Beldar
2020-04-10, 06:11 PM
For whatever it's worth, here are some thoughts on how the world in D&D could develop - shown in terms of one unremarkable example.
Von Higgenbotham backstory
Klaus Von Higgenbotham comes from the large but poor Von Higgenbotham clan living in the so-called hidden valley which in fact is not hidden at all. It is the main route by which orcs invade their kingdom. Consequently it frequently gets ravaged and pillaged, which would keep the Von Higgenbothams poor even if the valley was fertile.
But it isn't very fertile - it has so many rocks of all sizes that conventional farming isn't possible, and most livestock do poorly as well.
The residents have laboriously cleared the rocks from small garden areas, and they raise goats, which do moderately well in finding small patches of plants to eat among the rocks, and are very good at not hurting themselves by tripping over rocks etc.
The freeze-thaw cycle often brings more rocks to the surface, so keeping the gardens going takes a lot of work, as does the more or less continual rebuilding after orc invasions.
So the people remain poor.
Though the local baron is good about rapid military responses when the orcs come, so the orcs never manage to destroy everything.
Occasional boons help get the Von Higgenbothams caught up a bit, like when Grandma Zelda found that there was a market for her delicious white turnip sauce. She sold it far and wide until the recipe was stolen and duplicated elsewhere.
But that also resulted in the Von Higgenbotham curse - a passing Gypsie wanted the Turnip Sauce recipe and, when denied that, cursed the clan so that nobody but a Von Higgenbotham could ever pronounce their name correctly.
Nobody beyond the local baron pays any attention to the Von Higgenbothams, who are largely unknown outside their valley. Even Zelda's Turnip Sauce was known by the location of it's origin, rather than by who made it.
Then young Klaus impressed the baron's court wizard with his intelligence, and got the opportunity to get trained in wizardry in exchange for enlisting in the baron's service for a few years. He took it, and did well.
After Klaus' term of enlistment was over he managed to join an adventuring group. They went about destroying monsters, and increasing in treasure and power.
Klaus is still a full-time adventurer, but sometimes his adventuring party takes a few days off in town. Sometimes it is several days.
During those times, Klaus tries to help his people, whom he has not forgotten.
At first (before he learned how to Teleport), he would ride all night, when he had the time and was nearby, to go cast a few spells for his clan.
When he could, he'd bring a druid or cleric from the party to help. They came to help him, and he did the same to help their families or villages.
A simple Soften Earth and Stone spell could instantly and permanently turn a large area of rock-strewn wasteland into a good spot for a garden.
The more land they could farm, the more prosperous the Von Higgenbothams could be. The first several spells made food less scarce, but once enough were cast, they allowed some cash crops.
Another use of the Soften Earth and Stone spell was to turn rock into clay, which is very useful in making pottery or bricks.
So he could spend all his spare time and spell slots on that spell alone and achieve good effect.
As he got higher levels and more resources, he could achieve far more.
For his adventuring needs, Klaus had bought a magic item - a Glyph Seal. This he could use to stamp Glyphs of Warding on just about anything. It popped free after stamping a Glyph and was hard to find, but could be re-used once found.
Glyphs of Warding exploded when their triggering conditions were met, and they did so with enough force to kill even an unusually tough orc.
So, whenever Klaus visited his folks, men from his clan whom he'd trained in its use came and borrowed the Glyph Seal and set about using it. They used it for as long as he was in town, working in shifts to keep it in use around the clock. Six men, working together, to aid each other, were guaranteed to find the glyph every time, and in the minimum possible time.
They started at the narrow part of the valley where invading orc armies usually entered, and put Glyphs on every tree, rock, and animal for miles. The Glyphs did not harm the surface they were on when they exploded, so any bunnies, birds or squirrels the men managed to catch and put Glyphs on would be surprised, but unharmed when the Glyphs detonated.
They set their Glyphs to go off only when an orc entered the blast radius of the spell, so humans and animals could pass safely.
They Glyphed every surface of every home in the village, every tool, every goat in their herds, and everything else they could think of, including all approaches to their valley no matter how impassable.
And their first priority was to re-Glyph anything whose previous Glyph had been set off - something that had once attracted and killed an orc was likely to do so again.
Under optimum conditions and not counting travel time, they could emplace 300 Glyphs per hour with only the one Glyph Seal.
The orc attacks stopped.
