Accomidiating greater degrees of verisimilitude.

The differences between my GURPS Greyhawk and regular Greyhawk also include a few other accommodations to verisimilitude.

The first is the changing the standard valuable coin from the gold to silver. This still makes the coins worth MUCH less than they would have been in, say, medieval Europe, but it does away with a king’s ransom in gold outweighing the king by ten to one, which is ludicrous except in extreme circumstances. Quite simply count down by a single factor, with platinum being replaced by large gold coins, electrum being replaced by smaller gold coins, gold being replaced by silver, silver by copper and copper by iron. So a stay in the Welcome Wench will run 3 silver a day and a draft of ale will be only 4 iron bits. The feel isn’t as awkward, with beggars getting gold dropped at their feet and barmaids being tipped with electrum for having a nice wiggle.

Secondly, I despise having to have the unknown magic suppliers running about, mainly because there would never be enough Artificers to make even a small proportion of the magic items buy able even in frontier towns, so other than Alchemy and the few items such an Alchemist can provide or an Apothecary and his stocks, magical items offered for sale will be odd, rare and much sought after…in large towns and cities and no where else.

Also, I am going to be paying a bit more attention to the impact of a miracle worker on a small settlement. These guys will get instant reputations, which will have both positive and negative effects, when they “set up shop” in a small town or village. Since the standard is going to be roughly one true Wizard per 3000+ people (outside of elven lands anyway) when a village of 300 folk has one become part of the landscape it will draw instant notice unless the Wizard hides his talents.

The positive effects of this will be social regard, usually 10 points worth, either as feared (by far the most common outcome) or respected, depending on the locale. Negative effects are more subtle in some ways but more pronounced in others. If a “witch scare” sweeps the area, as the result of any “unnatural phenomenon” (which could include the local braggart not being able to get it up with his favorite doxy or the cow kicking over her milking bucket when she’s “normally so docile”) then the least outcome will be a social stigma and could escalate into mob violence. Since everyone is breakable in GURPS, the wizardling needs to be careful of this even when he begins to become truly powerful.

For Priests and Clergy the matter is slightly different, as they are expected to work miracles for their gods…but this will not protect them if their lord falls out of favor for one reason or another. Rather severe forms of social stigmata or outright ostracism can be the least of their worries then if the deity or pantheon has fallen into enough disfavor. Also, far more than with Wizards, the Cleric or Priest will find themselves held accountable, after a fashion, for anything from bad weather to disease, whether their lord had anything to do with the event or not being immaterial. Peasants look to the gods to protect them, when they don’t or won’t the peasants quickly point the finger of blame at their representatives.