Economic study of the Decayed regions

The Decay is an eminent threat in Gavel. Nobody knows what it is, why it's spreading, or how to stop it, despite various scientific efforts. Some people hit close to the truth, but its mental effects make most such efforts futile. There's only two people in Gavel when the game starts who have the full picture, and they're Dullahan and Lari, neither of whom are able or willing to fix the problem. And its impacts are... very broad.

The Decayed regions - Olux Swamp, the Dark Forest, and the Kander Forest - are economically crippled. The Swamp, for example, was not always a swamp; it used to be a lush and fertile forest, similar to the remaining Light Forest, and it was clearly an agricultural region, given how many farms still struggle on despite the poor soil. Most of the Swamp's inhabitants are now very poor, and their society is falling apart, as evidenced by the activities of the Iron Golem factory, which is able to operate in large part because the desperation and social isolation of the farmers makes them easy targets, and what authority remains has been bribed to turn a blind eye. Such corruption isn't merely a moral defect; the government is completely out of cash, so it couldn't enforce the law even if it tried. Vigilante detectives can operate, but the amount of justice they can enact is suspect. Those with the resources to send troops against the Factory may not be willing to. Economically speaking, Iron Golems are the main export of the Swamp. That is not a good sign.

If we take a broader look, the Decayed regions are ultimately playing on a set of tropes that the TVTropes wiki calls "Uberwald". This is a sort of pop-culture digested idea of Eastern Europe, places like Russia, Romania, interior Austria, the Black Forest of Germany: a dangerous, rugged land of isolated, superstitious, poor and agrarian folk, cursed by the long consequences of ancient crimes (dynastic or otherwise), plagued by monstrous types (werewolves, vampires, black magicians), and left behind by the more civilised, peaceful, and technologically advanced parts of the world (you will note that this is blatant racism). A lot of forests, mountains, and ominous castles, and a stark divide between the upper and lower class. The Decayed regions hit every element of this on the head. It's a useful lens to look at the place through, although I won't apply it so much, since I'm more interested in how it looks like in-universe.

When you look at it, there are a lot of noble families here - a startling amount compared to how they're distributed through the rest of Wynncraft's world. (From my memory, no specific noble families are ever named for Corkus; the Ocean really only has Dead Island, which is sort of a microcosm of the Dark Forest anyway, down to being Dark-cursed; Wynn mainly has the Twains and that mansion in Dernel.) You've got the Caritats, the Faltachs, the unnamed family who owned what is now Dullahan's castle, and the House of Talor refers to a sizeable number of others. What gives? Clearly, the region must not always have been poor. The Caritats built their house before the Decay, although it was quickly ruined; is the same then true of the rest?

Well, again, Eastern Europe. It was not very prosperous compared to the industrial West, but the nobility was wealthy. And before the Decay, this region could have supplied raw resources (like Eastern Europe did), mainly food and wood (note how many farms are found in the Decayed regions, even now), to the more wealthy areas of Gavel - the ones on the main trade route.

Examine the map. Llevigar is a modernised, electrified port city adjacent to a highly profitable mine which is the only access point to Gavel for most sea-traders (Jofash Docks connects to the dangerous, bandit-ridden, difficult-to-traverse Sky Islands, which are themselves hemmed in by the dangerous, bandit-ridden, difficult-to-traverse Canyon of the Lost that keeps them away from the rest of Gavel, and aside from it, there's only an unknown, Weird-ridden cave for a hole in the border mountains). Cinfras is the financial center and main airbase of Gavel. On the road between them we find Bucie - a town very obviously built on a road, as well as on a river, and therefore an obvious stopover point for caravans, and which, in fact, sells horses. From Bucie you go on to Cinfras via the Light Forest, potentially stopping in Efilim, although Efilim is a more recent development and would postdate the beginning of the Decay. ("More recent" is still "pretty damn old" because the timeline of the game is ridiculously elongated. I mean, really, everything happens basically in the first 200 years after the Equinox and the last.) The Decayed regions are solidly off this line and therefore mostly disconnected from trade - they're second-rate. It is also worth noting that the Decayed areas have a history of royalism, as opposed to the staunch republicans of Llevigar and Cinfras - illustrating a cultural divide in addition to (or because of) an economic one.

The Decay is not a priority for Gavel's government in part because, despite the republicanism, Gavel is classist. The Decayed regions are poor. Who cares about them? This is obviously circular since the Decayed regions are poor because of the Decay, and the Decay hits them badly because nobody is addressing it. So, it's not a super compelling explanation for the Decayed regions being left out to dry... except, wait, I just mentioned that they're an area with a history of royalism - that is, opposition to the Republic - and a lot of noble families, who are major royalist agitators. And the latter have been wiped clean because the Decay destroyed their financial base and also, on a more personal front, generally drove them mad. Suddenly the Decay looks downright convenient for the ruling class (that is, wealthy merchants and capitalists, and to a lesser extent the general middle class of Gavel). Suddenly it looks like, if it was left to chew through northwest Gavel unmitigated, things would be much easier politically for the Republic's dominating factions. (Obviously this is a bad bet - the Decay is creeping towards Llevigar as well as the Gylia Plains, so if it's not checked it'll hit the major economic regions next and probably spell doom for the Republic, but they don't know that, and because of the player's actions, they'll never have to learn.)