Not many creatures will keep going when they encounter an inexplicable force that kills them, and keeps killing them as they approach their target, but ceases when they go the other way.
Klaus had considered the Snare spell too, but had chosen not to get an unlimited-use magic item of that made, because the traps it made were not selective in their targeting, and they needed a nearby tree if they were to do damage instead of just entangling. It was still useful, just not as useful as Glyph of Warding. Both spells lasted until something set them off, which is great for building up defenses over time.
Another magic item Klaus had had made for his adventuring was a hat that affected the wearer as if he was under the Speak With Animals spell. It worked well with his Grey Bag of Tricks for scouting dangerous corridors and so forth.
But that was not its only use.
While visiting his people, he instructed them in the hat's use, and loaned it to them.
It was very useful for rapidly training their working animals like dogs and horses.
It also came in very handy in allowing the Von Higgenbothams to set expectations with their goat flocks
Even the most cantankerous of animals becomes easier to work with if he clearly understands when will get him punished or rewarded.
Then someone had the clever idea of using the hat to make deals with wild animals.
So, after some discussion to work out details, Klaus went to a tree at the edge of town where falcons were known to perch, Spider Climbed the tree, and use the Stick cantrip to attach a small stone to it, up high near where the falcons usually perched.
He'd previously prepared the stone with a Magic Mouth spell holding a message in the language of falcons, triggerable only by falcons. The message said:
"The nearby village humans offer peace, protection, and cooperation. If interested in negotiating that, ring the bell on the gray rock where the streams meet."
Klaus arranged to be within earshot of that bell the next day, and it worked - a falcon flew up and pecked the bell to ring it.
Klaus offered the falcons that the humans of that valley would not harm them, would offer them the safest nests they could construct (stout wooden boxes on poles built to the falcons' specifications) and would fight to defend them from bigger predators and monsters, in exchange for the falcons hunting any small birds, mice, squirrels etc that try to eat the crops, berries etc the humans grow.
For the birds, it largely amounted to target selection. They were predatory birds and ate small birds, mice etc anyway. They just had to prioritize any of those that were going after the humans' crops. Oh, and not hunt the humans' chickens too.
And for that, they gained safety from humans, a safe place to run to when under attack by eagles or worse things, and a roomy, dry and secure nest.
The safety from humans was the best part of the deal.
They agreed.
Klaus then followed similar procedures to make deals with owls, to protect the crops at night, and with skunks to protect things from down low.
In making that last deal, he discovered that owls often prey on skunks, so he had to work out a cross-deal for safety from each-other too.
A couple species of insect-eaters were negotiated with as well.
Not only did the crops flourish in the absence of the mice, small birds, insects, etc that usually feast on them, but the presence of flourishing skunk colonies actually tended to keep bigger things away too, including the barons tax collectors.
The Von Higgenbotham tribe members generally took a little while before they would really believe that the skunks would never spray them, but once they did they found them to be remarkably similar to pet cats.
Klaus left the village with a few tablets on which he had cast Magic Mouth spells, set to trigger for different types of animals (one type set to trigger for falcons and speak in falcon, another type in owl to owls and so on), and say:
"Only one of us speaks your language. He'll meet you here at dawn on the next full moon, Here's a gift to show our goodwill."
This he did so they would be prepared in case any more of these animals came to make deals, or in case the existing treaty-animals wanted to discuss something.
A few Fire Trap spells, cast on "gates" which were no more than ropes strung across the valley entrance, helped broaden the defense, since they were set to go off on any non-human, not just orcs.
They also emplaced a few signs, saying, in the Common Tongue "Don't read the text beneath this or it may kill you.", then, under that, in orcish Explosive Runes, "boom".
Later, after some folks complained of the danger, they eventually replaced the Explosive Runes with Sepia Snake Sigils.
But even more importantly for town defense, Klaus cast Water to Acid into a big vat they had made of clay pottery. Using the vat of acid as a source, they then filled hundreds of clay flasks with acid. These they kept stored and ready to be thrown at any monster that showed up and gave them trouble. Anybody could throw a flask of acid at a foe to good effect, since you only had to make contact, not pierce their tough hides or armor.
In conversation with druids, Klaus learned that eagles prey on turtles by carrying them high into the air, then dropping them onto rocks to break them open. So he negotiated with some eagles a deal where they would get flasks of acid, carry them high in the air over the orc wastelands, and drop them onto certain types of monsters. They could do this from high enough that they were in no danger, so the deal didn't end up requiring very large payments to the eagles to get them to agree. And, as usual for most wildlife, the payment they wanted could be summed up in one word - security. Guarantees that these humans would not harm them, plus safe shelters and plenty of food were enough.
