the dirty sets and have them dry before you use them next? That's not implausible, I guess, but it does mean that you need a lot of luggage and without servants, it's a pretty heavy load of laundry per day. Not to mention that leather bodices or corsets are much harder to clean than cloth.

Male characters will often exercise naked or wearing only a spare (not very pleasant smelling, despite frequent washing) loincloth, precisely because having to wash everything they sweat in is a lot of work when they are pretty much full-time professional athletes.*

Sparring is done in armour and padding, of course, but as far as I am aware, without magical means, there really is no way to keep exercise padding and armour from being disgusting and uncomfortable, at least not if you use it every day. My PCs either avoid being around people while wearing filthy exercise gear (and accept a degree of discomfort) or they invest in magical means to keep it fresh.

For adventurers where magic is not yet an option, exercising naked whenever possible seems pretty tempting. That, however, brings us directly to the question of support. Even the most ponderous set of genitalia on a male will be significantly less mass to secure while doing exercises other than sparring than a pair of breasts at any size above AA. Female adventurers and martial artists therefore seem to have much more trouble exercising in the nude, or while wearing minimal, wash-friendly cloth, often still wet from the last wash, than male ones.

Especially as the most sensitive area on the genital area of males is generally protected from chafing by the foreskin, making wet loincloths perhaps uncomfortable, but not torturous, but nipples (of both sexes) are not exactly something you want covered with wet, imperfectly washed cloth while exercising, as that will chafe enough to lead to bleeding.**

*Knights, mercenary hoplites or men-at-arms who actually served as professional warriors at a time when fighting was hand-to-hand were professional athletes and pretty much any fictional warrior who makes his living from his superior skill at arms has to be the same.
**I've seen bleeding nipples, in both sexes, from chafing under exercise clothing that was wet from sweating and it looked exquisitely painful.


quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

Though many female athletes have more slender builds. I think it really depends on the sport, female tennis players and gymnasts tend to be more full figured than runners. Depending on what sport you look at men also range in builds as well. I will say an athletic occupation like exotic dancing often has large busted women doing very gymnastic maneuvers either completely nude or topless for hours on end. Though some of these women obviously have artificial breasts, many are just young enough where the breast tissue does not need the support. If characters were somehow magically young like many D&D characters, I imagine they could benefit similarly.

I must admit that I have not studied the motion of exotic dancers. I was under the impression that they could control what kind of movement they did and avoid anything that caused problems for unsupported breasts.

Martial art drills often require fast changes of direction and rapid sideways motion, much more rapid than anything I've heard of exotic dancers doing. Certainly much more athletic than anything I've seen during a visit to such places, which have been woefully infrequent in my life, largely because I fail to see the appeal of sad-eyed single moms with surgical scars and the like.

On the other hand, if fit women ranging from 19-26 in age require much less athletic breast support than I am assuming, from limited anecdotal evidence, exercising naked to save laundry seems much more viable.

The party of NPCs I was wondering about this for has four female martial artists. The oldest, Jannil Brightsong, is thirty, but she is a half-elf, so that is somewhat less in human years. Jannil also has small breasts and is used to strapping them down under armour. Iryreen Maelendo and Jaera Eastborn are both nineteen and neither has to worry overmuch about breast support, not having much to worry about supporting.

Peryta Ghossil, priestess and crusader of Selune, is twenty six of age and while lean and muscular as all professional adventurer athletes tend to be, she has breasts large enough to make supporting them while exercising a real worry. They are C-cups at minimum, based on the casting picture I chose for her, and might rate D-cups. She's the character for whom I was originally wondering about, i.e. how she managed to keep comfortable while training and what she did about keeping the cloth or whatever else she used clean and fresh on a daily basis.

There is also another NPC, Atheen Lesjan, travelling with the PCs, and who they have just discovered has been trained extensively as a fencer. Atheen not an enthusiastic athlete like the Nine Swords Company and certainly won't do strenuous exercise unless forced to by circumstance (or asked nicely by the hero who rescued her, with whom she is clearly infatuated), but at some point in her life, she clearly had to spend hours every day fencing with one more or skilled masters teaching her. She's lost most of her gear, so if she wants to spar with the Nine Swords Company, she'd have to borrow athletic gear. I was wondering what sort of clothing was available to borrow.

Atheen is slender, but feminine, about Jannil's size (5'9", 125 lbs.), though where Jannil has muscles (she weighs 130 lbs. without much body fat at all), Atheen has soft curves. Her breasts are fairly large for her size, though not as large as Peryta's, but Atheen's lack of pro-athlete muscle tone might make the issue of support even more important.

