A while back there was some relatively heated discussion about agriculture in the Amedio. IIRC, Samwise and Chiberias concluded that corn was a virtual impossibility and the Olman Empire must have been sustained on rice. Not everyone agreed. Search the forums and you can find it if you are interested.
Last month’s Discover magazine (I’m not yet caught up on my reading) had an article that I though was pretty interesting. As I understanding it, much agriculture in the Amazon is presently slash and burn whereby the ashes from the burn can sustain crops for only a few years before it washes away. It is unsustainable and leads to massive deforestation. Apparently, it was not always that way.
Before the conquistadors, the Amazon was able to sustain large populations with agriculture in fields that were very productive and long lasting. The research has yet to yield a discovery of what was grown. The trick was, instead of slash and burn, the thin soil was, at first unintentionally but later intentionally, fertilized with charcoal, fish and dung. The charcoal, for multiple reasons, lasts a whole lot longer than ash. Aside from having more nutrients, the size and shape grip the land and foster development of microbiology (probably also worms) that help keep the soil from being washed away by the frequent rains.
According to the article, these fields were coveted by possibly corn growing peoples which eventually lead to war and fortification of the cities. It looks like it took a while, thousands of years, which included a slow realization of the fertility any settlement would unintentionally create with accumulation of discarded of waste and cooking fires, but in places they were able to create very productive soils, that in some place are still black and very productive today.
I like this idea and suggest that, if applied to the Amedio, because of the relatively short period of time from occupation of the Amedio by the Olman, through the establishment of cities and rise of Empire, perfection of such techniques for rapid, indeed industrial, application must have been mastered in Hepmonaland. Alternatively, the developed techniques were discovered by the Olman upon entry into the Amedio, which would mean that the prior civilization, the Dakon and/or Trogs, would have developed them.
Well, don't like half the dieties in the Touv pantheon have the plant domain, so i can see these small villiages, who have their agriculture overseen by the preisthood or possibly druids, after all those spells exist, and adventurers sure as hell don't use them.
I remember that thread; it brings to mind an additional reason for my "heretical" views on the Great Migrations (see the thread!). The Bakluni are known to drink coffee. As I noted on the agricultural thread, coffee grows in tropical volcanic hills and mountains. A perfect place for the Bakluni, if they were southern, to discover and cultivate it...
As to corn, it would be possible, but difficult to cultivate corn in the tropical environs of the Amedio and Hepmonoland. With magical aid it would be easier, but unlikely a major crop. Agriculture as it is in the tropics, especially rain forests, is difficult even with today's technology. And don't forget that the tropics have a variety of environments, from swamps to rain forests, to deciduous hills, to permafrost mountain tops. These provide a wide variety of different agricultural challenges, and crops. Since most of the Amedio and Hepmonoland is covered in rain forest, however, most crops would be in the form of things like bananas, mangoes, coconuts and the like. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
My own heresy (he confesses) is having the Scarlet Brotherhood introduce "djaffa" or "mokka" to the Flanaess... Ever wonder how they get their contacts and resources?
A good point raised about the variation in tropical environments. I think a study of native agricutlure in various parts of the world would yield a variety of deifferent crops in different areas.
eg. Papua New Guinea's native crops include: "sugarcane, Pacific bananas, yams, and taros, while sago and pandanus were two commonly exploited native forest crops. Today's staples--sweet potatoes and pigs--were later arrivals, but shellfish and fish have long been mainstays of coastal dwellers' diets." (US State Dept.)
eg. In Brazil "Some crops (like maize) were imported from the more advanced civilizations West of the Andes, while cassava, which became the main staple for many populations, appears to have been developed locally" (Wikipedia)
The question this prompts me to ask: what crops would be native to the Amedio and which ones might have been imported and by whom? And what about Hepmonaland? I could go look up the old discussion of course. But it's a slow day at work. I'm after distraction.
As to coffee: well it was one of the first things exported from South America after European colonisation. But it kinda requires a plantation system to grow it in truly commercial amounts. Without plantations it would be a rare and exotic (and addictive) spice.
