So I just posted this elsewhere, but I figured I would make a new thread for it as well, as it took me a hour or so to put together.
Lets see what kind of profits the colony of Farshore can possibly rake from their hard labor.
Lets look at the island. It is tropical. Tropical lands are very different than more polar latitudes. For instance the Bamiléké of Cameroon had family farms that averaged 3 Hectares or roughly 7 1/2 acres. And that is circa 1987. Two friends of mine bought 1 acre of land in the highlands of Honduras and have managed to pay the bills working just that 1 acre of land. They may live leanly (in fact it turns out when you farm 1 acre of land in honduras, you live like the guy next to you farming 1 acre of land, that is you are starving a little) but 2 or 3 acres would do them very well.
That is becasue of growing seasons. In North America if you plant corn in a field you will get 1 crop of corn that year. Maybe you will plant a winter crop in the field, and get some yield from that,but more liekly you let the field go fallow for a year or two and then plant it again. Traditional farming that is. The crop rotation method.
In the tropics, there are various means of farming, but especially good farmland, like that found in Costa Rica, can be planted and harvested upwards of four or five times a year. That is because there is no winter there. And dependant on rain patterns, you can grow rainy season crops and dry season crops. This vasty increases your yield per acre of land, and allows for the increased production of cash crops.
That brings us to the more important point, cash crops. You are not going to be growing wheat to compete with other wheat growers, once set to market in Sasserine or beyond. In Farshore you are going to be growing rare spices. How rare and how much do/did these spices cost? Lets look at 14th century costs for spices in Europe.
Saffron 1lb cost 12 shillings to 15shillings
Pepper 1lb cost 4 shillings
And here are wages for a 14th century Thatcher and his mate.
1 days work = 3 pence for a Thatcher
1 days work = 1 pence for a Thatcher's mate
1 shilling = 12 pence (d)
So a Master Thatcher (which was a good skilled job back in the 14th century) would have to work 16 days to buy 1 lb of pepper. The same Thatcher would have to work 48 days to buy 1lb of Saffron (a rather large amount of said spice, but still).
And just incase you were wondering about earlier times:
In Diocletian's day 3rd Century CE or AD) a pound of ginger cost 5,000 days wages (18.5 years, with 270 workdays per year); but in 1875, only 1.4 days' pay.
So the net result is that spices, because of their rarity, were an excellent way to make a small farm make big bucks. In Sumatra your average pepper plant yields 12lbs of pepper a year. Figure you have an Acre of said plants. Each plant needs a tree to be grafted upon (to grow it in Indian fashion). Figure 100 trees per acre. That means that you are producing 1,200lbs of pepper a year. Or in other words, you are producing wealth equal to the yearly labor of roughly 71 Master Thatchers or 210 Thatcher Mates. Thats a dang good cash crop. Now you will not be getting all of that wealth of course. You will get some, some will be reinvested into your farm, some will go to pay local taxes, a lot will be taken by the merchant who transports the spices to market, and a bit will be taken by the spice trader or spice seller in the market town. But still, even if you only get 10% profit, you are still making 7 times the living off of 1 acre of land that the average Skilled Tradesman is making back in Sasserine or Greyhawk city.
And to top it all Pepper plants are grown along side other crops. In Sumatra the ground is cleared, ploughed, and sown with rice, and cuttings of the pepper vine are planted in September, 5 ft. apart each way, together with a sapling of quick growth and rough bark. In India they use trees with rough bark, perhaps such as fruit trees or nut trees, thus doubling the use of the land, getting both personal use food stuffs and a cash crop off of the same acre.
Lastly, the thing to consider is other island populations. People went to the Orkney's to get away from it all, and to scrape out a living far from the eyes of the law. People went to the West Indies to get rich not to build small family farms. Thats why slaves were imported for labor. Huge plantations (compared to the amount of land needed to support a family) were set up and slave labor worked them to make one family very, very, very rich.
In this case, Lavinia is not interested in slave labor (although if the players pick the evil tract, maybe that is somethign they should look into, getting folks drunk and loading them unto their ships, taking them to Farshore to work the plantations till they die....hmm....). Instead she is going to sell the lands, and make money off of transporting the goods. She will probably also run a large plantation on the island, but her main interest it seems is in shipping not farming. But she needs folks to farm the land if that is going to be the case.
