1. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    Medieval Food Storage and a Question

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by JPClyde, Jul 4, 2017.

    So. I'm well depth in medieval food storage. Often preserving foods by drying, pickling, salting, etc. The question is more or less is it a copout if magic allows magic user to actually freeze food? Considering that they have cold magic. And such.
     
  2. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    No, it's not a copout, provided you address the consequences of it on the world. If it's widely available, those will be vast, and may reach into areas you wouldn't expect. Better nutrition and wider food choice, less food waste, possible rise of an equivalent of supermarkets, and--if your society had a division of labor similar to the early twentieth century in our world--you may see a rise in feminism and women working outside the home.
     
  3. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    That's actually a common myth. Especially during the Black Plague woman had a lot of power in politics and were already working. A lot of what we think we know of the medieval period, damsels in distress, were actually historically written as early as the Victorian era. When woman were seen as well damsels in distress. It was actually the rise of the Church that had woman suppressed. More and more documents detail woman who owned their own businesses, woman who were in power, and even accounts of woman being able to chose suitors if they like.

    Except my world doesn't necessarily fall into our world history anyway. Medieval is more close to the atmosphere. And due to some jinky mechanics in the world, true technology cannot exist in this world. For it would actually destroy the people living there instead of making it better.

    I was thinking more like "coolers" for the upper classmen and such in their big noble houses.
     
  4. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I don't see any problem with the use of magic for food preservation. Sounds like a good use of magic to me. What would be the cop out part?
     
  5. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    Oh that magic allows them to do it in general, in a world that will be barely modernized. Except its sort of Medieval meant Renaissance and Enlightenment era in some of the Kingdoms because of it. But as said there are some laws in this world that would not allow technology to exist completely in their world. Not like ours at least.
     
  6. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    I'm well aware of women's role in the medieval period, and that it's wider than the pop culture image. It still doesn't change the fact that pre-refrigerator cooking of enough food for three meals for the whole family could take all day. I speak from experience with my great-grandmother, who worked from scratch most of the time, as she had before.

    Refrigerators and freezers helped cut the time required substantially, and that allows more time for other pursuits.

    I didn't say it did, I was citing a real world period to make a point for something that could exist in a fictional world.

    In that case, you're probably not going to have much in the way of consequences. Maybe more foods from further away for the elite. You do need to make sure there's a reason it's restricted, though. The easiest explanation being that it's too expensive for anyone else.
     
  7. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    I was giving a bit wee bit more information. The other bit might have been mistaken what you were saying, sorry bout that. I get confused.

    Well there is a reason it is restricted. Mostly Religious. In a nutshell, in this world people are touched at a young age by a "God" [they're more like demigods really they aren't real gods gods] and these "Gods" speak to them.

    The best way of saying it without like giving you a giant paragraph; Was in Ancient Times, there were several beings before humans known as the Architects. They are the founders of the laws of magic. And they more or less represented simple virtues that acted as their nature and magic. Virtue, Justice, Charity, Order, Law, etc. Some of the earliest humans worshiped the Architects as Gods. Then one of the earliest fell in love with an Architect of Love.

    Who created the divergent "Human" Bloodlines different from each other. Order, Law, Charity, Hubris, and Justice did not appreciate their fellow brothers and sisters sleeping with the "earliest humans". Thus they created zealot fanatics, who nearly wiped the Architects from an existence not in the physical world, were then cast out of the world the Architects and "Humans" once occupied together. And the Five Sects of Order were created across the land. These sects follow the commands of Order, Law, Charity, Justice, and Hubris. Who painted anyone who could not hear their voice as basically evil.

    Thus hilariously, people who are Empresses and Emperors, Nobles, and Elite, think they are in control. When in fact the voices of the "God" they so follow is the one controlling how they think about something. In the end the Architects do not want the faith and worship in them to vanish, and thus these spirits who embody beliefs will do anything in their power to keep their power. Controlling food. Controlling central powers. Controlling those who could oppose them.

    ^Apparently Giant Paragraph could not be avoided and the giant paragraph is still too short to really explain it in full. If interested I'll just go ahead and PM you the whole damn thing.
     
  8. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    Don't worry about it.

    I think you've got everything set up well, so no copout in sight. Since this is possible, you may want to consider whether similar applications are possible, like air conditioning. Or, inversely, heating homes.
     
  9. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    Yes I wanted those signs of the subtle power and upper class wealth. Rather than it be something every commoner has. Its basically to show the commoners "look at how much magic we have" "We're more powerful than you and this is the reason why because we have the capability and ability to do so"

    Then of course you have followers of Charity sects who then give people food and are like "look we're so charitable, we don't actually allow you guys to do this or have these luxuries, but look we're so charitable"

    lol God my world is full of assholes
     
  10. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Eh...I have various issues with it:

    - Frozen food really isn't all that good. Now, if you want magically frozen ice cream, sure, but for most foods, something like magical warmth and sunlight, so that you can have fresh food out of season, would be more exciting.

    - Also, it wouldn't be all that magical--storage of ice through the warm season is a pretty well-established activity, historically. (A quick Googling shows me an ice house from 1780 BC.) It would probably be expensive, but not, "Oh, my God, this is impossible!"

    - I find food storage and food habits interesting. If you slap them down by making them irrelevant with magic, I'd be sad. That's probably just me, though.
     