And as Atheen is incredibly squeamish about dirty, foul-smelling things, like sweaty sportswear (to the point that her obsession with personal hygiene is a Disadvantage in GURPS, the system I use to run my games), it was pretty important to know if she could find anything truly clean to borrow, in which case she would agree to show off her skills by training with the Nine Swords Company, or if everything smelled like sweat and a stranger's body, in which case she's shudder prettily and excuse herself.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

And then there is food, personally in my campaigns even low level adventurers are very very rarely without an abundance of food. Hell some of them bring whole mess kits with them for preparing meals on the go. I think the average soldier might experience some hardship and weightloss from rations and overwork but my adventures all tend to find the spare coin to be gluttons, no matter what the level.

It's not just an issue of funds. Modern soldiers have food that is the result of spending billions on ways to pack maximum nutrition into small, easily portable and easily consumed ration packs. They still have trouble consuming enough calories to maintain their weight during foot patrols in the Afghan mountains.

Patrolling all day while carrying all the supplies needed for a fighting man is quite simply such a calorie-intensive activity that it's all but impossible to consume enough food while you are doing it not to lose weight, starting with any body fat you might have.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

If you are interested in more Realms specific material check out Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue pages 90-93, they have undergarment options ranging from as cheap as 2, 5 and 6 gp, for leather Bustenhalts, Corsets and Broadbelts.

Thanks.

quote:
Originally posted by Gelcur

I will say as a DM, try not to overthink things. Give them a +2 to Charisma and a -2 Balance and get back to having fun.


Roleplaying the interaction between PCs, the NPCs that arrived with them and a party of newly encountered adventurers in the Inn of the Nine Swords is fun. And for organic, plausible interaction between them, I need to know what the adventurer-athletes are doing with their time between bouts of exercise.

Are they doing laundry? Cleaning stuff with magic? Preparing a new set of bindings for the next exercise session?

Relaxing in a bath because they exercise naked as much as possible and so don't need to worry about laundry?
Icelander Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 07:23:40
quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones

Unless those spells involve transgressing against the rules set by the faith, I don't see why Selune would care. She's got better things to do than police her worshippers' spell choices for the day unless they're praying for animate dead or ravage.


Yes, but Selune is the one who makes the decision whether the spell exists at all for her worshippers to pray for.

Simplistic D&D rules aside, Realmslore has never featured identical spell selections for clerics and priests of different gods. It isn't that the gods personally scrutinise every act of daily memorisation, but rather that the spells available to priests reflect the portfolios and personality of their divine patron.
Gelcur Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 06:13:27
So a lot of things have been brought up in this thread. I could not resist posting on a topic with "Breast" in the title. I will try to keep the original topic.

Let me begin by stating though I have breasts they are not of the female variety. What I do have experience with is two decades of dressing and undressing ladies for Renfaires who have ranged from A cup to DD. Corsets and bodices, even un-boned, provide an amazing amount of support but even more compression and retention. They are uncomfortable and take a lot of getting used to and can reduce mobility. This is very similar to armor. Like armor enough training/experience and proper fitting works wonders. I've known a couple of women who wished they could wear their bodice/corset as daily wear because of the superior support these articles of clothing provided. Though I never witnessed any of them fight, at least not with weaponry, I did have the pleasure of seeing them dance, run, do somersaults and other acts of exertion. Most of these outfits left little room for jiggle or bounce, the breasts were confined such that they often looked unnatural, nothing like today's cupped lifting bras. Any lift that occurs is done by hand before the binding to keep them in place. No magic and affordable easily by most adventurers.

Though many female athletes have more slender builds. I think it really depends on the sport, female tennis players and gymnasts tend to be more full figured than runners. Depending on what sport you look at men also range in builds as well. I will say an athletic occupation like exotic dancing often has large busted women doing very gymnastic maneuvers either completely nude or topless for hours on end. Though some of these women obviously have artificial breasts, many are just young enough where the breast tissue does not need the support. If characters were somehow magically young like many D&D characters, I imagine they could benefit similarly.

As far as fantasy art, writing and gaming goes I will say I always take everything with a grain of salt. The unreliable narrator, or the creative artist, adding their flares to make something a bit more epic or cater to their viewer/reader is common and to be expected throughout history. And then there is food, personally in my campaigns even low level adventurers are very very rarely without an abundance of food. Hell some of them bring whole mess kits with them for preparing meals on the go. I think the average soldier might experience some hardship and weightloss from rations and overwork but my adventures all tend to find the spare coin to be gluttons, no matter what the level.

If you are interested in more Realms specific material check out Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue pages 90-93, they have undergarment options ranging from as cheap as 2, 5 and 6 gp, for leather Bustenhalts, Corsets and Broadbelts.