As another poster said there are about 12,800 Acres of land avaliable on the island. Lets say that only 1/3 of that is good arable land for spices, the other 1/3 left for timber, and the last 1/3 for pasture lands and sustenance crops. That means that the island could support 1,400, small, 3 acre farms, each raising 1 acre of spices and 2 acres of food stuffs, leaving 4,200 acres for a grazing commons. Now in the prairie west of the US, you want 15 acres per cow or 4 acres per sheep, meaning only 285 cows or 1,060 sheep could be grazed. Chickens on the other hand, according to modern “Free-Range” constraints are to be limited to 300-400 per acre, although this means using feed. But even if one were to limit it to 3 chickens an acre, that would still mean between 9-18 chickens per colonist family, more than enough to keep them in eggs and meat. But considering this is the tropics and there is a longer growing season and more productive land, one would probably be safe double or even quadrupling the number of animals that could be put on the pasture lands, meaning enough animals for the colony to not need to import leather, meat, and cheeses. And that would still leave 4,200 acres of timber that can be harvested for fuel, building materials, export, and medicines (natural remedies and what not).
So it total, such an island, were it to produce pepper, in large amounts, could, in 14th century prices, produce 1.7 million lbs of pepper a year, worth 6.8 million shillings. Now even if shillings were equal to silver pieces, that means a total crop value for the island of 680,000gp. Heck even if they are equal to copper pieces you still rake in 68,000gp. I qould probably fudge towards the silver piece price. Figure 10-15% goes to Farshore (vastly incresing their finances), 25-40% goes to Lavinia (who has to take losses, such as building ships, losing ships dissapearing, paying crews, destroyed or stolen cargos, ect.), and the final 45-65% would be made by the Spice merchants of Sasserine, northern traders, and the small market sellers and stores that pander the spices to the individual consumers. Now you see why Lavinia and her parents, heck everybody is interested in opening and developing this market.
And all of these numbers do not reflect the trade possibilities with native olmans, harvesting timber and spices from other non-inhabited islands, or even the more aggressive prospect of taking over the Olman lands.
All in all I think that the prospects are good for the farshore colony. And I also believe that there are great reasons for folks wanting to leave Sasserine or the bitter North and come down South to start a new life and make a great profit, in the colony of Farshore.
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Not to mention the plundering of a 1000+ year old fallen empire on the Isle of Dread, the rare and exotic animals to be traded or hunted for resources, Olman crafted items, and whatever bounty the sea in such an area can provide. Heck, Ten-towns in the Realms survives on trading Knucklehead trout bone Shrimshaw and pretty much nothing else except a small amount of dwarf-forged items. I would say Farshore will become a very very rich town in the near future.
FH
Not to mention the plundering of a 1000+ year old fallen empire on the Isle of Dread, the rare and exotic animals to be traded or hunted for resources, Olman crafted items, and whatever bounty the sea in such an area can provide. Heck, Ten-towns in the Realms survives on trading Knucklehead trout bone Shrimshaw and pretty much nothing else except a small amount of dwarf-forged items. I would say Farshore will become a very very rich town in the near future.
FH
Yah this is my point, Farshore is well set up to make some serious cash, depending on the specifics of the spice trade in Oerth and what spices are avaliable. But yah, there are a number of other important resources that they can cash in on. Also there is the possibility (though it be heresey to some) of trade with more Southernly kingdoms (I have seen some home made maps that include some, and the official maps show lands further south). Farshore could become a town which buys northernly goods with their local made products, and trades them South for even more exotic goods, which it could then trade North, for more goods...ect.
wineyards is another great moneymaker. Especially with some really esxcellent winemakers... heck, making millions elsewhere, im sure the Vanderboren trading EMPIRE can afford a few crafting items with a +100 on skillrolls ;)
Looking at quitessential aristocrat has some rules for making money from wineyards.. more millions to be earned for sure ;)
Then theres all those mountain ranges with untold mineral wealth.. seas full of pearls and korall.. and FISH. Fish was a huge moneymaker back in the old times, and it funded shipbuilding...
And depending upon the world, the island just might be located in between some pretty significant areas, like in FR, right in the middle between Daerun, maztica and land of fate. Now that should provide for untold trade opportunities.