So how much coffee is there in the Flanaess? Got to admit I've never put it there in any of my campaigns. Tea from beyond the Baklunish lands is as close as it got. Does anyone in the Sea Princes grow coffee? They've got the slaves after all.
Ah, but coffee originated in Africa, specifically in Ethiopia and Kenya. It was later introduced to Central and South America, as well as the Antilles, Australasia and Hawaii, where the climate and soil is just right. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Garg's got it. Coffee is not a native species to the areas used as a template for Hepmonaland. So it's not canon.
I definitely use it. Coffee grown on Brotherhood-run plantations, and used to gain hard currencies, contacts, and influence in foreign ports, has a certain appeal to me. But I recently read Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, in which the growth of coffee houses across Europe is a minor development.
I do use coffee in my WoG, where it was introduced to Hepmonoland by the touv (coffee/African, touv/Africans). _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Garg's got it. Coffee is not a native species to the areas used as a template for Hepmonaland. So it's not canon.
That is not quite the approach I use for canon, but each to his own.
I take it as canon (but do not necessarily take canon) that coffee exists in the WoG, but I cannot remember exactly where I saw it. Just thinking now, I at first though it might have been referenced in the moduel Gargoyle, but I was probably thinking of the ice cream shop
Giving it a little more thought I think it was mentioned as part of the Savage Tide Adventure Path. Probably in relation to something that is grown aroudn Sasserine.
There is also the notion of floating gardens used by the Aztecs. That could also be modified with the use of pots and other methods of constraining the soil and water. _________________ Plar of Poofy Pants
Yes, I saw a great show on Discovery Channel about the Aztec floating gardens, used primarily in Tenochtitlan (I believe). I don't remember what they grew, but they recreated the whole mess, and it worked very well. _________________ Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!
Ya know, I do enjoy this forum. The contributors really do have a broad range of interests. A fella can learn lots. Like coffee originating in Africa. Never knew that. Maybe I will let it slip into my Flanaess. (I try to keep it all Old World in flavour as oppsed to New World.)
It's not my approach, either, but I was informed that it was the "standard".
I wouldn't say that it is "THE" standard. It is "a" standard in a situation that otherwise doesn't have one. There is no way to make consistent judgements about what is where without adopting some sort of real world parallelling of that sort. If you don't, you end up with arbitrary decisions by the DM and a mishmash ecology of 'anything goes'.
There is nothing wrong with doing that, but if you want to have more verissimilitude than that the only reliable method is to make parallels with the real world. Which has its own problems, because the climate and continental systems of Oerth are not directly equivalent to Earth's. And the DM still has to make judgements about trade and the spread of animals and plants. Domesticated crops in particular tend to spread far and wide, so unless you consider the Flanaess isolated (unlikely, given the Baklunish trade on the Dramidj) 'foreign' species will be flowing in.
A while back there was some relatively heated discussion about agriculture in the Amedio. IIRC, Samwise and Chiberias concluded that corn was a virtual impossibility and the Olman Empire must have been sustained on rice.
My conclusion about rice being the staple grain instead of corn was related more to the fact that the plantlife in the Amedio, as laid out by Gygax, is much closer to southeast asian jungles than it is to central american rainforests. _________________ Salud, Maria
Olmanifesto, my Amedio blog:
http://olmanifesto.blogspot.com/
Did the article also point out that famine due to poor crop yields resulting from overfarming is one of the prominent theories on why Mayan cities were abandoned? Sure, the Aztecs were still living in large cities when the Spanish arrived, but time might have been as unkind to them as it was to the Maya, and the Anasazi to the north, for that matter.
Bias aside, I think Mar's (chibirias) rice theory is sound, As she documented in the original thread (found here: http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1539 ) the presence of stereotypically Asian plantlife is very reasonable given canon examples of the trees and plants found in the region. The idea was that corn was a staple in the Olman homeland, but generally replaced by rice as they migrated into the jungle. _________________ What would Raxivort do?<br />
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