General Q and A

I don't think any real "economy" has been set for Felarya. Probably a good idea too, since you try to write up an economy for a place that's to Discworld's Counterweight Continent what the Counterweight Continent is to the average Ankh-Morpork beggar. You either have to completely change the basis of the economy from precious ores / gemstones, or have fun doing the math.

I'd do the math if I knew which areas to do the math in, I'm not sure whether or not I'd even need formulas either (well, complex ones at any rate.)

I was thinking that generally speaking, minimum wage is somewhere around 1.5 times as expensive as a combo meal at burger king. So I'm guessing if Burger King is equivalent to a common meal, which is 3 skevols, then minimum wage might hover somewhere around 5 skevols, more or less, based on the hiring place. Something like that.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

I was thinking that generally speaking, minimum wage is somewhere around 1.5 times as expensive as a combo meal at burger king. So I'm guessing if Burger King is equivalent to a common meal, which is 3 skevols, then minimum wage might hover somewhere around 5 skevols, more or less, based on the hiring place. Something like that.

$6.59 is the price I saw for one BK Combo Meal, whereas minimum wage for that location was $7.25 (or about 110%). However, looking around I've seen several homemade meal recipes that are roughly the same content as a BK Combo Meal, but half the price.

It's a lot of variables, and in the end you'll probably need Karbo to answer your question as otherwise it's all speculation as using the exact same information but drawing a different conclusion we could have two different values for a skevol between us alone.

That's a good point. Here the minimum wage is like $8, but you really get paid closer to $10. That's what I get for living in California. I'm wondering if there would be micro economies. I'm guessing in the poor districts, you'd get paid 2 Skevols, whereas a meal is about 1SK. In the middle tier, you'd get paid about 4-6 SK based on the employer, and in the upper tier, probably like 15SK per hour, since everyone there's filthy rich. Though a common meal is 3 SK and a good meal is 6SK, I'm guessing that a 6SK meal would be like a nice sit down restaurant, meaning you'd need a nicer profession.

Professions...that's a whole other ball game. That'd have to be really generalized, but just enough to formulate a basic idea?

Hey guys I wanted to ask, how much a dridder can live ? and how does it compare to normal human lives ?

I'm not sure what you mean by how 'much' can they live, I assume you mean how long can they live in terms of time.

The answer is unknown, as in Felarya no one dies of old age.

Anime-Junkie wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by how 'much' can they live, I assume you mean how long can they live in terms of time.

The answer is unknown, as in Felarya no one dies of old age.

Okay if a Dridder is say 10 years old by human standards, will he be 50 years old ? by dridder standards ?

By this point, she'd be giant already, so no, she'd be fully matured, or at least close to it. Here's a tip: doing some research before asking a question.

I don't think a Giant Dridder would be Giant within ten years of life, but that's just me. It sounds odd mostly because going from human-ish sized to 80+ feet would require a ton of food, but then a blue whale calf can jump hilarious amounts of size in a short period (in a single week they can grow about half a ton if well fed, assuming similar growth for a Dridder in ten years they could grow to 350 tons). I guess if a Giant Dridder was amazingly well fed they could grow to be pretty large in that time, but if they aren't getting large amounts of food they'd very be relatively static.

As for mental development, ten years is ten years. It's pretty much entirely dependent on how you have her raised and what-not. There's ten year old human children who act almost their age-again, then there's people who're nearing their 30's who act like they haven't learned a thing since childhood.

AzureJass wrote:

Hey guys I wanted to ask, how much a dridder can live ? and how does it compare to normal human lives ?

Due to Felarya's healing property, no one ages past their physical prime, and no one dies of old-age.

For humans, the physical prime occurs around 26-28 years of age.

For giant predators, this would be somewhere around age 50-60 or so.

Giant hybrids (other than fairies, since they aren't technically ever 'giant') tend to age and mature slower than humans, and generally reach full maturity (let's say, the equivalent of 21 years old for a human), around the age of 40-45 years old. It does vary slightly, depending on whether they were live-birthed, or hatched from an egg, but 40-45 is a good average for when a giant hybrid reaches full-size.

rcs619 wrote:

Due to Felarya's healing property, no one ages past their physical prime, and no one dies of old-age.