Hey mabe they get a geniebuilt (dao do stonewall and stoneshape at will) capital up there on the mesa once its all said and done?
Herbs and beasts from the jungle, and who knows how much extradimensional business one can set up with TWO planejumping engines? :D
Hey, they might even want to do DIPLOMACY (issue 144) in their own account once its all said and done.. I wonder how well a straigh cashoffer of 20 million, delivered here and now, will do? ;) ..or whatever else players pick up, like a full demogorgon simulcra..
psst, think a pound of pepper goes at 20-50 gold..
But don't forget such things as plant growth, invoke fertilizer and weather control.. im sure you can easily multiply the yield with magic to 4*
And selling 1,7million lbs.. puuh, better try 1/10 the land, ie 170.000 lbs base yield, with magic to 680.000 lbs at 30 gold a pound at ~20 millions :)
Yeah distribution, but im sure that can be arranged too.
Hey, a portal goes at 50k, which is small potatoes.. set up 20 and we should be able to cover most of the centres of trade. And thats a bare million. Nothing!
Next year we could have another 100 portals, the way business expands..
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As an aside: Rich Berlew over at The Order of the Stick site has an NPC class that would fit in well in an up and coming agricultural area: The Gleaner
Basically a stripped down druid with some extra AG spells to help in a natural environment. This would be a good place to intro these into the campaign world.
FH
Yah, I love the introduction of serious social studies into the Magical Medieval World. Speaking of which, folks like me, should check out the books by expeditious retreat press, on Magical Medieval Societies. They are really well written and have cool and great ideas for the consequences of magic in a Medieval world.
The pepper prices (as I did not have my D&D books on me at the time) were based upon actual world prices in Europe in the 14th century.
Of course in D&D portals, druidic magic, and other means of non-traditional transportation would mean that prices for distant goods would most likely be lower because of ease of transportation. Yet, conversely they might be higher because of increased dangers (real 14th century sailors had to only deal with the occasional pirate, plague, shoal, or storm, D&D merchants have to deal with all of those plus roving monsters, Kraken, magically enhanced pirates, ect). In the end I would expect D&D prices to be roughly the same for goods as real world prices are.
Its not really accurate to look at the value of Pepper in India then look at its value in Europe and presume that the Isle of Dread = India and Sasserine = Europe. Pepper has gone through an outrageous number of middle men in the interim and each of them have raised the price. A better comparison might be sugar from the Caribbean versus its price in New York during colonial times. Or maybe the value of Cloves in the Spice Islands versus their value in the trading city of Malacca.
That vast fortune made from spices was not made by the guys growing the spices most of the money would be made by traders and if there where any significant number of traders the value of the product would drop like a rock. Note how the dutch would exicute anyone trying to steal a Clove tree from the Spice Islands. It was critical for the value of the product that they maintain a monopoly and that cloves where not introduced into other places and grown there. When Cloves where eventually stolen and grown elsewhere (Today Zanzibar is the biggest exporter of Cloves) the price collapsed. Furthermore all of that presumes that they grow something on the Isle of Dread that is both in demand in say the city of Greyhawk and is not available from some other source. Something I sincerely doubt as there is almost no historical trade between the Isle of Dread and the rest of the continent. There can't be demand since there is no product.
That is not to say that there is not money to be made here - at least for the aristocrats at the top and the merchants doing the trading (as opposed to the unfortunate labourers at the bottom) but it would take some time to set up and if one wanted to delve into a darker themed campaign one might cut costs by raiding the Amedio Jungle for slaves to work the spice fields and/or enslaving the Olmec natives. Certainly this might make for a pretty interesting campaign itself or as part of say a stronghold type campaign on top of the one that's already being played (players establish lands - clear it build keeps and set up trade routes etc.) but mountains of gold are unlikely to result from farming cash crops on the Isle of Dread. More likely one imports a spice from somewhere else and sets up shop competing with other sources of said spice. The prices in the DMG are probably not a bad place to start but keep in mind that their worth only a fraction of the value where the product is made – to get full price one must first grow it – then put it on a ship and finally take it to the City of Greyhawk (or another likely port).
