Worth One's Salt - GM Log

We have a rather light GM log this week, The episode was a quiet one compared to the previous ones both on mechanics and the setting side but I still have a few comments I want to make on the setting.

Setting

Grandfather clock

We take timekeeping for granted. A simple gaze at our phones (or watch for those of us who still use them) will tell us the time. It’s in our cars, displayed on most screens we encounter as we travel, but for a major part of history, time was guessed. The sun was our greatest indicator for a long while, then water helped us measure the passage of time and eventually, we were able to create mechanisms to accurately calculate its flow.

These great mechanisms required great care and were expensive to produce. They were quite rare but were useful to many people. These mechanisms called verge escapement (or crown wheel) were built throughout Europe in large tower clocks in town squares, cathedrals, and monasteries and called time for everyone around. They were the most used method of keeping time from the 13th century to the mid-17th century when the pendulum clock was invented.

I refer to a clock tower in the episode and position it in Krezk in Barovia. This is non-cannon, it’s something I added to the abbey of Saint Markovia in our previous campaign. It was, even then, a curiosity for the players who had never seen such a feat of ingenuity up close.

The grandfather clock (or pendulum clock) in Lord Georgiy’s sitting room is a bit of an anachronism as Lamordia’s setting is close to our 1550s and the first pendulum clock was built in 1656, but I am keeping it to contrast once more how much of a technological gap there is between Barovia and Lamordia. Galileo’s studies on pendulums were key to reducing the size of clocks. You see, the period of swing of a pendulum is approximately the same for different-sized swings. Keep the pendulum swinging and you have a great timekeeper. A standard grandfather clock uses a Royal pendulum 0.994m (39.1 in) long in which the time period is 2 seconds.

Two-Headed Eagle

I chose the two-headed eagle for a very simple reason, in heraldic language it’s the most used symbol to represent the concept of an empire. As Georgiy explains very briefly to the Barovians, Lamordia is made up of several principalities, unified under the Grand Duke (or Tsar), ruling in Ludenvo. Each region has their ruler, as we will see, named Boyars (meaning prince).

The two-headed eagle first originated in Sumeria 3800 BC and has been used by the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, France just to name a few.

Food in Barovia vs. Lamordia

At the end of the episode, we talk about food again. As with the meal they shared with Alyosha, our adventurers are not acquainted with the food they eat at the guard’s table. As a person who loves food and food history; it’s details I pay great attention to. You’ll never encounter a potato in one of my games! (Potatoes originate from America and in a setting inspired by European Middle Ages, they would not be brought back to the old continent before the mid-1500s. Russia famously resisted the tuber until the mid-1800s) Of course, I could decide otherwise and make potatoes native to Lamordia and that’d be it. But I find pleasure in sticking to a more accurate depiction of living conditions and so do my players.

If you look at a map of Barovia with food in mind, you’ll be in the same position I was. How the hell do Barovians manage to produce food? The land itself is already stuck in a perpetual fall, the passing of season does not really seem to happen and Strahd keeps the rays of the sun away from the land by always keeping a cloud cover over Barovia. It’s obvious that any large-scale agriculture would fail in these conditions. But even if it was sunny in Barovia and the seasons were normal, Barovia is in a mountainous region with dense forest. Chances are the soil is rather poor and hard to work with. Usually, populations in this type of situation will turn livestock, although here I fear it would be impossible on account of the packs of dire wolves Strahd keeps to terrify and hunt the populace. We are left with foraging and hunting.

Compared to Barovia, Lamordia has a wide variety of food sources. They have large fields where they grow grains and raise livestock as well as access to the sea on which they sail to fish fishes and shellfish. They also have the salt mines that allow them to preserve their food for the long winters, a situation the Barovians did not have to live through. Here’s a side-to-side comparison of the Barovian and Lamordian diet:

Barovian food relies on foraging (nuts, berries, fruits, herbs, wild vegetables), fishing in lakes and rivers and hunting while Lamordian food relies on large scale agriculture of grains, the herding of animals for meat and dairy and the open sea for fishing.

Wizard of the Wines

Custom label for the Red Dragon Crush by Carina Tous (you can get all label for the Wizard of the Wines wines for your games from her Etsy shop for $USD 1.04 and they look so GOOD)

The Wizard of the Wines is a winery in Barovia and it’s quite literally the only thing that still brings joy to its inhabitants. The fact that it can grow grapes on its parcel of land despite the lack of sun is quite a miracle and a well-hidden trade secret. The Red Dragon Crush and the Champagne du le Stomp vintages are renowned as being some of the greatest wines of the multiverse and can only be purchased through the Vistani, while the Purple Grapemash No. 3 is a bit less remarkable, it still sells at a good price outside of Barovia. I plug them (and the players too) whenever possible.