Comment on “Transport Section Finished”

Alexis, when you've returned from Planet Book, I have a question about part 3, Locating References.

"I've put brewing and metal goods into the forest because the fuel from the trees makes the best opportunity for heating the grains and the forges that are necessary. These details matter. It means that although the Crow's Nest mountains produce no meaningful ore, the ore from those mountains that do (around Marzarbol and Heap) must be hauled to the furnaces and waterwheels of the Border Forest to be processed. So what will the party find on the roads? Wagons full of stone making their way steadily north to dump their valuable loads."

So in my own implementation of your system (which is proceeding merrily along), the only snag I've hit so far is the kind of stuff you bring up here. Specifically, the placement of service/manufacturing references (as opposed to raw materials). I don't know ANYTHING at all about which things go where based on climate, vegetation, etc. I was just going to distribute them based on where the materials come from -- so anywhere with iron has blacksmithing, etc -- but you've made it clear here that I should think twice on that.

Plan #1 is of course to go google these various trades and crafts -- weaver, blacksmith, forging/smelting, and so on -- and see what details I can glean. And I'll do that tonight after class.

(or maybe right now ... ah, I've ended up on "Brickwork" in wikipedia. There's so much here!)

But plan #2 is to take advantage of this big Alexis-shaped resource over here and ask you if you'd be willing to provide a few examples of "environmental and regional factors" influencing resource placement. Maybe discussing the manufactured goods you've presented in the trade system explanations so far -- wine, wool, leather goods, and so on.

Distributing them randomly is of course right out.