wineyards is another great moneymaker. Especially with some really esxcellent winemakers... heck, making millions elsewhere, im sure the Vanderboren trading EMPIRE can afford a few crafting items with a +100 on skillrolls
Too hot for vinyards; wine grape varieties grow best in cooler climates (e.g., France, California coastal valleys, Washington State. Even New York and Germany produce some excellent whites). Sorry, I'm a total wine dork. I've got to be the only player I know with a wizard character who has max ranks in Craft (winemaking) and Knowledge (vinticulture). Fantasy grapes in your campaign can of course grow anywhere.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Sorry, I'm a total wine dork.And yet you left out Oregon, which is certainly up there for US wine production :) (Washington does more production, but Oregon definitely has some prime grape growing areas). Although my understanding is that Washington is considered a "warm" grape region by and large, though there are coastal wineries. Oregon is more of a "cool" grape region (hence the pinot noir reputation, vs. Washington's merlot), though again the southern Oregon wineries are warm. California likewise runs the range of temperatures.
In agreement that the Isle of Dread is not really where you'd grow wine grapes, though - more of a temperate thing.
Russ
Its not really accurate to look at the value of Pepper in India then look at its value in Europe and presume that the Isle of Dread = India and Sasserine = Europe. Pepper has gone through an outrageous number of middle men in the interim and each of them have raised the price. A better comparison might be sugar from the Caribbean versus its price in New York during colonial times. Or maybe the value of Cloves in the Spice Islands versus their value in the trading city of Malacca.
That vast fortune made from spices was not made by the guys growing the spices most of the money would be made by traders and if there where any significant number of traders the value of the product would drop like a rock. Note how the dutch would exicute anyone trying to steal a Clove tree from the Spice Islands. It was critical for the value of the product that they maintain a monopoly and that cloves where not introduced into other places and grown there. When Cloves where eventually stolen and grown elsewhere (Today Zanzibar is the biggest exporter of Cloves) the price collapsed. Furthermore all of that presumes that they grow something on the Isle of Dread that is both in demand in say the city of Greyhawk and is not available from some other source. Something I sincerely doubt as there is almost no historical trade between the Isle of Dread and the rest of the continent. There can't be demand since there is no product.
That is not to say that there is not money to be made here - at least for the aristocrats at the top and the merchants doing the trading (as opposed to the unfortunate labourers at the bottom) but it would take some time to set up and if one wanted to delve into a darker themed campaign one might cut costs by raiding the Amedio Jungle for slaves to work the spice fields and/or enslaving the Olmec natives. Certainly this might make for a pretty interesting campaign itself or as part of say a stronghold type campaign on top of the one that's already being played (players establish lands - clear it...
I totally realize this. I had created the original post to argue that Farshore, had the capability of being very, very prosperous, and that there were good reasons for people to move there and for Lavinia to finance such movement.
I realize that a lot of money changed even more hands in the spice trade, and that also this trade was only so successful because it was built over 2,000-3,000 years by the Greeks, Romans, Indians, and central Asian peoples, not to mention Arabs, North and Eastern Africans, and the Ottoman empire, and of course the Crusades (which expanded Europe's market for Eastern spices considerably).
I was using pepper as an example crop, to show how a island the size of Farshore, in it's particular climate, could be a very profitable place. I actually am starting to think of it as somewhat similar to the spice Islands off the coast of India.
Sure the Atlantic sugar trade would be a better example, but of course it is later (16th-19th century) and was triangulated by the so-called "middle passage" in which slaves were brought from Africa to South, Central, and a lesser extent, North America. This changes a lot of factors, adding in that sugar is available through other, less profitable sources, such as honey, and beets, and you have once again, an imperfect analogy.
But in the end, by trading exotic woods, medicinal plants, furs (think the Hudson Bay company), spices, herbs, and maybe even gems and metals, along side fish, I suspect that Farshore could make a pretty penny, for the middle men, and maybe even become well to do, if Lavinia shares the wealth around.
okie.. so by living in the frozen wastelands i cannot quite distinguish between tropical and just warmer climates ;)
Anyway, shouldnt the plateau be cooler?
Sorry, I'm a total wine dork. I've got to be the only player I know with a wizard character who has max ranks in Craft (winemaking) and Knowledge (vinticulture). Fantasy grapes in your campaign can of course grow anywhere.