Several eagles would work together when necessary to take down some of the tougher monsters.
Klaus also cast Wall of Stone, and Stone Shape, to finally seal off the entrances to the valley with defensible barriers and gates to allow legitimate travel.
The same approach made some watch towers, and also resulted in some defensible public buildings for the village.
When Klaus learned to cast Fabricate, he could, in moments, make so many flasks that everyone could practice all they wanted to.
He also Fabricated plenty of other things. Just a few castings of that spell provided all sorts of goods such as tools, baskets, dishes, flatware, household goods and furnishings, weapons, shields, bows, arrows, rope, cloth, clothing, wagons, saddles and so on.
It was instant wealth for the Von Higgenbothams, at least compared to what little they had had before.
Since they no longer needed to spend as much time on the basics of survival, Klaus then got them ready for more advanced professions.
He had used the Amanuensis spell from time to time when he came across useful books - usually in large towns - to make copies of those books.
So by now he had instruction manuals for professions in pottery, weaving (goat hair), rope making, farming, ranching, carpentry, stone masonry, bricklaying, black smithing, beekeeping, papermaking, bookbinding, scribing and others..
He had previously used the spell QuickPotion in combination with the spell Scholar's Touch to let a few instructors read all of his books. They had begun to show people the basics and lay the groundwork.
But now Klaus had managed to buy a Vibrant Purple Ioun Stone (again, to help with his adventuring needs, but it helped a lot here too), which let him dispense with the need for the QuickPotion spell and so get Scholar's Touch cast more often.
As fast as he could cast Scholar's Touch into his Ioun Stone, someone he had loaned the Ioun Stone to could use that spell to read all his books.
That, plus a few more spells such as Shape Wood to make looms and other gear, put the Von Higgenbothams onto the path of being prosperous skilled professionals instead of just subsistence-level ranchers.
But there was more he could do with his Purple Ioun Stone. He could get his party cleric or druid to load spells into it that he could take with him when they could not come along.
That was useful enough for things like curing diseases and disabilities like blindness, or sudden growth surges in their raspberry patches.
But it also allowed individual villagers, one at a time, to get significant extra help via spells like Call Faithful Servants, Valiant Steed, and Animate Dead, or, the much less icky version Animate Construct, which was identical except that instead of making zombies and skeletons, it animated straw men or stick figures made of actual sticks.
Call Faithful Servants gave its caster, for a year's service, some minor angels. Favorite choices included Lantern Archons, who could fly, blast things with rays of light, and, far more importantly Teleport at will, carrying 50 pounds of stuff with them. That enabled some seriously effective shipping businesses, mail-carrying services, and communications.
Another favorite choice was a Musteval Guardinal, who burrowed like a prairie dog and could pop out of his hole, fire some Magic Missiles at a target, and pop back down into the hole again before an opponent could react. And the Musteval Guardinals could keep that up all day long.
Very very few monsters could survive for long against that kind of harassment, making this an excellent all-around defense.
Valiant Steed gave its caster either a Unicorn, or a Pegasus, for a year's service. Flying mounts are great for scouting as well as getting around, and the healing abilities of a Unicorn are tremendous. Both can fight well at need.
And while skeletons and zombies, or their non-icky counterparts straw men or stick figures, aren't much good in a fight individually - no better than a simple warrior - they stay around permanently, making it possible to build up large numbers of them, given that each villager could control one, or sometimes more.
So they could help in fights when necessary. And losing some of them in combat was not a tragedy at all, making them a good choice for the front lines.
But, as useful as that was, they were far more useful as manual labor. They could work 24 hours a day, needing neither food nor sleep. They could work in the heat of the summer, and in blizzards. They didn't get sick. They didn't need time off to visit relatives.
They just kept working until you told them to do something else.
They couldn't do skilled labor, like build a brick house. But they could multiply the effectiveness of the skilled laborers by taking the unskilled parts of their tasks off their hands.
So while the skilled mason actually set the bricks, he never had to fetch, carry, or lift them - stick figures did that for him.
The skilled carpenter built houses or furniture out of trees that straw men cut down and hauled for him.
