The Drawing Together of Villages
Based on the society outlined in part 1, we see a peaceful, predominantly independent people in small clusters of between 50-80 people. If the situation remains safe (good crops, free from disease, invasion from men or monsters, etc.) the population will steadily increase.
These people have built nothing larger than wooden longhouses. The vast majority live in wood & thatch homes of various sizes. They generally build no walls save short, modest pens for animals they keep.
This is not some Pollyannic fantasy of the people. It takes effort to imagine what a world with such a tiny population would feel like. There would be nothing like a stranger in your experience, for they are your relatives & friends. There's nothing like a town or certainly a city where people come & go in anonymity. Furthermore, the opportunity for large-scale conflict is almost absent. There is no money, no treasure, no 'businesses' as we understand them.
And so, these people enjoy peace with each other as a rule, for they all possess ample breathing room and inherently, good-will.
People will sometimes discover that they possess specific talents above their peers. Perhaps one person’s clay pottery-making actually becomes prized to the point where others choose to stop making their own, & instead trade 3 hens for one instead. They could make their own, or get one from their neighbor, but the society has evolved now to the first rudimentary stages of “luxury” (obtaining something that’s not strictly necessary). This applies to all manner of things: tools, clothing, dyes, herbal concoctions, mead, ale, you name it.
What began centuries earlier as trading merely in animal-skins, stone arrow-heads, or food, has now evolved into (what they consider) luxury-purchasing with food as the baseline currency. If that becomes endangered, all luxuries become meaningless.
The Evolution of the Marketplace
Through this process, more widespread trade will naturally evolve, and with it, a dedicated market. This is a central location (a village) where people gather together in order to trade goods with each other. But, there is still no such thing as 'money' (coin), merely trade in kind. At the onset, no one owns a “store” of goods; they simply trade what they have in surplus for what they want.
With the passing generations, this village where people went to trade (through some mixture of happenstance & habit) has slowly evolved into a dedicated market-village, which encourages people to come from greater distances. The excitement of so many people gathered together leads to huge festivals & games, not to mention the desire for mates.
After years of coming to the centrally located market-village, people may establish themselves near this village to ply their prized trade or craft enough to make a living. Thus emerges the first “tradespeople” of this culture, those who do not need to hunt, farm or forage in order to stay alive. Their goods are reliably sought after so that they will survive. They will not necessarily be any wealthier than others, but are just as stable, and likely happier for doing what they love.
Therefore, people will begin choosing land near this market-village as a place to live permanently. Other tradespeople may migrate here, seeing that they will have more opportunities to sell their goods.
Assuming that metals & smelting have been discovered, the first non-goods currency can come into being. At first, this will be clumps of smelted copper, iron, or tin, for out of these come superior tools.
All of this is what eventually leads to the creation of a ‘town’. Remember, that without widespread violence, no one yet mass-produces true weapons (other than hunting ones), armor likely does not exist, no walls have been erected, etc. The law is still restricted to each village’s rule, which is rudimentary.
While this town would likely have more theft than any other single village (due to the presence of goods, some of which will be small & valuable enough to tempt the unscrupulous), crime remains infrequent because societal desperation is also low.
When a society is stable, and war unheard of, very few individuals are put into a situation where they alone are starving and must steal from someone with food in order to survive (if one person is starving, this means that the population is also probably starving.)
Also, remember that stealing a pouch of coins is a lot easier to grab and use than stealing a sack of grain. When a society is in this stage, there is nothing at all like the stereotypical “Thieves’ Guild”. In fact, there is no group-banditry since it requires a series of violent & desperate events to push men to those limits. Of course, there have always been crimes—crimes of passion and greed. But, a band of thieves would be quite odd in this society unless something drastic produced it.
Keep in mind that we need not race past these stages in historical evolution. Your campaigns can flourish in these settings. The land is still quite primitive, & individualism is still supreme. The people are compartmentalized from all other cultures. There is still no king or oppressive ‘noble’ class at this stage, for people’s attention is still focused on their homes & the well-being of their neighbors (who, again, are likely related).
If a people can reach this stage of development and still have no invaders come to raid and/or conquer them, then they are in great shape. This is, in my opinion, the ideal state (which is inevitably lost far too quickly). The town will continue to slowly grow, and villages are in better shape since many are linked together communally to help each other. This means less starvation, and therefore population growth. Taxes do not exist, and there is no real threat of marauders or bandits.
People can still be largely trusted to behave themselves since everyone knows each other. It would still be terribly shameful to get caught stealing something, and it’s not as if packing up and moving away is a realistic option. Village would not have a paid “guard”; even a small town doesn’t need them. People simply protect themselves, & the people trust each other as a rule.
An important note here for groups choosing to play in this (or the more primitive) setting: People are far less violent, guarded, devious. They are (by our standards) unsophisticated and unregimented in their lives; they are deeply Premodern. The problem is that we are not. We have been engrained with Modernic, systematic, global mindsets.
Playing as characters from this primitive setting requires that the players restrain themselves and truly play the part of an ancient village-dweller with no concept of bureaucracies or the complex infrastructures that we have inherited. These people were not 'stupid' at all, they are just far more basic, self-governing, strong and independent.
But doing this can yield a novel & rich otherness to the gaming experience. The players can make this shift in everything that they have their characters to in order to emulate a time long-lost.
This specific stage bears a striking resemblance to a land that most Fantasy readers love: The Shire. No king (except the vague notion of some distant king far, far away), no standing army, no taxes, no Draconian law books, no Noble class, etc. But Tolkien fashioned it to work out logically. The Hobbits were able to live in this peace only because they had the Dunedain of Arnor guarding their borders. As we could see when that protection was gone, their land was on the road to horrible changes.
This lovely balance of stability, freedom and peace has surely existed in our world countless times throughout the eons, perhaps lasting many generations, or perhaps it was ruined within a decade. This would be as close to a paradise as we could hope for, but all good things end. Eventually, one of two things (and eventually both) will ruin this balance. That will be discussed in the next entry.