Scientific knowledge of Khorasian commoners and scholars

[Drul Morbok]

While the Khoras page seems to be written for people with our modern western knowledge about science, I wonder what scholars and commoners within the game world know (or believe) about such topics

For example I read in another thread that most people believe Khoras is flat rather than spherical. So they probably don't know about plate tectonics.
How would they explain tidal patterns?

And I guess they don't know about a thing such as an atom model...what would they believe instead?

Or do they know about evolution, do they know/believe simple life forms started in primordial soup, and more complex life forms evolved from them?
Or do they believe live forms where created the way they are now? Designed to develop into what they are today?
Do they even have a biological taxonomy, or would they for example think rats, bugs, worms to be of the same "category vermin", without further classification?

In our world, people long believed in (what we today call) abiogenesis, i.e. non-living matter turning into life forms, like cheese actually turning into maggots (if I remember correctly, some scholars even stated that native Americans grew out of the soil this way, but this might be a myth in itself).
The idea that living things come only from living things (or cells only from cells) is a historically rather recent one, so might not have yet come up in Khoras.


I'm not expecting a definite answer for every Khorasian society - I'm mainly fascinated by thinking about how people in Khoras would explain certain things, based on what they observe.
I think it's possible to have a lot of (maybe a bit nerdy) fun with outdated knowledge, or even made-up yet plausible in-game explanations, in a pseudo-historical fantasy world..


Oh, one final notice: What I wrote is pretty eurocentric - when I say a theory/discovery is rather recent, I'm implicitly limiting to "in western society" without adding it every time.
And even so, I sometimes might be wrong, and being corrected is appreciated as a chance to learn 

[David Roomes]

Yes, Khoras is written at people in the modern Western world, but I think most pages in the site make it clear that the technology of Khoras is medieval. Most commoners and peasants in most lands are illiterate and, for the most part, poorly educated. Scholars, nobles, wizards and clergy are the only ones that enjoy any kind of formal education.

I don't know what thread you are referring to about the flat Khoras belief. As it was on Earth, most educated people know the world is round. This would likely be especially true with Khoras. Because they have 2 suns, three moons and the movement of the stars influence magic on Khoras, there would be great interest in astronomy. Commoners might belief the world is flat, but this would vary from region to region and from person to person. I imagine it would be a topic of lively discussion in the taverns.

The people of Khoras, even the educated ones, don't know about plate tectonics. They also have no germ theory, no concept of evolution, no idea what the stars are and probably primitive and competing classification systems for biology. They most likely WOULD have developed a Copernican theory due to the elevated interest in astronomy. Some nations are more technologically advanced that others. In particular, the nation of Kalimura is far ahead of most other nations.

Also, religion tends to hinder scientific knowledge wherever such knowledge starts to contradict the religious beliefs. There are a lot of religions on Khoras and, if you read them, you'll notice that a lot of them have conflicting beliefs and origin stories. This is intentional.

Bottom line is this: commoners and peasants are uneducated. Only the wealthy and privileged are educated. But even those who are lucky enough to be educated are still limited by the knowledge available in that part of the world at that time.

Anyway, that's how I look at it. I don't know if this has ever come up in any significant way for gaming purposes. It could though. Superstitious sailors refusing to join the crew of a ship that's bound for the edge of the map, perhaps. I remember one D&D adventure from long ago that involved a wizard who had been studying astronomy and his notes on a comet were clues that tied into the plot.

One last random thought. Although the medieval ages didn't really know where germs and bacteria were, they did know that dead bodies could spread disease, which is why they burned them, buried them and occasionally flung them over the walls of a city during a siege. So sometimes primitive cultures have a general idea about something even though they don't know the specific details.

[Drul Morbok]

I got the flat Khoras belief from http://www.khoras.net/chat/index.php?topic=28.0 where you stated that most commoners, serfs and mariners believe Khoras is flat.
I thought it was a bit odd, considering that over 2000 years ago, the Greeks already tended towards a round earth.

But then again, when I say "the Greeks", it probably actually means a few philosophers/scientists, not the commoners (although I don't know for sure).
Also Khoras had some tremendous backlash, the Sundering, which goes far beyond any real-world equivalent, so I considered a widespread flat Khoras belief somewhat conceivable.


I think what fascinates me most:
While the general technology on Khoras is obviously (more or less) medieval, there are some achievements that even go beyond what modern science could achieve, by means of magic.
Like the creation of the secambru, the morphians or the phellysians.
Or the stiffening. It seems beyond plagues available to modern biological warfare.

And since "Magic is a force of Nature. Like gravity or inertia, it is bound by physical laws as are all aspects of the universe" (as stated on the article on magic), In my imagination, those creation acts were scientific achievements, based on profound scientific knowledge.
I tend to assume that if a modern scientists was to examine Khorasian life forms, he would find an equivalent to real-world DNA, and live would be based on cells, even if nobody on Khoras knows that.

So I just imagined that to create the secambru, you would need knowledge as sophisticated as CRISPR or the like.


While this might not be of any interest for most campaigns, the implications are totally intriguing for me as a World Builder.


And of course this would be knowledge of the past, which now is lost.
I just wondered how much is lost, and what remains.
And how it would differ from historical reference, which has no such advanced knowledge in the past (unless this knowledge is lost in a way we don't know about it....but of course many cultures had an astounding knowledge on astronomy, line the Maya).


But none of what I assumed, wondered and imagined is a necessary conclusion within Khoras ;-)

[Drul Morbok]

I think I forgot to consider the "single genius explanation", which seems to be a common narrative aspect (not only) in fantasy.

If as an analogy, we assume that Alrem Evarel combined the genius and ideas of Newton, Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg and others in a single mind, in a scientific background struggling with Copernicus, it seems plausible that nobody else understood his ideas, so they never became actual scientific theory.

[David Roomes]

There was definitely a lot of knowledge lost when the Sundering occurred and in the Great War that followed. The Alliance (and many of their contemporaries) had vast magical knowledge which was much more powerful than the magic of the current era. However, the Sundering, World Storm and Great War, including a backlash against wizards and magic in general, wiped out most of that "greater" knowledge.

Also, the Alliance used a magical writing system, Huridian, which survives today but is unreadable. It is essentially a "dead language" and has defied all attempts to translate it. Within those crumbling scrolls are mountains of lost knowledge.

And yes, as those who have been around the Khoras forum for awhile and read other conversations on the matter already know, there are two wizards who have successfully translated Huridian. Morlokk and Tolkarus. Each was independently successful in translating Huridian. Neither has made their achievement public knowledge.

[Drul Morbok]

I often thought that news/rumors about successful Huridian translation would make for a great adventure hook - or for a great background for a "sequel setting" some decades later!

I guess if Duthelm made serious progress, or even succeeded at translating, this might trigger a huge war, either with Duthelm attacking with new force, or by a huge anti-Duthelm alliance attacking.

Or rather the plot of the hapless commoner/thief/... stumbling upon a vital key to translation, not recognizing it as what it is, ending up hunted by agents from countless factions?

I guess if I was to implement such a setting, I would use the Mandalar (like I often would)....they guard the secret without knowing it, and now just about everyone wants to invade them...

Khoras is a world full of inspiration

[David Roomes]

You just made my day!