If a farmer pointed out a weed, Straw men could follow orders such as pull up every plant of that type in the whole field, but don't hurt any other type of plant. They were also great at plowing fields, breaking up dirt clods, digging irrigation ditches and keeping them clear, and so on.
When a skilled person could show them something simple to do, they could do it.
So productivity and prosperity shot through the roof.
And, so that his clan would not eventually sink back into poverty after he eventually died, Klaus started teaching Wizardry to promising youngsters among them, under the same conditions he'd had - a term of service to pay for the training.
*****
I'm sure folks could quibble with every bit of this. Some of it is only implicitly how it works and subject to interpretation (like how glyph seals work), or even worse - like gaining some kind of advantage from reading books. My DM allows the same advantage from reading a book that you'd get from having masterwork tools. Yours may not. That's not the point. DM's will vary in their permissiveness no matter what I or anybody else here says. That's fine - do what's fun for you and your group.
My point here is that people will try to improve their lives and, given the tools the rules provide, a significant amount of improvement over your basic "medieval peasant village" is trivial to achieve. That's true no matter how the quibbles over details work out.
One character can achieve much by volunteering a few weekends, without even spending a single gold piece on it.
Consider then, what could be achieved if a few characters, or several, volunteered their time in a "Doctors Without Borders" or "Habitat for Humanity" sort of way.
Consider also that it is very much in the best interests of feudal lords to have their court wizards (and clerics etc) spend a little of their time similarly.
Every peasant killed by monsters means that much less tax revenue, and that many fewer possible conscripts.
Every village able to defend itself reduces the demands on your army.
And the more prosperous the people are, the more tax revenue there is for you.
Sure, some feudal lords would be stupid or short-sighted enough to avoid building up their villages etc in a way such as this example showed.
But, once it was done once, anywhere, for any reason, news would spread, smarter barons etc would do similarly, then even most dumb barons etc would eventually catch on. It is in their best interests. People are strongly motivated to look after their own best interests.
So, while the basic medieval peasant villages described in the manuals may have been the starting point for D&D societies, I suggest that things would have rapidly changed from there, just via the irresistible force of ordinary people everywhere living their lives as best they could.
TL;DR D&D societies would have developed rapidly, not stayed static at a medieval peasant level.
BTW, contemplate the delicious absurdity of someone spending time on a board such as this, whose main activity is to read, yet not wanting to read.
Von Higgenbotham backstory
Klaus Von Higgenbotham comes from the large but poor Von Higgenbotham clan living in the so-called hidden valley which in fact is not hidden at all. It is the main route by which orcs invade their kingdom. Consequently it frequently gets ravaged and pillaged, which would keep the Von Higgenbothams poor even if the valley was fertile.
But it isn't very fertile - it has so many rocks of all sizes that conventional farming isn't possible, and most livestock do poorly as well.
The residents have laboriously cleared the rocks from small garden areas, and they raise goats, which do moderately well in finding small patches of plants to eat among the rocks, and are very good at not hurting themselves by tripping over rocks etc.
The freeze-thaw cycle often brings more rocks to the surface, so keeping the gardens going takes a lot of work, as does the more or less continual rebuilding after orc invasions.
So the people remain poor.
Though the local baron is good about rapid military responses when the orcs come, so the orcs never manage to destroy everything.
Occasional boons help get the Von Higgenbothams caught up a bit, like when Grandma Zelda found that there was a market for her delicious white turnip sauce. She sold it far and wide until the recipe was stolen and duplicated elsewhere.
But that also resulted in the Von Higgenbotham curse - a passing Gypsie wanted the Turnip Sauce recipe and, when denied that, cursed the clan so that nobody but a Von Higgenbotham could ever pronounce their name correctly.
Nobody beyond the local baron pays any attention to the Von Higgenbothams, who are largely unknown outside their valley. Even Zelda's Turnip Sauce was known by the location of it's origin, rather than by who made it.
Then young Klaus impressed the baron's court wizard with his intelligence, and got the opportunity to get trained in wizardry in exchange for enlisting in the baron's service for a few years. He took it, and did well.
After Klaus' term of enlistment was over he managed to join an adventuring group. They went about destroying monsters, and increasing in treasure and power.
Klaus is still a full-time adventurer, but sometimes his adventuring party takes a few days off in town. Sometimes it is several days.
During those times, Klaus tries to help his people, whom he has not forgotten.
At first (before he learned how to Teleport), he would ride all night, when he had the time and was nearby, to go cast a few spells for his clan.
