Zompist Bboard Again

Quick question: where (/who) do Verdurians get ivory from (assuming they do at all)? Nan, maybe? What creature is this from?

(Edit: sorry, have now found the article mentioning the Almean elephant of the Alfonine Coast.

Still, there could be other sources?)

Mostly elephants. On Earth there's also ivory from sea mammals, but those would mostly be out of bounds for Almean humans.

There's a type of boar in Qarau territory (E coast of Ereláe) which has serviceable tusks. That would be the main source of ivory for Dhekhnam and the Lenani cultures. Xengiman is somewhat out of luck, but could acquire ivory by trade.

Great, thanks!

Same question, re rubber? (Can see it's got a Caďinor name; has it been commonplace for millennia?)

sasasha wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:23 pm Same question, re rubber? (Can see it's got a Caďinor name; has it been commonplace for millennia?)

That'll be a rain forest product, so Nan and nearby countries.

Caďinas was in contact with Nan, yes. It's not that far away! Earthly sources of rubber were quite far from Europe.'

If pre-modern trade networks on Almea are anything like Earth’s, I’d be surprised if there were anything interesting in all Ereláe that were unknown in Eretald even back in Cad’inor times. Maybe they wouldn’t have everything in great supply, but at least the Cad’inorians would be aware of all kinds of exotic things, as long as they qualified as trade goods.

kodé wrote: ↑Sat Dec 05, 2020 8:59 pm If pre-modern trade networks on Almea are anything like Earth’s, I’d be surprised if there were anything interesting in all Ereláe that were unknown in Eretald even back in Cad’inor times. Maybe they wouldn’t have everything in great supply, but at least the Cad’inorians would be aware of all kinds of exotic things, as long as they qualified as trade goods.

Mostly, yes.

The case of the Erelaean rain forest is easy enough: it's a not-very-long trek up the coast with no real obstacles.

Western Erelae (Tellinor) is another story. You couldn't get there over the north ocean; and the southern trip was so long and unrewarding that southern coast-hugging traders (Jeori, Skourenes, etc) never discovered Tellinor. And the land route is complicated by big mountains and a desert.

It is true (and a useful fact for conlangers) that high-value goods can travel thousands of miles simply by local transmission, without caravans or a trade network. E.g. the Shang Chinese got jade from Central Asia 2000 years before the Silk Road was a thing.