I will say as a DM, try not to overthink things. Give them a +2 to Charisma and a -2 Balance and get back to having fun.
LordofBones Posted - 13 Apr 2018 : 04:19:57
Unless those spells involve transgressing against the rules set by the faith, I don't see why Selune would care. She's got better things to do than police her worshippers' spell choices for the day unless they're praying for animate dead or ravage.
Wrigley Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 13:47:03
I will be responding mainly to Islander but your posts are so long that I do not want to clogg this thread with repeating them completely.
-Excercise - I was talking about beggining adventurers mostly non-magical. Those I see on a border between mercenary, bandit and dirty traveler with some coin. Real adventurers are raised from this class as they are those who practice, study, invest and withdraw from lost causes.
Opposed to RW there are many who wander around looking for job as I do not see even kingdoms to bind their people to land by law. They are either paying the landlord or swore a fealthy to local lord and work on his fields. Those who own a field or house in city are rich and form a middle class even if they cannot afford much.
Those traveling are usualy armed in some fasion (pesant flail, staff, dagger, ...) and some of them can actualy use it for more than defense. Those are usualy hired as guards, henchmen, ... and sometimes sent to clear the nearby nest of goblins or rats in the sewers/cellars.
As for magicaly endowed I use simple statistics from the rules that haven't changed trough editions. Common human have inteligence (or wisdom or charisma) at 10 meaning he has no aptitude for magic, than I use bell curve to see how many in population should have higher atribute to allow for magic of higher order. So there should be similar number of humans with Int 15 as those with Int 5 (and this would allow only 5th level spells). Therefore there is a lot more spellcasters who can cast only minor magic (like 1st-3rd level spells) who can by commonly found and very few who aspire to true greatness. Some of them choose different path, some will die during their carier as adventurers.
Other races have similar statistics but moved by their bonus atributes so ie elves have natural aptitude for magic as they have bonus to Int and Cha - they spawn more wizards and bards (sorcerers).

-Income - I have no background in economics so those numbers are my estimate but I can see we go in similar path. I have obviously missused the word merchant as I meant person from the middle class. For higher class sky is the limit so I do not bother much with them. I have also tried to simplify this as we are delving a little off-topic.

-Entourage - I think we agree on this and only differ on interpretation of the word adventurer. For those common thugs including some half-orc sorcerer using his dark arts for their benefit I see things as I posted. For more noble and successful adventurers like company of knight or questing hero group I agree completely with the need for supporting group of servants, guards, maids, ... and also with need for some representation and therefore cleanlines, jewels, parfumes, ...

-Selune question - I suppose she would grant those spells if they are actualy needed or could be used to impress common folks. If she stays in the city than she should hire some servants idealy lay worshipers. There is a actual sub-question of how a diety decides about asked for spells. My view is that this is overseen be other planar entities in servis to said god and they look into suspicious choices. So if you are a priest of Selune and you ask for spells from her domains and generaly good spells than you should be OK. If you ask one day for a Animate dead then some planar entity will look at detail to why do you ask such spell and report if it is missused or even directly intervene. You can also explain such request to your diety in prayer to ease such suspition. So you should be able to ask for those spells and they will be granted but you should be worried if it shows your laziness or aloofnes as those are not traits Selune wants in her priests.
sleyvas Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 12:46:14
My main point is that wizards aren't all that rare in Faerun (specifically Faerun), and probably more common in say a metropolis. The vast majority of these wizards will be 1st - 3rd level. In a city of 100,000, there may be a thousand, of which maybe 800 are say 1st - 3rd level (note, there may also be other types of spellcasters vying as well). The spells of these low level wizards are NOT earth shattering. Most of them amount to menial labor reducers.... but they are useful when applied in simple ways, and even more importantly they can be useful in ways that reduce the literally back breaking drudge work for some (example, moving loads with tenser's disk.. slowly moving small amounts of earth around... creating temporary fires so that smiths don't have to constantly stoke a fire and lumberyards don't have to supply them constant firewood). Also, the propensity to do magic isn't necessarily awe inspiring either as it is in lower magic places.... I guess the best comparison I can picture is compare say how people would have viewed modern day graphics capabilities now in movies to what they had in the 1970's. At first they'd be amazed. They'd quickly get over it. Yet none of those people have to be computer graphics designers to no longer be impressed. They don't have to be "one of the few" who know how its done to realize "its cool, but can you make my life better?". In general most people in the realms barely bat an eye about spellcasters using magic for what most would consider menial tasks. So, since what these low level people can DO isn't all that amazing compared to say hiring double the workers in a small environment (a low level wizard can probably replace 4-6 workers), they likely won't get paid extremes of wealth. In fact, just to use the construction example, I see most construction companies as using normal labor. However, let's take an example of, as you said, of a nice new construction being built by aging masons of some skill. They realize they have skill, but their backs just can't handle the pain. While they could hire six times the number of gophers, managing them as a resource would be a pain. It would be much easier for them to pay say a low level wizard four to six times the wage (and about half that to whoever is helping the wizard find these short-term jobs) of those gophers to just use his basic skills to aid him. But meanwhile, its the artisan... the person designing, guiding, and managing the construction... who is making the realm money. Also, these lucrative type positions won't necessarily always be available, and other low level wizards will vie for them when they do become available, so in between jobs they study or spend a few hours a day doing some kind of lesser, repetitive simple things with magic (like running a laundry)