When he could, he'd bring a druid or cleric from the party to help. They came to help him, and he did the same to help their families or villages.
A simple Soften Earth and Stone spell could instantly and permanently turn a large area of rock-strewn wasteland into a good spot for a garden.
The more land they could farm, the more prosperous the Von Higgenbothams could be. The first several spells made food less scarce, but once enough were cast, they allowed some cash crops.
Another use of the Soften Earth and Stone spell was to turn rock into clay, which is very useful in making pottery or bricks.
So he could spend all his spare time and spell slots on that spell alone and achieve good effect.
As he got higher levels and more resources, he could achieve far more.
For his adventuring needs, Klaus had bought a magic item - a Glyph Seal. This he could use to stamp Glyphs of Warding on just about anything. It popped free after stamping a Glyph and was hard to find, but could be re-used once found.
Glyphs of Warding exploded when their triggering conditions were met, and they did so with enough force to kill even an unusually tough orc.
So, whenever Klaus visited his folks, men from his clan whom he'd trained in its use came and borrowed the Glyph Seal and set about using it. They used it for as long as he was in town, working in shifts to keep it in use around the clock. Six men, working together, to aid each other, were guaranteed to find the glyph every time, and in the minimum possible time.
They started at the narrow part of the valley where invading orc armies usually entered, and put Glyphs on every tree, rock, and animal for miles. The Glyphs did not harm the surface they were on when they exploded, so any bunnies, birds or squirrels the men managed to catch and put Glyphs on would be surprised, but unharmed when the Glyphs detonated.
They set their Glyphs to go off only when an orc entered the blast radius of the spell, so humans and animals could pass safely.
They Glyphed every surface of every home in the village, every tool, every goat in their herds, and everything else they could think of, including all approaches to their valley no matter how impassable.
And their first priority was to re-Glyph anything whose previous Glyph had been set off - something that had once attracted and killed an orc was likely to do so again.
Under optimum conditions and not counting travel time, they could emplace 300 Glyphs per hour with only the one Glyph Seal.
The orc attacks stopped.
Not many creatures will keep going when they encounter an inexplicable force that kills them, and keeps killing them as they approach their target, but ceases when they go the other way.
Klaus had considered the Snare spell too, but had chosen not to get an unlimited-use magic item of that made, because the traps it made were not selective in their targeting, and they needed a nearby tree if they were to do damage instead of just entangling. It was still useful, just not as useful as Glyph of Warding. Both spells lasted until something set them off, which is great for building up defenses over time.
Another magic item Klaus had had made for his adventuring was a hat that affected the wearer as if he was under the Speak With Animals spell. It worked well with his Grey Bag of Tricks for scouting dangerous corridors and so forth.
But that was not its only use.
While visiting his people, he instructed them in the hat's use, and loaned it to them.
It was very useful for rapidly training their working animals like dogs and horses.
It also came in very handy in allowing the Von Higgenbothams to set expectations with their goat flocks
Even the most cantankerous of animals becomes easier to work with if he clearly understands when will get him punished or rewarded.
Then someone had the clever idea of using the hat to make deals with wild animals.
So, after some discussion to work out details, Klaus went to a tree at the edge of town where falcons were known to perch, Spider Climbed the tree, and use the Stick cantrip to attach a small stone to it, up high near where the falcons usually perched.
He'd previously prepared the stone with a Magic Mouth spell holding a message in the language of falcons, triggerable only by falcons. The message said:
"The nearby village humans offer peace, protection, and cooperation. If interested in negotiating that, ring the bell on the gray rock where the streams meet."
Klaus arranged to be within earshot of that bell the next day, and it worked - a falcon flew up and pecked the bell to ring it.
Klaus offered the falcons that the humans of that valley would not harm them, would offer them the safest nests they could construct (stout wooden boxes on poles built to the falcons' specifications) and would fight to defend them from bigger predators and monsters, in exchange for the falcons hunting any small birds, mice, squirrels etc that try to eat the crops, berries etc the humans grow.
For the birds, it largely amounted to target selection. They were predatory birds and ate small birds, mice etc anyway. They just had to prioritize any of those that were going after the humans' crops. Oh, and not hunt the humans' chickens too.
And for that, they gained safety from humans, a safe place to run to when under attack by eagles or worse things, and a roomy, dry and secure nest.
The safety from humans was the best part of the deal.
They agreed.