Now, the obvious question remains. Was this actually thought through by the Content Team during the redesign of Gavel and its lore, or is this compelling economic narrative of the area an accidental knock-on effect of writing in an off-the-shelf fantasy region? I can't answer that, as I'm not a member of the Content Team, but there's been clear effort to write deeper worldbuilding that emerges on thorough analysis - although Wynncraft's long history and sporadic updates means that this effort isn't always visible, since many areas of the game are five or ten years behind the rest. (Good god, the Ocean.) So I'd like to think that this all was intentional, and somebody in the CT Discord is tickled that someone finally noticed. It's certainly interesting to me, and I could probably go on talking about the Decay for a few more paragraphs, elaborating on the trope analysis (warlocks! superstitions! the undead! the Prison!), but that analysis is, much like the Decay itself, by the wayside. I've said enough. The case is made.

 

This is really well done, I love the links that are embedded

 

Man, it's been so long since I've seen on of these types of threads digging into the practical lore of the world, not just main story lore.

I think it's kind of a shame that Wynncraft doesn't tend to go a bit more into depth on this kind of stuff more often; it makes for a really interesting reading. Wynn's government is a bizarre hodgepodge of regional nobility, a central alliance of sorts, shared currency and seemingly some level of overall authority and central planning but no apparent body that seems to be involved. Gavel's seems to be a semi-functional republic with roots in an ancient monarchy, but the republic itself barely seems even to be present, and which only seems to make up the villager areas of Gavel, with the orcs being a diverse collection of tribes seemingly ruled over by the villagers in an apartheid state, much the same as the gerts. The elves are ruled by a council but maybe not and have noble houses? The dwarves are a monarchy which makes them one of the most politically explained groups in the game. There are also a handful of other races being in some vaguely tribal structures, unique to themselves (I don't think the extreme degree of species-based segregation in Gavel really hit me until just now). Corkus (and soon Fruma) are the only provinces with any real established government system extending beyond a single powerful leader, and even then they raise as many questions as they ask. The economic status of people in a region is basically unaddressed beyond "the people here are poor" or "the people here are wealthy" and maybe a hint as to what the main economic outputs of a region might be. Some of these don't even make sense; Nemract is the central trade port for the entirety of the province, has ample fishing spots and a live gold mine next door, and is still dirt poor. I would be beyond happy if the next few years of updates were just modernizing older content and adding in more realistic touches to the world, addressing stuff like this (my parents never took me to see a psychologist as a kid, so I can only assume that wanting the ability to spend a few hours researching the economic state of fishermen living in a particular region of a fantasy Minecraft server is just a normal thing).

 

Nice work.

 

I forgot to finish my Bucie thought, which was that it would be the place where the hypothesised wood-and-crop exports from the then-not-yet-Decayed regions would connect to the main trade network since it's right on a river that leads up to that area. I also observe that it's got agricultural and fishing industries of its own which helps, although trading post is definitely a good explanation for it. (Might we hear about an old ferry from before the bridge was built?)

Also, Olux is literally right next to a logging camp and I didn't think to mention it.

 

Wasn't Llevigar canonicaly a royal city? Ditto with Cinfras due to it being the capital and having the palace (Modern Silverbull HQ)?
Otherwise, great & thought provoking work!

 

The royal palace of gavel was in what is now the guild hall, with the silverbull headquarters being in the royals' old summer residence. Considering the uprising that lead to the monarchy being deposed (mostly, I assume) happened in Cinfras and what little reverance they hold for their monarchy's palaces, I doubt the city is royalist.

Furthermore Llevigar only became the city we know today after the villagers made contact with Wynn, bringing immense wealth to the province. That was in around 900 AP while the monarchy fell in 750 AP. Although Llevigar was founded by the monarchy I don't think they'd hold it in high regards considering it never did anything for them and that the city only really flourished under the republic, where it became a symbol of the "new Gavel" aka post contact with Wynn aka nothing to do with the old monarchy.

 

I, for one, would like to see the few more paragraphs! This is Good Stuff! I cast my vote for "please yap some more I would genuinely love to see more of what you have to say (unless you just don't feel like writing more which is totally ok lmao)".

 

Oh... I guess that makes sense because Llevigar as a bustling port doesn't prior to the calming of the ocean and the connection of Wynn and Gavel.

 

I referred to them as 'staunch republicans' for demographic reasons. Republicanism is presumably dominant among, as I mentioned, the wealthy merchant-capitalist classes which currently dominate the political life of Gavel. Llevigar and Cinfras are clearly the two richest Gavellian cities, and therefore they'd presumably be the strongest support for the Republic.

(Rodoroc is probably the third richest city.)