On the question of whether Selune would approve of a cleric cleaning themselves with magic... I don't see Selune having a problem with this at all. Making themselves presentable is a part of gathering members to their flock. Its easy to impress someone who smells with the lack of your own stench and your own cleanliness. If some OTHER cleric (say Mystrans) were always standing out as "prettier" than say Selunites, Eldathans, Leirans, Deneirans, Mililians etc... it might stand to cause their flock to lessen. Now, some other priesthood whose influence is more "earthly"... say Gond, Malar, Myrkul... in those cases, it MIGHT be questionable how much their god cares of how presentable they appear (i.e. Gondsmen for instance may want to LOOK and SMELL like workers).
Icelander Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 10:52:09
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

That's where we're differing. You're saying "to hire a wizard is expensive"... and I'm saying "to hire a wizard for a single minute of work is cheap because they're available". The people making the bucks are the ones managing the materials and/or business.

Helicopters and private jets are available in the real world, that doesn't mean renting the use of them for a minute is cheap. Yet there is no meaningful constraint on how many helicopters and planes can be built and how many people can learn to fly them.

Assuming that we accept Realmslore to the effect that the ability to use arcane magic is inborn and no amount of education or training can instill it in someone, then this ability is a fantastically valuable resource that almost everyone wants, but which is inherently limited. That is a situation which tends to produce an ever increasing price for the capital asset in question.

It doesn't really matter whether you believe that magic-users are 0.5% of the population or 0.0005%, the supply is still a lot less than the demand. This is obvious from even a casual look at Realmslore sources.

Note also that the value of a magician's time has to be calculated in accordance with the highest possible yield his services could be returning to someone. That's the opportunity cost of his service. And for anyone who can cast spells of 2nd and 3rd level, for example, those will tend to be very high numbers.

And there is not reason to assume that the person who handles administrative work for a wizard will receive a larger portion of the proceeds than the wizard himself. While the original socioeconomic status of wizards may vary, the general tendency will be for any power imbalance to be in their favour. They are the ones who have an inborn capital asset that is in great demand.

Clerks and administrators can be educated and trained in numbers, assuming that you have the resources to do so, but if they are not born with the gift for magic, they can't learn it. Period. So any sensible patron will pay his wizards extremely well, because, well, he'll never have enough of them and others will be happy to overbid him and help the wizards escape him if he tries to retain them by force. Sure, there can be exceptional situations in certain areas, but in general, wizards will be (and are, in most Realmslore) functionally among the super-rich elite, never the common mass of people.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

As to the question of using magic for a "laundry service".

Look at the following from "Unseen Servant"

The servant can perform simple tasks that a human servant could do, such as fetching things, cleaning, mending, folding clothes, lighting fires, serving food, and pouring wine. Once you give the command, the servant performs the task to the best of its ability until it completes the task, then waits for your next command.

Yes, indeed. Wizards absolutely have access to a variety of cantrips and other spells that make their lives and the lives of their adventuring companions easier. The use of such spells is how adventurers in my campaigns generally manage to avoid having a huge train of non-combatant servants on their adventures, but still live in reasonable comfort and dignity.

If you read the post you responded to, you'll note that I was not asking about the possibility of such magic existing or whether a character of about the power-level of a 5th level character in D&D (2nd-3.5e, doesn't matter) could theoretically cast such spells.

I was asking if it suited divine magic, miracles literally granted by gods in response to prayer, to perform mundane scut-work so that clergy did not have to hire as many servants. Specifically, whether Selune would grant an adventuring priestess of hers access to spells that did laundry, darned and repaired clothing and helped with breast support during exercise and martial arts training.

I felt that replacing mundane servants might not be appropriate, but am ready to listen to a counter-argument why it would fit the dogma and personality of Selune, not to mention serve the portfolios and divine purpose of Selune, to grant such spells. I think that magical means of breast support absolutely do fit what has been established about the church of Selune and that all that naked moonlight dancing might be uncomfortable for the more generously built priestesses without such magic.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

Furthermore, this spell is a ritual in 5e and it's 1st level. It also does not require concentration. So, in theory anyway, a wizard could have 5 unseen servants operating at once, plus cast another hundred single action cantrips in an hour (or 9 minute long casting cantrips like mending). If one of those cantrips each hour were a single casting of Prestidigitation they could keep a volume of water that's continually warm without having to burn anything.

Well, I don't use 5e (or any edition of D&D), so I tend to try to emulate the way magic works in Realmslore rather than any single edition of D&D. And my games are all set 1373 DR and earlier.

That being said, magic-users being able to do a lot of minor magics all day long has been a feature of Ed's Realmslore from the start, no matter how the rules have been presented, so I'm happy to emulate that in my games. I'm absolutely not arguing that spellcasters don't have the power to do this. It's just that it may not be the most efficient use of their gifts, except maybe in situations where hiring non-magical servants is impractical.