Klaus then followed similar procedures to make deals with owls, to protect the crops at night, and with skunks to protect things from down low.
In making that last deal, he discovered that owls often prey on skunks, so he had to work out a cross-deal for safety from each-other too.
A couple species of insect-eaters were negotiated with as well.
Not only did the crops flourish in the absence of the mice, small birds, insects, etc that usually feast on them, but the presence of flourishing skunk colonies actually tended to keep bigger things away too, including the barons tax collectors.
The Von Higgenbotham tribe members generally took a little while before they would really believe that the skunks would never spray them, but once they did they found them to be remarkably similar to pet cats.
Klaus left the village with a few tablets on which he had cast Magic Mouth spells, set to trigger for different types of animals (one type set to trigger for falcons and speak in falcon, another type in owl to owls and so on), and say:
"Only one of us speaks your language. He'll meet you here at dawn on the next full moon, Here's a gift to show our goodwill."
This he did so they would be prepared in case any more of these animals came to make deals, or in case the existing treaty-animals wanted to discuss something.
A few Fire Trap spells, cast on "gates" which were no more than ropes strung across the valley entrance, helped broaden the defense, since they were set to go off on any non-human, not just orcs.
They also emplaced a few signs, saying, in the Common Tongue "Don't read the text beneath this or it may kill you.", then, under that, in orcish Explosive Runes, "boom".
Later, after some folks complained of the danger, they eventually replaced the Explosive Runes with Sepia Snake Sigils.
But even more importantly for town defense, Klaus cast Water to Acid into a big vat they had made of clay pottery. Using the vat of acid as a source, they then filled hundreds of clay flasks with acid. These they kept stored and ready to be thrown at any monster that showed up and gave them trouble. Anybody could throw a flask of acid at a foe to good effect, since you only had to make contact, not pierce their tough hides or armor.
In conversation with druids, Klaus learned that eagles prey on turtles by carrying them high into the air, then dropping them onto rocks to break them open. So he negotiated with some eagles a deal where they would get flasks of acid, carry them high in the air over the orc wastelands, and drop them onto certain types of monsters. They could do this from high enough that they were in no danger, so the deal didn't end up requiring very large payments to the eagles to get them to agree. And, as usual for most wildlife, the payment they wanted could be summed up in one word - security. Guarantees that these humans would not harm them, plus safe shelters and plenty of food were enough.
Several eagles would work together when necessary to take down some of the tougher monsters.
Klaus also cast Wall of Stone, and Stone Shape, to finally seal off the entrances to the valley with defensible barriers and gates to allow legitimate travel.
The same approach made some watch towers, and also resulted in some defensible public buildings for the village.
When Klaus learned to cast Fabricate, he could, in moments, make so many flasks that everyone could practice all they wanted to.
He also Fabricated plenty of other things. Just a few castings of that spell provided all sorts of goods such as tools, baskets, dishes, flatware, household goods and furnishings, weapons, shields, bows, arrows, rope, cloth, clothing, wagons, saddles and so on.
It was instant wealth for the Von Higgenbothams, at least compared to what little they had had before.
Since they no longer needed to spend as much time on the basics of survival, Klaus then got them ready for more advanced professions.
He had used the Amanuensis spell from time to time when he came across useful books - usually in large towns - to make copies of those books.
So by now he had instruction manuals for professions in pottery, weaving (goat hair), rope making, farming, ranching, carpentry, stone masonry, bricklaying, black smithing, beekeeping, papermaking, bookbinding, scribing and others..
He had previously used the spell QuickPotion in combination with the spell Scholar's Touch to let a few instructors read all of his books. They had begun to show people the basics and lay the groundwork.
But now Klaus had managed to buy a Vibrant Purple Ioun Stone (again, to help with his adventuring needs, but it helped a lot here too), which let him dispense with the need for the QuickPotion spell and so get Scholar's Touch cast more often.
As fast as he could cast Scholar's Touch into his Ioun Stone, someone he had loaned the Ioun Stone to could use that spell to read all his books.
That, plus a few more spells such as Shape Wood to make looms and other gear, put the Von Higgenbothams onto the path of being prosperous skilled professionals instead of just subsistence-level ranchers.
But there was more he could do with his Purple Ioun Stone. He could get his party cleric or druid to load spells into it that he could take with him when they could not come along.
That was useful enough for things like curing diseases and disabilities like blindness, or sudden growth surges in their raspberry patches.
