From: "Raymond E. Feist"
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997
We first peaked at Calis's power in King's Buccaneer, when he was yanking half of Amos's crew up the cliffs. Other things are pretty apparent, the elven apprehension of the environment, the stealth, etc. Mostly, though, it was the tripple elven, human, Valheru heritage that let him understand the Lifestone. That was basically his role in the universe. As for Pug, MIranda, Calis, and Tomas, at the time of the game, almost nothing is known about them. Remember, 1) there was no mass media in Midkemia at the time 2) there were no popular histories. Modern readers always have this trouble losing the concept of "common knowledge" they have today in dealing with periods of history. They also have a metropolitan bias, considering everything from the point of view of people who lived in population centers, where even if they didn't have a newspaper, had a pretty good gossip system. Remember, folks on the frontier could get word of a new Emperor a year after the old one died. Durring the Dark Ages, a journey to the next village, 20 miles away, might have been a once-in-a-lifetime event. The 1st growth forests were so dense that if you got off the road you could expect to travel less than a couple of miles a day. Not a lot of good information making it's way from one point to another. In Midkemia, we had an argument (what else is new?) once about how likely it would be for a kid to know something via rumor. That created an ad-hoc set of rules (and I don't know if they made them into the last revision of the Cities rules or now) on how to judge "general knowledge." The example was "would your character know about taking drinks from Quegans?" If you do, and there's a gold coin in the bottom of the mug, you put it down and don't touch it, because if you take the King's gold, you're in the King's service. I don't remember the actual numbers, but it was something like "if you grew up in the dock area of Krondor [or any other Bitter Sea city] you have an 80% chance of knowing that piece of tivia" down to "if you've just come in from some farm town a hundred miles inland, you have a %5 chance of maybe having overheard something in a tavern." So, you always had a chance, of either knowing when you shouldn't or not knowing when you should. Given that, one assumes they're mentioned in the official histories that survived after the 5th Riftwar. I'm sure the Ishapians have something on them in the Library at That Which Was Sarth. But the common folks? Nope. Sailors know to stay the hell away from Sorcerer's Island, because the Black Sorcerer will mess you up if you don't, but other than that? Nada with the general population. The above in detail was provided to give you a bit of an insight in the realities of running the Midkemian game in keeping things consistent with the levels of technology and information in the general environment.
FAQ answers attributed to Raymond E. Feist are copyright by Raymond E. Feist.
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