At home, nobles and rich merchants have household staffs that take care of keeping everything clean. Only on the road might they consider using magic for such tasks, if, for example, they want to travel with a small entourage, but still look their best and live with the comfort they are used to.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

So, yes, I would expect that a magical laundry service for the common folk isn't outside the realm of possibility. If the wizard (or whoever is running the business and guiding the wizard) simply hired some people off the street to do the pieces that a wizard can't simply/easily script (taking the money, taking a basket of clothes from the customer and putting it in a designated spot, taking the now folded clothes back to the customer or into some "bin" marked for said customer's return, etc...) this could be quite productive.

It's not outside the ream of possibility, no. In fact, there is an amusing anecdote about the rivalry between a guild of launderers and a wizard who used magic to clean in The City of Ravens Bluff.

On the other hand, note that the end result was that the wizard became guildmaster of the Guild of Launderers and the prevailing method of cleaning remained non-magical, with magic only used when ultra-rich clients wanted to show off their wealth and/or needed faster, better or weirder service than could be provided non-magically. Because it doesn't matter if magic can do something better, if it's cheaper to do it non-magically by paying a person without wealth or magical gifts a few coins, that will be the preferred option.

You could use a helicopter for commuting in the modern world, but most people still rely on cars, public transport, walking, biking, etc. This is because being willing and able to pay huge premiums for haste or conspicuous consumption is the exception, not the rule. Even rich people prefer to avoid unnecessary expense, especially in situations when their peers might not notice how much they are spending and would be more likely to consider them ignorant than impressive if they did. Huge household staffs of servants are a status symbol in the Realms, contracting laundry out to wizards does not seem to be, at least not in most places.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

For some wizards, this might be seen as a way to punish those apprentices who get uppity as well. In fact, at the lower levels, trying to please ones master to avoid "crap details" like this might be a part of life. In the end, doing this is still a hell of a lot better than say... having to do heavy manual labor... so even if it doesn't pay well, it feeds them and puts a roof over their heads.

Wizards who control, to a greater or lesser degree, the access to magical lore, do have control over their apprentices. Do not forget, however, that as soon as the apprentices have learnt a single spell that would be commercially useful, that control is not in any sense economic. Wizards who accept apprentices have no power to withhold riches from their apprentices who have already learnt magic that they can use to become rich, they can only prevent them from learning more from them.

Granted, knowledge of magic for its own sake presumably motivates many to pursue the study of magic, so this kind of control is still effective, but the apprentices would rarely be stuck without any options. If the apprentices, as some will inevitably do, only want to become rich enough to join the upper classes, they really only have to learn a few spells that are in constant demand and can then bite their thumbs at uppity old men who think they have authority over them.

Besides, if Old Idiotic the Enchanter forces his apprentices to do menial scut labour because he doesn't understand economics and Uhlon the Uncanny simply charges very high fees for his teaching and allows apprentices to hire out for any kind of work they want to afford these fees, Old Idiotic is going to discover that while Uhlon lives in the lap of luxury and grows richer and more powerful every day, all he's done is acquired some rather inferior servants, who cost more in required time investment than if he had simply hired ordinary servants.

Ignorance of the principles of supply and demand is usually self-correcting.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

Other rituals such as illusory script and tenser's floating disk might also see common use for merchants and construction. For instance, Masons might hire a wizard just to walk from one point to another with piles of bricks that laborers load his floating disk up with. All the while, he could be also using mold earth cantrip to help level portions of the area or move sand/dirt where its needed. At the same time, if its cold he could maintain several bonfire cantrips in the area (or if there's a need for fire to work some metal, it could be used for that). Then while all that is going on he could also be directing several unseen servants to do "gopher" work such as taking bricks off the tenser's floating disk and handing them to say the 3 masons he's working with.

If the work site sharply limits how many people can access it, if you need the work done faster than any non-magical method can do it or if you want a structure that simply can't be built without magic, then it might make sense to hire wizards to build it. Otherwise, it's an extravagant way to show off your wealth, not an economic investment.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

So, in the end, I see this as "this is all stuff that a scruff level wizard can do" and most employers will look at it as not all the impressive (now WE see it as impressive, but that's different). So, they can have wizard A doing it today, and if wizard A gives them lip... guess what, they have another wizard tomorrow.... why, because those low level wizards are trying to get out of the crap details and every other low level wizard is jockeying for position. Meanwhile, the skilled artisan who is carefully constructing a building, measuring, cutting... while heavier work... they probably also get paid better. Now, will there also be the severe peon who is apprenticing to those skilled workers? There sure will be, and they're probably getting paid half what those low level wizards get... but half still isn't bad.


How can you possibly reach this conclusion from the available evidence?

