Literacy And Magic In The Realms

It may seem that the Realms is overly populated by mages, high level priests, and a fireball every 1.3 feet. The primary reason it seems that way is due to our focus on the major power players of areas, the mages & priests in a city, etc. It's a very simple answer as to why you find out more on them than the farmers, barkeeps, and stable hands that outnumber them by 3,000 to 1: This is AD&D; and the game's focused on heroes, villains, and all that. We have to make some basic assumptions, and the most basic of them is: Spend more time on the characters and situations and places that have the most adventure potential. THIS coda alone is why you're more apt to get a book on dragons and their treasure hoards than a trading coster and its caravan structures. Yes, both have immense role-playing and game potential, but only the former has much ADVENTURE potential that will appeal to the widest audience.         In short, for every 3 mages and priests we mention in a city or town, remember there are 500-1000 other people with whom your PCs can interact, including a school master....         In my opinion, it's certainly conceivable that a mage or another learned person who settles in a town may be set up as the de facto teacher for the community. After all, if you're the only one around with enough knowledge to read, you're going to be bothered by everyone who gets a letter and can't read it. The assumption that the knowledgeable should share their wisdom and knowledge with others who want it is the primary reason why many tiny towers dot the landscape of the Realms. Wizards often settle far from other people to be left alone, not for the safety of those around them. If you're trying to concentrate on spell research but you're bothered every few days by the town mayor wanting advice, you're bound to get a tad irate and pick up your tower and go where the little man won't find you......... :)         Another basic idea at work here is this: If you're a peasant farmer with 10 kids, you're probably more focused on using them to help on the farm, not necessarily to send them off to better themselves. That's a far more modern ideal, whereas there's a lot of tradition in this fictionalized time frame to being taught simply to "do what me da and me granddad did." I'm not saying that it doesn't happen - Chances are, most PCs (and many standard fantasy heroes) come from such backgrounds. However, it's the individual who makes it happen, not society, in the Realms. Yes, the opportunities are there, but only if one knows how to get to them. If you're a farmer's daughter in a tiny unnamed village in the Green Fields, chances are you've never heard of the schools of knowledge available in either Waterdeep or the far closer Erlkazaran city of Duhlnarim unless some wanderers spun tales of them for her and took her to them.         It comes down to knowledge of one's options and the drive to fulfill them. The heroes of the Realms and D&D; stand out because of their drive to rise above their common origins. They dream of nobler, richer lives and aren't content to maintain the status quo (like so many around them) and dare to rise above their stations. It's all in what people see as their dreams, and that's based on what they see as their options. Remember, a certain farmboy almost didn't become a hero because "I need you for another harvest." Heck, he was originally planning to become an Imperial officer at the Academy (cuz that's all he saw as an option away from home). If those stormtroopers hadn't gotten to Uncle Owen.....and then he got attacked by sandpeople.......Get the picture, as envisioned far, far away? :)         Is public education or at least more widespread literacy going to happen in the Realms? Doubtful. Why? Few farmers can see the use of spending the time and money to have a child (or themselves) taught how to read or do more than the most rudimentary of mathematics. After all, this is still a world where books are made by hand (ignoring the apocryphal mentions of Time-Waterdeep publishers) except for a tiny number of hand-operated block presses in Waterdeep and a few other major cities. Therefore, when printed matter is available at best to an approximate 1% of the population (and I'm being generous here), it's not worth it for the other 99% of the people to learn what to do with it. Unless they plan on becoming a merchant or a noble or whatnot, in which case their personal drives put them on the road toward education, and those people will find it however they will.         The schools established by Oghman priests are closer to seminaries and/or religious private schools, as their drive is to educate and make sure knowledge is learned. And while any wizard and many priests can teach people how to read or educate them in other ways, unless they are approached and agree to do so, that's rarely the reason why such persons became learned people. Our modern society assumes a given level of education, and that doesn't exist in the Realms as yet, save in the dreams of the Oghman priesthoods and whatnot.         Nobles taking on children to be educated for their own reasons is a model one could use. The immediate thought I had was Tom Hayden in the Godfather. An orphan unofficially adopted off the streets, Tom became educated as a lawyer and now served his "godfather" as consigliere. That's a system that could be more common than we know, as we've barely scratched the surface on the hows/whys/wherefores of the nobility and the moneyed class in the Realms.         Widespread literacy WON'T lead to widespread magic use - you still need that essential spark in you that allows you to bend the Weave to your will. All the knowledge in the world won't help you if you don't have that spark. Unless you accept Hudson Hawk as canonical, one of our paragons of Western knowledge - Leonardo daVinci - could do more things than nearly anyone else of his day, but he couldn't change lead to gold. In the same sense, there are hundreds of sages that can tell you about this or that topic, including magic or the historical practices and myths of Mystra's church, but they most likely don't wield any ability at all to summon a spell to their fingertips.         Widespread literacy will lead directly only to an increased demand for things to read and an increase in writing to feed that need.       Steven Schend Who really shouldn't even mention the idea that he thinks many bards are illiterate despite their educations because their knowledge is an oral, not written, tradition (and others who follow Oghma or simply want to remember a song write them down).....
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