I knew the first was true, but i never knew the latter applied as well.

I thought humans just lived a REALLLLY long time.

I'd like to know something in a hypothetical sense for my story.

I'm planning a round-trip between Safe Harbor and Negav to get supplies for the settlement. I want it to take as little time as possible, two weeks max if I can. How might I go about doing that? What sort of vehicle(s) should I use? What route should I take?

Shady Knight wrote:

By this point, she'd be giant already, so no, she'd be fully matured, or at least close to it. Here's a tip: doing some research before asking a question.

Maturing isn't exactly what I am asking for.

Malahite wrote:

I don't think a Giant Dridder would be Giant within ten years of life, but that's just me. It sounds odd mostly because going from human-ish sized to 80+ feet would require a ton of food, but then a blue whale calf can jump hilarious amounts of size in a short period (in a single week they can grow about half a ton if well fed, assuming similar growth for a Dridder in ten years they could grow to 350 tons). I guess if a Giant Dridder was amazingly well fed they could grow to be pretty large in that time, but if they aren't getting large amounts of food they'd very be relatively static.

As for mental development, ten years is ten years. It's pretty much entirely dependent on how you have her raised and what-not. There's ten year old human children who act almost their age-again, then there's people who're nearing their 30's who act like they haven't learned a thing since childhood.

rcs619 wrote:

AzureJass wrote:

Hey guys I wanted to ask, how much a dridder can live ? and how does it compare to normal human lives ?

Due to Felarya's healing property, no one ages past their physical prime, and no one dies of old-age.

For humans, the physical prime occurs around 26-28 years of age.

For giant predators, this would be somewhere around age 50-60 or so.

Giant hybrids (other than fairies, since they aren't technically ever 'giant') tend to age and mature slower than humans, and generally reach full maturity (let's say, the equivalent of 21 years old for a human), around the age of 40-45 years old. It does vary slightly, depending on whether they were live-birthed, or hatched from an egg, but 40-45 is a good average for when a giant hybrid reaches full-size.

Thanks for the input guys

Quote :

Maturing isn't exactly what I am asking for.

wiktionary wrote:

Adjective
mature (comparative maturer or more mature, superlative maturest or most mature)
Fully developed; grown up in terms of physical appearance, behaviour or thinking; ripe.

Nyaha wrote:

I'd like to know something in a hypothetical sense for my story.

I'm planning a round-trip between Safe Harbor and Negav to get supplies for the settlement. I want it to take as little time as possible, two weeks max if I can. How might I go about doing that? What sort of vehicle(s) should I use? What route should I take?

I'm guessing that the safest, fastest way would be to ford the river and then bounce between villages on the way to / back from Negav. You'd - rather obviously - need some form of boat or portable bridge for this, preferably multiple for redundancy's sake. Oar-powered or engine-powered, if I had to suggest a method of travel.

Since making a boat at the river would take time, though (the same for a bridge), they'll probably need to bring it with them. Whether this means they're light enough to be carried by a group of people once emptied, that it's on a wheeled platform until in the water (letting them double as wagons for much of the trip), or so-on, they'll need some way to bring it with them.

If on wheels, or the supply group is supposed to have some scouts running along the sides to make sure the path's at least semi-safe, a few work / riding animals would probably be a good idea as well. Alternatively, a couple of wizards could do the same, but wizards seem like something that they'd want to keep in the village most of the time: Their magic is a nice boost, but also a beacon for some Giant Predators and rather helpful for defending the Harbor.

Do you mean two weeks as in both ways, or for any one direction? As I assume the above could work for a forced march, but you'd be pushing it and might need to switch out animals along the way.

Nyaha wrote:

I'd like to know something in a hypothetical sense for my story.

I'm planning a round-trip between Safe Harbor and Negav to get supplies for the settlement. I want it to take as little time as possible, two weeks max if I can. How might I go about doing that? What sort of vehicle(s) should I use? What route should I take?

The question comes to mind of what they'd be using for money.