But it also allowed individual villagers, one at a time, to get significant extra help via spells like Call Faithful Servants, Valiant Steed, and Animate Dead, or, the much less icky version Animate Construct, which was identical except that instead of making zombies and skeletons, it animated straw men or stick figures made of actual sticks.
Call Faithful Servants gave its caster, for a year's service, some minor angels. Favorite choices included Lantern Archons, who could fly, blast things with rays of light, and, far more importantly Teleport at will, carrying 50 pounds of stuff with them. That enabled some seriously effective shipping businesses, mail-carrying services, and communications.
Another favorite choice was a Musteval Guardinal, who burrowed like a prairie dog and could pop out of his hole, fire some Magic Missiles at a target, and pop back down into the hole again before an opponent could react. And the Musteval Guardinals could keep that up all day long.
Very very few monsters could survive for long against that kind of harassment, making this an excellent all-around defense.
Valiant Steed gave its caster either a Unicorn, or a Pegasus, for a year's service. Flying mounts are great for scouting as well as getting around, and the healing abilities of a Unicorn are tremendous. Both can fight well at need.
And while skeletons and zombies, or their non-icky counterparts straw men or stick figures, aren't much good in a fight individually - no better than a simple warrior - they stay around permanently, making it possible to build up large numbers of them, given that each villager could control one, or sometimes more.
So they could help in fights when necessary. And losing some of them in combat was not a tragedy at all, making them a good choice for the front lines.
But, as useful as that was, they were far more useful as manual labor. They could work 24 hours a day, needing neither food nor sleep. They could work in the heat of the summer, and in blizzards. They didn't get sick. They didn't need time off to visit relatives.
They just kept working until you told them to do something else.
They couldn't do skilled labor, like build a brick house. But they could multiply the effectiveness of the skilled laborers by taking the unskilled parts of their tasks off their hands.
So while the skilled mason actually set the bricks, he never had to fetch, carry, or lift them - stick figures did that for him.
The skilled carpenter built houses or furniture out of trees that straw men cut down and hauled for him.
If a farmer pointed out a weed, Straw men could follow orders such as pull up every plant of that type in the whole field, but don't hurt any other type of plant. They were also great at plowing fields, breaking up dirt clods, digging irrigation ditches and keeping them clear, and so on.
When a skilled person could show them something simple to do, they could do it.
So productivity and prosperity shot through the roof.
And, so that his clan would not eventually sink back into poverty after he eventually died, Klaus started teaching Wizardry to promising youngsters among them, under the same conditions he'd had - a term of service to pay for the training.
*****
I'm sure folks could quibble with every bit of this. Some of it is only implicitly how it works and subject to interpretation (like how glyph seals work), or even worse - like gaining some kind of advantage from reading books. My DM allows the same advantage from reading a book that you'd get from having masterwork tools. Yours may not. That's not the point. DM's will vary in their permissiveness no matter what I or anybody else here says. That's fine - do what's fun for you and your group.
My point here is that people will try to improve their lives and, given the tools the rules provide, a significant amount of improvement over your basic "medieval peasant village" is trivial to achieve. That's true no matter how the quibbles over details work out.
One character can achieve much by volunteering a few weekends, without even spending a single gold piece on it.
Consider then, what could be achieved if a few characters, or several, volunteered their time in a "Doctors Without Borders" or "Habitat for Humanity" sort of way.
Consider also that it is very much in the best interests of feudal lords to have their court wizards (and clerics etc) spend a little of their time similarly.
Every peasant killed by monsters means that much less tax revenue, and that many fewer possible conscripts.
Every village able to defend itself reduces the demands on your army.
And the more prosperous the people are, the more tax revenue there is for you.
Sure, some feudal lords would be stupid or short-sighted enough to avoid building up their villages etc in a way such as this example showed.
But, once it was done once, anywhere, for any reason, news would spread, smarter barons etc would do similarly, then even most dumb barons etc would eventually catch on. It is in their best interests. People are strongly motivated to look after their own best interests.
So, while the basic medieval peasant villages described in the manuals may have been the starting point for D&D societies, I suggest that things would have rapidly changed from there, just via the irresistible force of ordinary people everywhere living their lives as best they could.
TL;DR D&D societies would have developed rapidly, not stayed static at a medieval peasant level.
BTW, contemplate the delicious absurdity of someone spending time on a board such as this, whose main activity is to read, yet not wanting to read.