Every single examination of the number and percentage of people in the Realms capable of using magic at all leads to the same conclusion, no matter how much the individual variation is depending on the method used and the underlying edition rules in place. There are a lot more tasks that could be done efficiently and spectacularly effectively with magic than there are magic-users to do them.

There is an awful lot of people born without magic gifts and without any inherited wealth. At least 95-99% of people in the Realms probably fit that description, more or less, depending on where we draw the line at inherited wealth. Those people would all die if they didn't have some way to obtain food, shelter and other necessities. As a result, they are available for nearly any job that doesn't require inborn magical talent. And they don't really have much of a negotiating position. So as long as they are paid enough to live, most of them are going to accept it.

As a result, it's generally going to be cheaper to hire ten or twenty people to do something that a wizard could do alone, as the wizard could instead be doing something that would require hundreds of people or can't be done at all by simply hiring more hands.
sleyvas Posted - 12 Apr 2018 : 00:47:59
quote:
Originally posted by Icelander

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

Going to read through the wall of text above, but just wanted to note this.

On this topic, one of the things I see that would make our world different from the realms is that there ARE a lot of spellcasters there. I know, everyone just went DUH SLEYVAS. However, its in a particular way that I mean that. By that I mean there's a lot of things in our world that when they break, they'd be thrown away, to become part of a landfill. However, with 5e rules in play, the mending cantrip can be cast by an apprentice wizard OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER. Going back to my idea of red wizard enclaves being used for things unlike what we've pictures, there may be simple things, such as rusted out pipes, etc... which would have to be remelted down and recast in our world that can simply be mended in the realms. That could setup whole industries where some people have a job simply collecting/purchasing broken things and then bringing them to a young wizard who spends 2 to 3 hours a day just mending about 150 to 200 things and then having another person who then turns around and hawks those goods for sale. This type of thing may be how young wizards end up paying for their tutelage at an academy, as the school may endeavor to manage this flow of simple broken items from and to merchants. There's other cantrips of similar value in other sources than the PH (there were several in the elemental evil companion), such as ones that could be used to provide brief bursts of fire for tempering steel, etc....


Note that throwing things away when they break is an exceedingly modern concept. In a realistic pre-industrial society, labour is dirt cheap, but materials are usually much more expensive than modern people realise. Re-using any scrap of valuable materials was simply a fact of life. Very few things were just disposed of in a landfill, as someone would have a use for it.

I'm not averse to having the use of economically useful minor magic by numerous hedge practisioners be a background detail that explains why the Realms are so much richer than historical societies before the Industrial Revolution. Just keep in mind that this wealth will be exceptionally unevenly distributed, because to take advantage of magic requires already having wealth.

Sure, it means some social mobility for those born with magical gifts, as they are effectively a natural aristocracy, with inborn capital of enormous value, but anyone born without magical gifts and without the wealth to hire mages is effectively trying to compete on an extremely tilted economic playing field. Being able to hire magic-users for a variety of money-making schemes with much higher returns on investment than non-magical businesses means that great wealth will tend to breed absolutely astronomical wealth.

We see this in many Realmslore sources, where the rich merchants and nobles are so stupendously rich as to make most historical nobility look provincial and in need of a handout. Any noble of note will also tend to have mages in his service and, as you noted, Thay is becoming an economic superpower through the organised application of magic to international commerce.

So, to bring things back to the central lore question of this scroll, full circle back to topic without ever having entirely left it, how cheap and easily available are magical solutions for laundry, sports wear and breast support?

Would it make sense for a modestly powerful priestess of Selune (ca 5th level in D&D) to be granted spells that perform laundry, enchant clothing to repel sweat and dirt, provide breast support or helps in other ways with daily comfort as an adventurer and martial artist?

I mean, I know that the priestess is powerful enough so that she could cast such spells and Selune could easily grant them if she pleased, but does it feel like an appropriate use for divine power?

Or should the implicit message the priestess receives to her prayers be more in the line of 'either hire some damn body servants and maids like everyone else or just accept that you'll smell awful and experience a lot of discomfort while on the road'?

I'm currently leaning toward 'no' on priestly laundry service from Selune, but 'yes' on a spell for magical breast support, often used for naked dancing in the moonlight, because Selune recognises that some people would really welcome some proper support during such rituals, thank you very much.



That's where we're differing. You're saying "to hire a wizard is expensive"... and I'm saying "to hire a wizard for a single minute of work is cheap because they're available". The people making the bucks are the ones managing the materials and/or business.

As to the question of using magic for a "laundry service".

Look at the following from "Unseen Servant"

The servant can perform simple tasks that a human servant could do, such as fetching things, cleaning, mending, folding clothes, lighting fires, serving food, and pouring wine. Once you give the command, the servant performs the task to the best of its ability until it completes the task, then waits for your next command.