Assuming they don't somehow have a bunch of skevols stockpiled, they are going to need something to barter with, something a Negavian merchant could sell off for an equivalent sum of skevols so he has money he can actually use in the city.

Also would depend what kind of supplies you're looking to get. The amount of space you need, and weight you need to be able to carry on the return trip will greatly influence what kind of vehicle you take there. Safe Harbor isn't that big, it should be able to be fairly self-sufficient if it's been around this long already.

[quote="rcs619]Safe Harbor isn't that big, it should be able to be fairly self-sufficient if it's been around this long already.[/quote]
In that case, I suppose supplies would mean building materials in this case, perhaps for weapons or houses.

One of my characters in the story is a skilled mechanic/carpenter, and her father has history with seafaring, so it'd make sense she could build something like what Mal has described, an amphibious craft of sorts. She's also a user of lighting-element, rule-based magic. It would make sense that she could use that to power whatever they're using, yes? Or would that draw too much attention?

Bamf. The safest and shortest route between two places is by teleporting, so if possible try and warp there and back

Wrong! Teleportation can be extremely dangerous for a very good reason: if you aren't familiar with the location you're trying to warp to, such as having never physically seen it or been there, you can very much teleport yourself off course. This, naturally, means that your party runs the risk of getting lost, and in Felarya, getting lost in the wild is pretty much a death sentence.

Oh god, this gives me an idea for a comic. xD

Actually, Para brings up a good point, right? O.o The dimensional gate by Negav, it could be used to teleport to Safe Harbor, making the trip back quicker and hazard-less, right?

Nyaha wrote:

Actually, Para brings up a good point, right? O.o The dimensional gate by Negav, it could be used to teleport to Safe Harbor, making the trip back quicker and hazard-less, right?

Far as canon makes explicit, the gate in Negav is only known to go to other worlds. You'd have to ask Karbo if it can lead you anywhere else. The Great Sagolian Gate, on the other hand, is only capable of linking to other portals, it doesn't just go anywhere either.

Standard portals are generally two-way, though we know of one-way ones... but one thing you can be sure of is that if you wanna get to Safe Harbor through a portal, you'll need a portal that leads to Safe Harbor. So far, I don't know of any... and besides, IMO, if these two locations got connected with a portal, Safe Harbor would become pretty damn pointless, pretty damn fast.


If you need a two-week trip, as you said, I recommend the river. Use a wind-powered, shallow draft* vehicle and go somewhere the shallow waters would make a giant mermaid feel restricted.

I don't see the point about connecting Negav with Safe Harbor, actually, but this reminds me of a conversation I had with Karbo when he was thinking of making 'Murmur' canon. Basically, the problem was that the innkeeper, Grigor, was intended to make a quick trip every month to Safe Harbor for supplies. Actually, from the inn's location (near the Forest of Whispers) to SH could take, what? Three weeks or more? Bad timing for an inn, right? So we came to the conclusion that we needed dimensional magic to answer Grigor's one-week-off to that town.

We intended it as something special, as something that should be for that ocassion, and thought of a hired magician to help him with that. I'd like to give it a further explanation in an upcoming story, though, but we never thought of it as something that would make Safe Harbor pointless. Precisely because of 'Murmur' and its odd location. Connecting Negav and Safe Harbor... We are talking of one of this world's biggest cities and a little town, and maybe it's just me but I don't see the point.

Anyway, as far as I know, the Negav gate is between worlds, not between locations in Felarya. Also, remember that when relocating outsiders, if they reach Negav they have a chance to go back home if the gate is connected to their world, otherwise they have to begin a new life in Felarya.

Okay, I see what you guys are saying. :3 Thanks for all the ideas, too! ^.^ I agree that using the river seems like the best bet, however....The only problem with that is that my character's weakness is water, and if travelling the river, it seems to make her presence on the trip rather meaningless. On the other hand, maybe I can work that fact into the story. Nyu, I'll figure it out. Thanks guys! ^.^

You're welcome. And in my opinion, I think that this weakness could be well played in a story, and if you use the river for that, don't be scared to use it.