[off-topic] A player in one of my campaings had a wizard (now recently deceased) with the skill wine tasting... [/off-topic]
Hagor
oh finally used the map on page 33 (dungeon 143), that one allowed me to fit in a 5*5 miles square.
And that is 16000 acres (psst.. no doubt used km, 8km and a wrong conversion 2 instead of 2,5 for ha to acres, since that would give precisely 12800 acres)
And thats just the tiniest little island.. lol
Imagine using the rest of the rather gargantuan island!!!
oh one more thing, went over the calculations and found one 1/3 too many..
Ie lets take 16000 acres for the island.
Use maybe 4000 of those acres, 1200 lbs/acre (+fruits/nuts etc) = 4.800.000 LBS!!!
Now sell that for the ridiculously low price of 10gp/lbs.. hey encourage alchemists to produce peppersprays, I bet many aristocrettes would love that :D
48 million, wow, thats quite a bit to spend..
And yet, thats only the barest beginning! The business can expand 1000 fold from that!
Heheheh, Vanderboren will not march back to sasserine, WE just might buy the whole peninsula east of the hellfurnaces if we like it, lol.
Shouldnt be much more than 500 million gp, a bare 3 days income in a few years of growth.
oh will we be needing specialized picking golems or what.. some spidery model with 200 arms and a bag under their centerbody?
oh one more thing, went over the calculations and found one 1/3 too many..
Ie lets take 16000 acres for the island.
Use maybe 4000 of those acres, 1200 lbs/acre (+fruits/nuts etc) = 4.800.000 LBS!!!Now sell that for the ridiculously low price of 10gp/lbs.. hey encourage alchemists to produce peppersprays, I bet many aristocrettes would love that :D
48 million, wow, thats quite a bit to spend..
And yet, thats only the barest beginning! The business can expand 1000 fold from that!
99.9% of the population is lucky if it makes a single gold piece in a month. You have no market to sell your product to. They simply can't afford your prices outside of oh maybe a few dozen people in a large city most of whom won't buy much more then a pound of anything in a year. Presuming you have a product that keeps and is somehow worth 10 gp a pound you'll rapidly saturate the market.
just dumping the maximum limit in each city, thats fully according to any understanding how the world works... yeah, i know thats closer to 300 cities at the barest minimum, but it can be done..
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99.9% of the population is lucky if it makes a single gold piece in a month.
Oh? An unskilled worker (no ranks in profession) earns an average of 2.2 gp per month (1 sp per day), assuming 30 day months and two days off per week. However, a 1st-level commoner with 4 ranks in profession and no Wis modifier can earn 28 gp per month (assuming an average die roll or just taking 10).
A player in one of my campaings had a wizard (now recently deceased) with the skill wine tasting...
We use Appraisal for that, in my homebrew campaigns; it's also good for tea tasting, liquor quality gauging, and any number of Bond-like comments: "Brandy doesn't have vintages, 007!" "I was referring to the wine from which the brandy was distilled, sir." The possibilities are limitless!
99.9% of the population is lucky if it makes a single gold piece in a month.Oh? An unskilled worker (no ranks in profession) earns an average of 2.2 gp per month (1 sp per day), assuming 30 day months and two days off per week. However, a 1st-level commoner with 4 ranks in profession and no Wis modifier can earn 28 gp per month (assuming an average die roll or just taking 10).
See page 105 of the DMG for what your average NPC is earning in a day. I'm low but I think your a bit high for the average worker with the 28 gp. This chart looks pretty close to older editions of Greyhawk as well and I suspect is pretty close to cannon.
...lol, that must reflect the difference between the value what a worker produces, and what the employer pays.
Patricans are quite busy exploiting the proleteriat, i see :D
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Other good potential crops include vanilla, cocoa, dyes like carmine/cochineal, logwood, indigo, henna or turmeric, and fibers like sisal(might be too rainy to grow), jute(aka burlap, needs monsoons), or manilla hemp(related to the banana, so Temute can probably cultivate it). Since Sasserine has a thriving whaling industry, I'd also look for things to turn into perfume to sell to the ambergris merchants, like cinnamon, corriander, nutmeg and mace, ylang-ylang, various citrus, and copal. Also, an oil crop (like oil palm, coconut, or cocoa) to extract the perfumes steam and water distilation can't, and for food. If there's carnauba, wax might be a viable export.