Furthermore, this spell is a ritual in 5e and it's 1st level. It also does not require concentration. So, in theory anyway, a wizard could have 5 unseen servants operating at once, plus cast another hundred single action cantrips in an hour (or 9 minute long casting cantrips like mending). If one of those cantrips each hour were a single casting of Prestidigitation they could keep a volume of water that's continually warm without having to burn anything. So, yes, I would expect that a magical laundry service for the common folk isn't outside the realm of possibility. If the wizard (or whoever is running the business and guiding the wizard) simply hired some people off the street to do the pieces that a wizard can't simply/easily script (taking the money, taking a basket of clothes from the customer and putting it in a designated spot, taking the now folded clothes back to the customer or into some "bin" marked for said customer's return, etc...) this could be quite productive. For some wizards, this might be seen as a way to punish those apprentices who get uppity as well. In fact, at the lower levels, trying to please ones master to avoid "crap details" like this might be a part of life. In the end, doing this is still a hell of a lot better than say... having to do heavy manual labor... so even if it doesn't pay well, it feeds them and puts a roof over their heads.

Other rituals such as illusory script and tenser's floating disk might also see common use for merchants and construction. For instance, Masons might hire a wizard just to walk from one point to another with piles of bricks that laborers load his floating disk up with. All the while, he could be also using mold earth cantrip to help level portions of the area or move sand/dirt where its needed. At the same time, if its cold he could maintain several bonfire cantrips in the area (or if there's a need for fire to work some metal, it could be used for that). Then while all that is going on he could also be directing several unseen servants to do "gopher" work such as taking bricks off the tenser's floating disk and handing them to say the 3 masons he's working with.

So, in the end, I see this as "this is all stuff that a scruff level wizard can do" and most employers will look at it as not all the impressive (now WE see it as impressive, but that's different). So, they can have wizard A doing it today, and if wizard A gives them lip... guess what, they have another wizard tomorrow.... why, because those low level wizards are trying to get out of the crap details and every other low level wizard is jockeying for position. Meanwhile, the skilled artisan who is carefully constructing a building, measuring, cutting... while heavier work... they probably also get paid better. Now, will there also be the severe peon who is apprenticing to those skilled workers? There sure will be, and they're probably getting paid half what those low level wizards get... but half still isn't bad.
Icelander Posted - 11 Apr 2018 : 22:35:38
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

Going to read through the wall of text above, but just wanted to note this.

On this topic, one of the things I see that would make our world different from the realms is that there ARE a lot of spellcasters there. I know, everyone just went DUH SLEYVAS. However, its in a particular way that I mean that. By that I mean there's a lot of things in our world that when they break, they'd be thrown away, to become part of a landfill. However, with 5e rules in play, the mending cantrip can be cast by an apprentice wizard OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER. Going back to my idea of red wizard enclaves being used for things unlike what we've pictures, there may be simple things, such as rusted out pipes, etc... which would have to be remelted down and recast in our world that can simply be mended in the realms. That could setup whole industries where some people have a job simply collecting/purchasing broken things and then bringing them to a young wizard who spends 2 to 3 hours a day just mending about 150 to 200 things and then having another person who then turns around and hawks those goods for sale. This type of thing may be how young wizards end up paying for their tutelage at an academy, as the school may endeavor to manage this flow of simple broken items from and to merchants. There's other cantrips of similar value in other sources than the PH (there were several in the elemental evil companion), such as ones that could be used to provide brief bursts of fire for tempering steel, etc....


Note that throwing things away when they break is an exceedingly modern concept. In a realistic pre-industrial society, labour is dirt cheap, but materials are usually much more expensive than modern people realise. Re-using any scrap of valuable materials was simply a fact of life. Very few things were just disposed of in a landfill, as someone would have a use for it.

I'm not averse to having the use of economically useful minor magic by numerous hedge practisioners be a background detail that explains why the Realms are so much richer than historical societies before the Industrial Revolution. Just keep in mind that this wealth will be exceptionally unevenly distributed, because to take advantage of magic requires already having wealth.

Sure, it means some social mobility for those born with magical gifts, as they are effectively a natural aristocracy, with inborn capital of enormous value, but anyone born without magical gifts and without the wealth to hire mages is effectively trying to compete on an extremely tilted economic playing field. Being able to hire magic-users for a variety of money-making schemes with much higher returns on investment than non-magical businesses means that great wealth will tend to breed absolutely astronomical wealth.

We see this in many Realmslore sources, where the rich merchants and nobles are so stupendously rich as to make most historical nobility look provincial and in need of a handout. Any noble of note will also tend to have mages in his service and, as you noted, Thay is becoming an economic superpower through the organised application of magic to international commerce.

So, to bring things back to the central lore question of this scroll, full circle back to topic without ever having entirely left it, how cheap and easily available are magical solutions for laundry, sports wear and breast support?

Would it make sense for a modestly powerful priestess of Selune (ca 5th level in D&D) to be granted spells that perform laundry, enchant clothing to repel sweat and dirt, provide breast support or helps in other ways with daily comfort as an adventurer and martial artist?

