World of Sand

[wlmartin]

OK
Imagine a desert world setting (like Athas a bit)
But with one really important twist, water doesn't exist.

Mechanically, for civilized people there is a solution in something called Waterstone. Waterstone is a crystal substance that grows in deep underground caves. If heated (by a flame or such) it will produce water but due to its magical nature it can give off a lot of water for a small amount of crystal.
This means that you get about 1 litre of water from about 1 shard of waterstone weighing 5 grams. It is traded as a comodity and strictly controlled on this basis. 5 grams of waterstone is worth 1 cp, so about 500g to a gold piece (or 2gp per Kilo, equating to 100 Litres of water per gold piece

(unsure on the dynamics of this yet, may tweak it)

The point is that its treated like gold, valuable and hard to come by (mined in strictly controlled, valuable and guarded mining locations)

If i control it like this I run into a problem, how does life go on outside civilized society?

If i say that waterstone caves exist, animals and monsters grab waterstone for themselves and then just bake it in the sun to eek out the water.. great, that is do-able.

However, since I am trying to limit the availability (and increase the value) of waterstone, is this feasible? After all if it is as good as gold, its not likely to just exist without competition for the resource?

Does that mean that with this competition animal life would die out once the tribal types take it over and thus the only animal or wildlife that exists would be at such unexplored or uncotested locations fart further from organized societies/tribes?


OR... am i just making my job too difficult and should just de-value it and keep the same concept but that it is common enough that it isnt traded

 

[Dioltach]

Perhaps waterstone needs to be mined, like gold, to be extracted in quantities large enough to support civilisation. However, it also appears in small granules close to the surface, which are also of much inferior quality (gastric acids are enough to release the water, so no fire required). Animals (and less civilised cultures) spend large amounts of their time sniffing these out and digging them up.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Geographical availability is a very important factor in this. You could arguably have waterstone in hard-to-reach or otherwise unknown locations, allowing for life to florish or at leats subsist, while still keeping it extremely valuable within civilized lands.

A good example of how this works is salt. During most of human history, salt was very expensive not because there's little of it, but because most deposits were far away from the main centers of population. The Malinese, for instance, became extremely rich in the Middle Ages thanks to their control over both gold and salt deposits, that they traded extensively with Northern Africa and Europe. They had huge amounts of it, but the combination of distance, slow (and risky) means of transportation, and pretty inelastic demand (ie, no matter how much salt they traded, people still demanded more) kept it an extremely valuable commodity well into the Modern Age. And in a somewhat similar fashion as waterstones, humans need salt to live.

So maybe there are tribes out there using waterstone but without regular contact with the main centers of civilization, so their supply doesn't impact the total availability.

Maybe a local monarch could be sitting above a huge reserve of the stuff, yet keep its trade tightly controlled because that's the source of his wealth (or because of some cultural/religious rule that forbids mass-trading of the stuff).

Perhaps they could be trated like silkworms, which for a long time were forbidden from trade because keeping silk available only in the Far East meant both the Islamic and Christian worlds were forced to use the Silk Route and thus provide extensive monetary benefits to the Mongols who controlled it.

Point is, even if there was an entire mountain of the stuff half the way across the world, sustaining an entire jungle full of life, it would have little or no effect on it's price if there was no reliable manner of transporting it all the way back to civilization. And even if someone figured out how, they would most likely keep the method to themselves and roll in the cash its regulated trade would provide.

 

[wlmartin]

I love that idea

Perhaps it is dirtier and worse for you as well... You could survive on it but not very well. Perhaps part of getting digestion process is eating moss or some kind of flora that instead of the animals rating the crystals they need to digest the plants, of which the water is drawn from... Like koala do with bamboo

So in the wilds there could be patches of this stuff, perhaps even some foliage around it as well and the wildlife is drawn to these patches and if someone gets stuck in the wild without water they could seek these spots and suck on some moss or dirty grass to get by, what do you think?

 

[wlmartin]

Good point Cristian

I appreciate the detail, thank you

I think I am going to incorporate the idea of dioltach and yours.
Keeping the big deposits of water stone far from civilisation (so either undiscovered or there just isn't a big population using it enough to give them power over others) as well as small deposits existing all over, close to the surface but offering a poor, diluted and potentially dirty supply as either granulas that can be eaten or that feed small plant life that is consumed and the water drawn from that.

It is likely that with this small deposit scenario, waterstone could even be in all of the sand, it is too diluted to offer any benefit normally but in certain areas it is more concentrated. Even win this concentration, this is not an indication of large deposits (ie it is not a big X suggesting drilling down in that spot) but is more the where variations/mutations in the sand containing the fragments of water stone build up over time.

Perhaps there is a water table effect that exists under the sand and within this water table is granular waterstone that has worked its way up from the cavernous hard stones further down

I don't know geology but I think I have enough loose logic to make it believable

 

[Umbran]

Now, do remember something.

A person in a hot climate can sweat a half-gallon of water a day, even when inactive. The standard used for emergency preparedness is that each person needs at least a gallon of water a day for drinking and sanitation. Let's say the culture has worked things out, so people only need 2 liters a day.

London, in the year 1100, had a population of 15,000. They would go through 330 pounds of your waterstone each and every day, at a bare minimum. They go through 5 tons of it in a month, or 60 tons a year. Again, that's bare minimum. That's no longer a hoarded rarity - that's something you need a steady stream supply in regular shipments. That's, "If we don't have it, we die," which rapidly becomes, "we will storm the castle and take it if we think the lord has a stockpile in a siege."

Wars can and will be fought over this. Those mines will be in the center of hotly contested lands. If the common folk don't get their water, they will be forced to take it (as opposed to gold - you can live without gold). If folk don't get their water, support for those rich individuals who have it will dry up nigh instantly.

