Worldbuilding June Day 22: Work
Though only briefly a majority share of the economy, Platea’s most famous exports come from the logging and mining industries. Most workers in these sectors traditionally lived for months at a time in camps in the Skyline region north of Anticode, returning to Anticode to spend their pay when they got two weeks of vacation.
The essential dynamic remains to this day, though as transportation has improved, work schedules have adapted; it’s more common to take a few days off after a few weeks instead of taking a couple weeks off after months.
Generally, each work camp will elect a leader each year, who is accountable to the logging or mining guild to ensure the camp meets its quota. Unofficially, this leader is usually called a “czar”; officially, they are called a Mayor, though enforcement of correct terminology has slackened considerably since Platea left the Empire.
There is no significant gender disparity among the labor force; however, due to the physical labor involved in moving lumber and ore, most of the workers are Beasts, with occasional Birds appearing in support roles such as couriers, surveyors, and explosive technicians.
No man is an island, of course, and the workers up north need to buy tools to support their trade and food to support their lives. They, among others, are serviced by the merchants and craftsmen living in the city of Anticode.
[e x p a n d]
Without a stable source of food, any civilization will collapse in short order; it is fortunate, then, that farmers and ranchers make up the largest segment of the modern Platean economy.
The “family farm” concept actually reflects reality; most farmers own, or belong to a household that owns, the land they personally work on. Hiring large numbers of farmhands breaks social norms; most farmhands are hired on a temporary basis, and adopted or married into the family if expected to remain long-term.
Guilds are only really involved in the business at harvest time, where they organize the transport of crops to market.
Ranches are run in essentially the same distributed manner as farms; the only real difference is that they tend to ant and bee colonies (and the occasional meat livestock) instead of fruits and vegetables.
Most farms are located on the floodplains around Anticode, or along the Toj Shannil river, with a few ranches scattered amongst them. Along the Toj Wanier, however, ranches become the dominant form of agriculture, due to the difficulty in growing conventional crops.
eastern guidance / hospitality
organized crime (moving east with gambling) / piracy (otters)