I mean, I know that the priestess is powerful enough so that she could cast such spells and Selune could easily grant them if she pleased, but does it feel like an appropriate use for divine power?

Or should the implicit message the priestess receives to her prayers be more in the line of 'either hire some damn body servants and maids like everyone else or just accept that you'll smell awful and experience a lot of discomfort while on the road'?

I'm currently leaning toward 'no' on priestly laundry service from Selune, but 'yes' on a spell for magical breast support, often used for naked dancing in the moonlight, because Selune recognises that some people would really welcome some proper support during such rituals, thank you very much.
sleyvas Posted - 11 Apr 2018 : 22:19:44
quote:
Originally posted by Mirtek

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik


As far as cleaning and hygiene ... I'm thinking such details have been left deliberately vague in D&D and Realmslore. A sweaty brassiere can't be less offensive than a full suit of armor worn day after day while marching through the muck of adventure (as often as not by a PC who insists on also sleeping in his armor). The game and lore are written to tell stories about characters and adventures, the epic stuff of heroes and villains and monsters and swords and magic - it's not about explicitly detailing how often a character scrubs his loincloth, brushes his teeth, picks his nose, or wipes his butt.



There's some poor wizard out there just making a killing because he chose to learn the "remove sweat smell" cantrip

Actually that's why prestidigitation is considered such a basic spell to know. It does exactly that (and not merely removing the smell, but actually cleans you and your stuff too!)



Good point, that's another thing that would probably done by apprentices in return for training.

I guess opposed to what I see you other guys picturing, I see another factor. Basically, low level magic users are so prevalent in the realms that people with business sense are monetizing them. The lowly spellcaster is relegated to some room wherein he sits for hours on end just repairing, mending, cleaning things via magic. Some may go out to work sites and help with construction or crafting things. Its probably so prevalent that no one spellcaster can truly stand out amongst the crowd until they reach much higher levels. Now in large areas, they established guilds to prevent abuse, to a degree. However, i see these guilds as basically being led by high level spellcasters and they'll require a large amount of cash for access.

Of course, in this scenario, I'd place maybe 1% (maybe 0.5%) of the populace as spellcasters. This may not fit other worlds or even other parts of Toril, but in my view, it would seem to fit Faerun.
sleyvas Posted - 11 Apr 2018 : 21:52:12
Going to read through the wall of text above, but just wanted to note this.

On this topic, one of the things I see that would make our world different from the realms is that there ARE a lot of spellcasters there. I know, everyone just went DUH SLEYVAS. However, its in a particular way that I mean that. By that I mean there's a lot of things in our world that when they break, they'd be thrown away, to become part of a landfill. However, with 5e rules in play, the mending cantrip can be cast by an apprentice wizard OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER. Going back to my idea of red wizard enclaves being used for things unlike what we've pictures, there may be simple things, such as rusted out pipes, etc... which would have to be remelted down and recast in our world that can simply be mended in the realms. That could setup whole industries where some people have a job simply collecting/purchasing broken things and then bringing them to a young wizard who spends 2 to 3 hours a day just mending about 150 to 200 things and then having another person who then turns around and hawks those goods for sale. This type of thing may be how young wizards end up paying for their tutelage at an academy, as the school may endeavor to manage this flow of simple broken items from and to merchants. There's other cantrips of similar value in other sources than the PH (there were several in the elemental evil companion), such as ones that could be used to provide brief bursts of fire for tempering steel, etc....
Mirtek Posted - 11 Apr 2018 : 20:27:21
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik


As far as cleaning and hygiene ... I'm thinking such details have been left deliberately vague in D&D and Realmslore. A sweaty brassiere can't be less offensive than a full suit of armor worn day after day while marching through the muck of adventure (as often as not by a PC who insists on also sleeping in his armor). The game and lore are written to tell stories about characters and adventures, the epic stuff of heroes and villains and monsters and swords and magic - it's not about explicitly detailing how often a character scrubs his loincloth, brushes his teeth, picks his nose, or wipes his butt.



There's some poor wizard out there just making a killing because he chose to learn the "remove sweat smell" cantrip

Actually that's why prestidigitation is considered such a basic spell to know. It does exactly that (and not merely removing the smell, but actually cleans you and your stuff too!)
Icelander Posted - 11 Apr 2018 : 20:26:23
quote:
Originally posted by moonbeast

Maybe the simplest solution to problematic breasts in a fantasy setting would be…. to use a magic spell called "Reduce Breasts".

It should be at least a 7th-level wizard spell, no less.


The higher the level, the less plausible you make it that the solution would have significent sociological effects through widespread adoption, as most people have no opportunity to obtain facours or services from 13th level or higher magic-users. Besides, long before a wizard gains access to 7th level spells, there are alternative magical solutions that do not require permanent body-modification.

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