Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Terrainosaur Sep 16, 2010 16:04:29	There are some materials that should exist in Athas, in varying quantities, even with resource shortage.  Can you think of some more? Palms and rattan are common, it was mentioned that they make wicker and reed items. It occurred to me they could have as much glass as they need. Rubber would be rare since it comes from trees, specifically ones that need a lot of water. Oil for lamps?
#2 baronspam Sep 16, 2010 16:47:19	There is a note that Balic exports olives, and thus i assume olive oil.  There are probably other vegatbles/grains that can be pressed for oils both for food, fuel, medicine, etc. I think the most common construction materials would be stone and mud brick, or perhaps some kind of cob.  Stone takes a lot of labor, but no water.  Bricks take a good water source to make.  If you are in a tiny village in deep nowhere the shelters are likely much more semi-permanent, likely tents.  Better off folks have nice textiles from Draj, desert trash I could see living in a bone framed structure covered in Hides.  Objects that we would commonly see made of metal are stone, bone, ceramic, or even fiber.   Many indiginous peoples can make fiber baskets so well they are water tight.  Many of the cultures of central/south america lacked sophisticated metalworking, but the surviving textile artifacts are of staggering quality and ingunuity.  Wood is available to a certain extent, there are lowland forests, espceially between Gulg and Nibanay.  This is actually fairly realistic, there are such things as desert forests.  In central Oregon there are forests of Juniper and Jack Pine that grow in desert or near desert conditions. Wood is likely valuable enought to be a trade good, but not OMG expensive like iron is. And don't forget the metal does exist, its just rare and costly.  But a rich person would likely have a steel dagger, and elite soldier would have steel weapons.  Its just not for the day to day folks and new recruit who's main job is to stop a spear.
#3 angelus_obscura Sep 16, 2010 17:36:30	Spice! oh wait, wrong world. xD
#4 OneWeirdCat Sep 17, 2010 6:42:21	I would think bamboo as well, bamboo is hardy, grows prodigiously, and there are hundreds of varieties of it.  They also can use it in almost stuff now as they do High Fructose Corn Syrup.
#5 Silverblade_The_Enchanter Sep 17, 2010 8:40:04	Should also consider many fantastic materials we know of: agafari wood, storng as bronze. Drake (hide, bone, claws) Dazil (spelling?) thri-kreen crystal secreted like spit used ot build chatkas etc. I'd also suggest Athas is a world of exotic crystals, it seem svery abundant in such, and in 4th ed that would make even more sense (elemental chaos/primordials predominant) obsidian is common in some places in Athas, in RL, that is the sharpest material you can ever expect to use hence it's being used for scalpels again. Honestly you would not believe how damn sharp that stuff is, worse than broken glass by far! An arrow tipped with that would kill you very easily by blood-loss in my games since Athas has so much psionics, I assume "Psionic crafting" is relatively common, allowing materials ot be hardened, toughened or changed (these would be masterwork materials and would not break like substandard materials will in game) note that "hard" and "tough" are NOT the same diamonds and obsidian are vastly harder than steel, but a blow from a steel hammer would break them (steel is very tough) crystalline and ceramic materials break because of low tensile strength (toughness) caused by flaws etc but, if you remove those flaws, you get incredible materials, hence in real life, toughened cermics can be used as knife or scissor blades and take a lot longer to blunt as they are harder than steel then you can imagine insects etc having unusual plating, chitin like glass, reflective, sharp, focusing light etc, or resistant to acid, or very tough
#6 mouthymerc Sep 17, 2010 9:08:50	Trade Goods According to 2E Dune Trader. Ale Amber Armor Beer Bronze Candy Ceramics Chalk Chitin Cider Cinnibar Cloth Clothing Coal Copper Cosmetics Cotton Crodlu Dyes/Pigments Erdlu Feathers Figs Fruit Furs Gems Glass Gold Hardwood Herbs Incense Inix Ink Iron Jade Jewelry Kanks Kank, Nectar Leather Marble Medicines Mekillots Mirrors Nuts Obsidian Oil Paintings Paper Perfume Resins Rice Rope Rugs Salt Silk Silver Slaves Songbirds Spice Statues Sugar Tools Vegetables Water Wax Weapons Wine Wheat Some of these, like the metals, are even more scarce in 4E, but most should be okay.
#7 Terrainosaur Sep 17, 2010 10:55:41	Thanks mouthymerc.  That's what I needed.  My campaign is even based on that book!  I was  thinking of what to describe to players and how to answer questions, and this list does that.
#8 angelus_obscura Sep 17, 2010 21:15:14	Trade Goods According to 2E Dune Trader. Kanks Kank, Nectar Spice LOL, try saying Kanks 10x fast. Made me rofl. mmmm sk@nk nectar. heehee P.S. SPICE!!! I wonder if it turns the ingester's eyes blue and grants longevity. ;) mmmm spice blow. xD sorry, couldn't resist