The Power of One - A WFRP2e Solo Experience (OOC)

[BananaPhone]

I've been perusing through the bartering system of Old World Armory and comparing some availabilities. Now, again, I'm not rules-lawyering and demanding strict adherence heh, and the simple price of "availability" can get unusual. (would people really trade an ox for a pair of shoes?)

But the general goal of Taalia's trip might be:

good mirror (v rare) - 32 plentiful (or 16 common)
1 good clothes (common) - 2 plentiful
1 best clothes (average) - 4 plentiful
1 good mask (average) - 4 plentiful

= 40 plentiful, or 20 common.

Plan 1:

Spoiler

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1 ox (30g, plentiful availability) - a gift to Gaulfredo.
20-30 chickens + 2-3 roosters (5 pennies each which is ridiculously cheap, you can buy 30 chooks for 12.5 silver shillings)
Materials and a couple of boys to help build a large coop for about 100 chickens (average/poor laborer's are 'common' availability, no real cost estimation for a coup, but it'd be much less than a hovel.)
Some feed for the chooks. (plentiful)

Chickens are prolific layers, with ~30 chickens producing about 12 dozen eggs per week. On page 120 of Old World Armory, a dozen eggs sells for 15 pennies, so keeping 2 dozen eggs for the family and selling the other 10 for 150 pennies a week, or 12.5 silver a week. If she does that for a year that's 650 silver shillings a year, or about 32.5 gold crowns a year, which is at the top end of what the 'farmer' pay scale is.

However. That's for the first 6 months. Those 2 dozen eggs? Half can be eaten, the other half can be used to let the chicks grow up, as they'll start producing eggs after 18-22 weeks too. So after 6 months that flock of 30 has become a flock of ~100, producing ~39 dozen eggs a week. Two dozen kept for the family to eat and use, the other 37 being sold for 555 pennies a week, or 46.25 silver a week, or 2.31 gold crowns a week, for an income of 55.5gc for the second half of the year, or 71.75 in total with the first half of the year, and about 111 gold crowns the next year.

Now, this is a huge oversimplification, and money will have to be spent maybe hiring a labourer, upkeep, travel etc, but with some work it's potentially very lucrative and her contribution to the farmstead.

Plan 2:

Spoiler

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1x ox (30g, plentiful availability) - a gift to Gaulfredo.
5 sheep and a ram (12g, plentiful availability)
Some materials and boys to help for a day of setting up a small fenced off area with grazing.

Each sheep can produce about 11 square yards of wool per year, and each square yard of wool, according to page 116 of Old World Armory, is worth ~1gc. Each ewe will have 1-2 lambs a year, which can be kept to expand the flock for now. So 6 sheep in one year producing about 66 yards of wool, for about 66gc a year. Now that won't be net pay, as she'll need to hire some people to help her sheer the sheep etc, but that's more than what they're estimated to be making a year atm. The next year, the flock will be about 1-2x bigger with the last years lambs grown up, so that's 132-198 yards of wool, so 132-198 gold crowns worth. Again, that's a gross oversimplification, but it's a lot with money for expansion.

I understand this is ambitious , but it's what's going through her happy head at the moment from what she's learned about farming and how to help improve her host/saviours family's fortunes. Taalia has no idea that a lifetime of adventure awaits, so she's thinking ahead of the next few years: farming and learning from the Wise Woman, maybe even picking up some pointers from the tradesman that helped with the lock.

(though I never thought I'd see the day where I write about the acquisition of chickens in Warhammer as 'ambitious')

Speaking of that lock, what became of it? Was it a good quality lock?


Edit: When looking at the couple of plans, I had a moment of "Well if it's so easy to make a lot of gold farming like that, why is the average farmers pay estimated to be 30gc a year? Why don't all of them do this?" And I think the easiest answer is that very few have a chest full of hundreds of gold crowns-worth of tradeable goods fall into their lap that they can use to essentially set up their own business and already have access to farmable/grazing land with the infrastructure already in place. Most only own a few acres of farming land and use it for crops. It's really a "the stars aligning" level of luck combined with sound investment that moderate dynasties are founded on.
Most peasants have to work pretty hard, with most of what they make going just to rent and food and some clothes on their back and taxes (which is mentioned to come after the estimated yearly pay), let alone saving for animals and the farmable land on which to raise them. If a peasant saved up half a year for a couple of sheep hoping to sell the wool and lambs for meat, great, where they going to keep them? What grazing land do they have access to? There's even more costs to save for land, or paying the money to hire grazing land from someone (assuming they're not using it already for the same purpose).


I'll stop rambling now, this is just how my stream of consciousness goes .