Overview of Sciences

There are an insurmountably large number of sciences to study from, both formal and applied. It can be safe to assume that in this world of harsh survival and magic, that there are some discrepancies with the world and history we know of our own earth. Most sciences will mirror our earthly levels of understanding between the middle ages and the renaissance, but the question then comes up, how does congruence affect their growth and development?

Demographics applied to Congruence Development

Communities can range in size but the average community across the continent is most likely going to have between 50 and 150 people. Large cities and even smaller hamlets exist, but a vast majority of the towns will look like what is mentioned above. This means that while they are entirely self-sustaining, they most likely do not have the capability to live beyond their means, and those means are fairly low. Common survival problems take top priority, meaning that the most commonly ‘practiced’ sciences would be agriculture, security science, food science, veterinary science, architecture, medicine, engineering, physiology, civil engineering, and education in order from most important/researched/well-developed to least. Military science exists at a high level for larger communities, but is nonexistent in smaller ones.

Conceptual Sciences

Other sciences still exist, but are mostly conceptual at best for the most formal, such as math, physics, statistics, and the like. Inferred information is often passed down, and base knowledge for disciplines that require them like a guild merchant making trades, would be adept, but rudimentary. Social sciences would be some of the most dangerous, as understanding gained from them could lead to dangerous empaths, and would likewise be more habitually gained, rather than intensively studied. Such colleges exist in the bigger cities, and would have a closely kept record of students, or some other means of safeguarding. Natural sciences like biology and chemistry have the potential to be some of the most well-researched formal sciences.

Industry and Congruence as a Replacement of Industry

With the inclusion of necromasters, labor issues in larger communities become much less severe, and mining, logging, or semi-factory condition settings can occur. Metals and stonework would be rather prevalent, if still expensive, the farther from community hubs they go. Trees would be a luxury item in most cases, as terramancers and necromasters can create most buildings with the earth and stonework around them. Clay and wood would be reserved for those who live farther away mostly. Industry doesn’t exist in a way that we would know it. Congruence has existed in the world for a long time, and so technologies around it might also exist that produce the effects of industrialization without actually being industry. Some clever congruence user might have in the past structured a building to eat plant based material and spit out ready-wear clothes, for example. There is a chance to play with certain items that can be more ubiquitous than others, or other magic items that replace certain worldly needs. If the world is dangerous, maybe an old congruence user designed a town bell to ring when a creature with sentience steps within a certain radius of the town.

My thought is that there is a single congruence user (or rather educated individual) in communities of this size, someone who handles extraneous teaching, and serves as someone of importance. It could be a process of election, or trial, or more of sending a child to a large city for instruction once every generation or so, and returning back to the village, although there are several other options.

Shifting Writers’ Perspectives

The next task would be discovering how congruence shaped sciences, advancing some and halting others, and expanding off of that, what specific items, ideas, or implements caused these to exist. The task can also be rephrased as, what magic items exist in the world due to necessity or ease, and how has that affected progress elsewhere?

Stuff like, is there a telephone system where a single magic item per town allows for outside contact? If there isn't, is there a mailing system? Safeguards for such?

The world itself has been around for a long time. We are not taking medieval Europe and placing magic into it. We are taking a world that has had magic existing in it for several thousand years, and trying to figure things out that way.