  11. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    -I didn't mean frozen food, but more like a way to preserve a fresh kill or fresh meat

    -Historically if the place snows, but what if it doesn't snow? Actually in the medieval ages there was a period of warmth like what we're experiencing with much warmer winters.

    -More like adding onto the already interesting ways of storing food and food habits, not necessarily abolishing it
     
  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Well, that is frozen food, and it, again, is not regarded as being as good as fresh food.

    Actually, ice was an export. :) Googling doesn't make it clear how far back in history the import/export of ice went--it looks like I'd have to do more research. It certainly goes back to the 1800s, but that's not far back. And I found and them promptly lost a page that mentioned some royal person sending barrels of ice to another royal person, but a royal gift does not an industry make.

    It would be a downer for me, but that may well just be me. I'm just thinking that there would probably be something more exciting to do with food and magic.
     
  13. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    See and for me Idk, maybe I am just on a different wavelength.

    If I read a story with magic set in medieval period and they complain about food spoiling before getting it back to town, I'd be like "you have magic, freeze the meat enough to be able to take it back" That's how my brain goes.

    I think it be a dumb oversight
     
  14. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    Drying and smoking meat, fish and fruits are all well-established technologies. (The Europeans learned how to make pemmican from the Native Americans) Salting too.

    Icehouses, as @ChickenFreak mentions, also go way back. In Tintagel castle there's an underground storeroom that probably dates back to Iron-age times, and was still in use mediaevally.

    Not really. Frozen convenience foods cut the time, that and being able to microwave them in minutes rather than tens of minutes/hours.

    If you've got to cook a leg of lamb from scratch, the instructions start "First slaughter your lamb..." When you get that leg of lamb already butchered, it's been subject to convenience food technology.

    The elite always had "more food" and "from further away". Mediaeval wine trade for distance, meat for more food - maintained by having domesticated meat expensive and game the prerogative of the elite - poaching as always been a crime. The one was a way of demonstrating the superiority of the elite; the other was a way of maintaining that superiority by ensuring that the elite was better-fed with protein, thus bigger and stronger, thus better able (together with superior weapons) of beating the peasants down unless they rebelled in numbers (when the elite cut off their head, vide Perkin Warbeck).
     
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  15. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    I got this. My concern is I find it silly in a world of magic, no one is using their magical for practical things. I can't stand a world, that's like

    "Okay yeah man can manifest a flame willingly from his hand"

    But he doesn't use it for any common or ordinary peasantry work.
     
  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    But when magic is used so commonly and for such ordinary things, is it really different from, or any more interesting than, technology? I suppose I don't see the reason to even have magic in the novel, in that case.
     
  17. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    Actually there's a reason why magic exist in my world and it has a lot to do with the lore. Magic is the one thing that connects all life together due to a mirroring world that coexist alongside the physical world.
     
  18. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    And they made that frozen convenience food possible.

    Yes, but there were limits even for them. This application of magic being available, and likely more reliable than something like iceboxes, would broaden those limits. And when I say "more food", I'm not talking quantity, but kinds. You might get things like ice cream, for example.
     
  19. JPClyde

    JPClyde Senior Member

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    It should be added that magic doesn't necessarily let people in this world summon whatever they want. The magic is bound by its own "Laws of its Nature". Of the three, four if you count one of the bloodline, magics there is they follow very strict guidelines.

    The "Wild" bloodlines magic follows the line of Combat Nature, they can only be crafted into blades, or arrows, spears, or cast boons of commands, blessings, and boost powers of attack. The Wild requirements of casting is having a physical form of combat to be able to do so. Simply put the haft of a battle axe with no blade, the energy takes on the form of the blade. Or the hilt or grip of a sword to create a magical blade.

    The "Druid" bloodline magic follows the line of Element Nature, kind of, in this world there is another dimension beside our. Its a mirror reflection created by after images of energy that has dispersed. Their familiars are technically spirits or demons they pact with who take on the form of Spirit Animals that once walked the physical world. The Druid's requirement of casting the elements are often signs, symbols, and physical representation of the elements they are trying to cast. Its why many carry staffs as staves are representatives of wood, which gives them command over forestry and plants.

    The Divine bloodlines, also the central bloodline of power in the kingdoms, follows magic elements Holy Nature such as healing though healing is more like encouraging energies to bind and heal rather than heal heal, Faith so curses or hexes that give boost to the Divine's powers or give them blessing or purge the magics of "Dark" Magic, and Combative less about creating a blade from energy, but enchanting an existing blade with a boon or elemental strength.

    The Magus Bloodline is a Raw Nature or a Nature of Imagination. Those who are Magus often are the most gifted. Their magic actually represents creation, kind of. Not entirely. Because they cannot create out nothing, but they can embody a lot more natures of magic than say the other three can. But their magic is tied to the Shift and this is why technology in this world cannot exist.

    In Ancient times a place existed, it was a place of nothing. A placed shaped by dreams and death, which touched their physical world with magic. It is the thing that ties everything together through a fine thread. It's more like a Mirror Image of their world, a little different because memories are shaped differently then how they really happened. A home of Spirits who take on many shapes, some beings are corruptible demons, while others take on the forms of memories of animals.

    Point is Magic in this World only Exist as long as the Shift exist. If the Magus are cutoff from the Shift, they sicken, die, weaken. And so would this world. If you cut this world off from its Spiritual Mirror the world would sicken. Pollute. And die.

    As said there was a reason why I don't want technology technology.
     

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