D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[Paul Farquhar]

Weapons are being smuggled to lizards and the Sea Princes not Iuz.

The weapon smuggling is a recent sideline. The main smuggled goods are stored in the cave (area 27): five bolts of silk and eight casks of brandy.

Iuz is ferrying large shipments of fish. That map has a few proper sailing ships, not just fishing boats.

There are no ships of any size on the map (although it's scale is a bit screwy). And Iuz is too far away to trade in anything but high value luxury goods. Fish are not an option unless you have magical refrigeration, and even then the cost would be much greater than any potential profit. The higher the value of the commodity, the greater the distance it is traded over. Rotten fish are not a high value commodity.

 

[Hussar]

The writers of the original adventure knew a lot more about the inspiration than the authors of the rewrite (the US had 17th-18th C smuggling too, especially along the New England coast, but I don't think they knew much about it*). The 5e version needs a bit of knocking into shape to make sense.

As I said, the adventure makes no sense at all unless the goods being smuggled are heavily taxed, and being caught is a significant risk. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is just like The Phantom Menace - it's really all about tax.


*Probably should though, high import/export taxation was a major cause of the rebellion.

In the original module, Saltmarsh isn’t detailed at all. It’s left entirely to the dm. So any details you are referring to are not in the module.

 

[Zardnaar]

The weapon smuggling is a recent sideline. The main smuggled goods are stored in the cave (area 27): five bolts of silk and eight casks of brandy.

There are no ships of any size on the map (although it's scale is a bit screwy). And Iuz is too far away to trade in anything but high value luxury goods. Fish are not an option unless you have magical refrigeration, and even then the cost would be much greater than any potential profit. The higher the value of the commodity, the greater the distance it is traded over. Rotten fish are not a high value commodity.

Didn't they salt/dry fish for export?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In the original module, Saltmarsh isn’t detailed at all. It’s left entirely to the dm. So any details you are referring to are not in the module.

The taxation is implied, and the real setting can be reverse engineered from that. But the 5e version isn't far off, and works with a bit of educated interpretation.

Taking into account the rest of the U series, it is likely that this movie: City Under the Sea - Wikipedia, loosely based on The Shadow over Innsmouth but set in Cornwall, was a major inspiration.

 

[Hussar]

The weapon smuggling is a recent sideline. The main smuggled goods are stored in the cave (area 27): five bolts of silk and eight casks of brandy.

There are no ships of any size on the map (although it's scale is a bit screwy). And Iuz is too far away to trade in anything but high value luxury goods. Fish are not an option unless you have magical refrigeration, and even then the cost would be much greater than any potential profit. The higher the value of the commodity, the greater the distance it is traded over. Rotten fish are not a high value commodity.

Umm dried and/or pickled fish lasts a long time. People used to ship fish from the US to France and England.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Didn't they salt/dry fish for export?

Sometimes, but salt fish is still low profit, especially if the salt is likely to be expensive. You aren't going to be trading it more than a few days journey. And you need facilities for salting, drying or smoking (a more likely option given the implied climate), which you would expect to see on the map. More commonly, these techniques were used to store the fish for local consumption when the season prevented fishing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Umm dried and/or pickled fish lasts a long time. People used to ship fish from the US to France and England.

You can carry a low value cargo when you are carrying a high value cargo in the opposite direction, which was the case US. There is no evidence that Saltmash has a high demand for luxury goods from Iuz.

 

[Hussar]

Sometimes, but salt fish is still low profit, especially if the salt is likely to be expensive. You aren't going to be trading it more than a few days journey. And you need facilities for salting, drying or smoking (a more likely option given the implied climate), which you would expect to see on the map. More commonly, these techniques were used to store the fish for local consumption when the season prevented fishing.

There’s a fish factory on the map. Area 18.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Haven't caught up on the thread, so forgive me if this has been said:

Settings can be humanocentric, but Parties of PCs need not be. They are already exceptional people (in various ways, even if you don't go to the level of exceptionalism that some groups do, they're still exceptional) so being a rare-type doesn't bother me.

Heck, with refluffing over certain combinations, I have occasionally built PCs (or helped to build them as a DM) that are downright UNIQUE, as in really, truly, one-of-a-kind.

So I don't mind a humanocentric Greyhawk with a party of pcs who are non-human weirdos. That's my take, anyhow.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Haven't caught up on the thread, so forgive me if this has been said:

Settings can be humanocentric, but Parties of PCs need not be. They are already exceptional people (in various ways, even if you don't go to the level of exceptionalism that some groups do, they're still exceptional) so being a rare-type doesn't bother me.

Heck, with refluffing over certain combinations, I have occasionally built PCs (or helped to build them as a DM) that are downright UNIQUE, as in really, truly, one-of-a-kind.

So I don't mind a humanocentric Greyhawk with a party of pcs who are non-human weirdos. That's my take, anyhow.

Not my favorite thing. I dislike refluffing anyway, and I honestly have a hard time as a DM or a player feeling immersion when the party has little connection with the rest of the people in the setting, certainly the people the party associates with. I'd really prefer that at least someone on the team is relatable (if not necessarily actually human).