 

[wlmartin]

I had a way to combat that funnily enough


Close to the surface waterstone that is underground in caverns but numerous in quantity. It supports wildlife somewhat (you still need to farm/mine it to get it out of the crystal environment it is in) but it's cloudy and not pleasant to drink.

So let's say 2g of waterstone gives you 2litres, that's worth a copper piece and is the commoner source for water.

Then you have 2 grades of waterstone that are better (one is clear and like tap water for us, worth a gp and one is like spring water and worth a plat piece) so you create a situation that encourages the commodization of water but also creates a class / wealth restricted use of the different qualities.

Since these waterstone caverns would be miles apart, in blistering heat, it creates a job class of people that brave the heat and mine waterstone in these spots, returning back to trade it.

The refining process (to prevent someone from just walking into a cavern, breaking off 10kg growing in a wall of waterstone and making a fortune) would either be where it's hidden within Rock or other crystals so that effort to get to the waterstone creates effort proportionate to the value

What do you think?

 

[Jhaelen]

OK
Imagine a desert world setting (like Athas a bit)
But with one really important twist, water doesn't exist.
[...]
The point is that its treated like gold, valuable and hard to come by (mined in strictly controlled, valuable and guarded mining locations)
[...]
If i say that waterstone caves exist, animals and monsters grab waterstone for themselves and then just bake it in the sun to eek out the water.. great, that is do-able.

I'm not sure I understand your premise. Obviously water does exisit in your setting - since it can be extracted from your waterstones.

So, what's the 'twist'? Just that the stones are easier to carry around?

Also, wouldn't it be easier (especially for animals) to extract water from the body fluids of other creatures?

What I'm also not getting from your description: Does plant life exist in your setting at all? If not, then all organisms must be predators/carnivores. If there are plants, then how do they get their water?

Also, considering Umbran's remark: All organisms evaporate water. Wouldn't that water eventually saturate the atmosphere, resulting in rain - somewhere?

I just don't get how the cycle of life is supposed to work if there is no (fluid) water anywhere, but all organisms still require it (and are likely mostly made from it). Imho, they must either represent a completely closed system, not exchanging water with their environment at all, or they'd have to be lifeforms that don't require water to live.

 

[wlmartin]

I'm not sure I understand your premise. Obviously water does exisit in your setting - since it can be extracted from your waterstones.

So, what's the 'twist'? Just that the stones are easier to carry around?

That water has a different manifestation really.
It doesn't flow in rivers, it doesn't rain or isn't part of the ecology or climate.

I wanted to completely remove it from the campaign and then reinsert it artificially, but for that to make sense to the creatures in the world.

From an evolution point of view, I may well put down a historical entry for the world living as a normal run of the mill, a catastrophe happens and we get sand land.
This will explain why humans/elves exist since a world where water is in constraint wouldn't produce an evolutionary path that leads to a typical human/elf/dwarf but instead some kind of desertborn creature... i dont want that so if it is needed, i can explain it as such

Also, wouldn't it be easier (especially for animals) to extract water from the body fluids of other creatures?

Not really, since water in an animal/creature has to have a source and without water, how do these creatures survive in the first place to be eaten?

What I'm also not getting from your description: Does plant life exist in your setting at all? If not, then all organisms must be predators/carnivores. If there are plants, then how do they get their water?

Plant life may exist in/around the spots where publicly accesible waterstone is available.
Plant life may exist underground in some fungus/mushroom type
Plant life may be grown if given water to do so (within settlements that work such)

Also, considering Umbran's remark: All organisms evaporate water. Wouldn't that water eventually saturate the atmosphere, resulting in rain - somewhere?

I just don't get how the cycle of life is supposed to work if there is no (fluid) water anywhere, but all organisms still require it (and are likely mostly made from it). Imho, they must either represent a completely closed system, not exchanging water with their environment at all, or they'd have to be lifeforms that don't require water to live.

Yes and no

If organisms evaporate water, it wouldn't be significant enough to constitute cloud and rainfall.
Typically rain is formed when winds pickup moisture from expanses of water and take it up into the clouds.
Since there are no water expanses in my world, that really wouldn't happen or it would be close enough to argue that it is explainable that it doesn't (from a "this is d&D after all" argument)

I do get what you are coming up with but i am not looking for a perfect system that can be mathematically modeled, i want it to be realistic enough that it can be believed.

Telling people that there is no water, thus no rain and water comes from waterstones that people consume but this cycle doesnt contribute to rain or climate is in my opinion believable.

Telling people there is no water and miss out on the fact that people need to drink and survive breaks the illusion.

 

[wlmartin]

I really love the ideas put forward but on reflection I realize that it just might be too much home brew to take water out of the campaign as much as I am.

Like has been said, water is so integral to what we see as life that unless I remove the need for it, fudging the use of it just creates more problems than it's worth.

After all, if I remove air but then have people breathing from pouches with magical air, it's interesting but d&d has so many ways of being interesting that I don't need to hamstring myself so much.

My plan instead is to keep with a desert world but put water underground.
It still restricts the availability somewhat, it does keep my world as I want it free from rain and overland water sources like rivers and lakes.

It also does create the need for people to be studious about where they get water from. Not every overland area is going to hold a water source nearby but likely settlements will be built on the top of areas that allow wells to keep a constant flow of water in

This also gives me opportunities for underground encounters and different Eco systems and monster groups than the sandy world would bring. I may not take that idea too far and just leave it as a (dig down get water) resource

It also means I don't have to cripple the water elements or spells that create water.

Thanks for all the ideas