And we’re done! Here are the results from last week’s poll.
Scoring Method
1st choice: 10 points
2nd choice: 8 points
3rd choice: 6 points
4th choice: 5 points
5th choice: 4 points
6th choice: 3 points
7th choice: 2 points
8th and thereafter: 1 point
Results
Sigl Recycling: 117
Essentia Capacity: 95
The Board: 88
Branch Affinities: 85
Corporations: 78
Sigl Fashion: 77
Attunement: 64
Country Affinities: 60
Conclusions
Honestly, I was surprised at how close the results all were. Almost all the topics came in within 1 first-place vote of one another. I was kind of expecting a few to get significantly lower ratings.
The only real outlier seems to be Sigl Recycling, which is the clear winner as far as popularity goes. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the more difficult ones to do, since it has some major implications for how the economy of the setting works (which is one of the reasons I’ve held off on fixing numbers for it). Still, it is important, so I should really get around to it.
After the #1 slot, though, all of the others are clustered fairly close together – the gap between ranks #2 and #8 is really not very big. So I’ll probably do #2 through #8 in one large group. Most should be relatively short, although some (like Corporations) will be their own mini-series.
Oh, and as for write-ins, the most popular was Animal Sigls with 14 points, followed by several asking about various secrets and mysteries of the setting, which unfortunately I had to disqualify. (Come on, guys, ‘Beginner’s Guide’ means ‘general introductory knowledge’, not ‘closely guarded secrets’.) No breakaway favourites, in any case.
In any case, the 8 topics above should amount to another 10-14 articles or so, which’ll probably provide me with material for a full 6 months-ish of worldbuilding essays, possibly more if I go down some side tangents. By the time that’s done, we’ll probably be approaching the release date for Book 3!
In our defense I thought Byron implied that knowledge about the Winged was known in the Drucraft world, I believe he mentioned the Mountains and the Cathedrals to Lucella and there seems to be mythological figures mentioned like Ogun and Perun that seem to be gangs/criminals/pseudo Cults. So just general information that isn’t too spoilery since they are so powerful and influential some information must be known to the average drucrater without going to overboard, kinda of how the average person knows Special Forces exists but not know how and where they function.
But aside from that looking forward to learning about the Corporations Essentia capacity Branch affinities and the rest!
(I will miss learning about the Drucraft branch affinities with their cultural associations plus what planets the rest are associated with, I want to know how far out we get possibly to Uranus or Neptune or if the Moon and Earth count for ones.)
I had hoped the ‘Sigl Fashion’ option would have scored higher… I figured with the nobility and ultra wealthy type of folks, sigl jewelry would almost reach a ‘crown jewels’ sort of function. You become head of house, or the heir apparent, you get something like a signet ring, like the official ducal seal worked into the ring Paul inherits from his father as Duke Atreides in Dune. Or the signet ring Hadrian wears in the Sun Eater series, as a sign of his status and rank as a Palatine. The King still wears the three feather signet ring of Wales, like he did as Prince of Wales. The new heir or head of house would get the ring, just getting a new sigl created and mounted in the antique setting.
Also, I figured with the younger crowd and the fact some sigls need to be worn close to the skin, that sigl jewelry piercings would be more widespread than they apparently are in the series so far.
Great idea about a signet ring. 🙂 Maybe only the great houses have them though? Since Charles doesn’t, IIRC.
Prediction:
Recycling is similar to technology in current world:
1) The more complex product is the more energy it takes to recycle important parts (e.g. getting gold out of mobile phones). Or reusing the rare metals from batteries.
2) Common products have standard technology to recycle them – think glass bottles or aluminum cans.
Most items fall somewhere in between.
So, for sigils, it goes pretty much the same way:
1) recycling returns are not great and depend on drucrafters expertize of the process, there are probably very few who are experts (as it’s a skill that’s not really useful in the world).
2) breaking down simple ones, is doable, but the total yields are small, as simple sigils are craeted with (comperatively) small amount of essentia (using C,D class wells). And there are companies that provide the (standardised) service.
3) complicated sigils are harder to do, but even considering the losses in process, the yields are significat that it makes sense to try (for those that don’t have resources to make new ones).
This is done by expert crafters, in few companies.
4) Really one-of-a-kind strong sigils might be almost-impossible to recycle, as recycling drucrafter needs to understand how the sigil was made in order to ‘reverse the process’ – and thus the losses would be enourmous in these cases.
5) Some sigil types are probably easier to recycle than others, but overall they follow the same principles as above.
I would estimate that
1) a C+ class simple sigile to be recycled into D+ essentia, fairly consistently by standard process. Costing enough money to not be actually sustainable way of gaining essentia.
2) a moderately complicated A class well sigil could in best-case scenario be recycled by ‘top expert drucrafter’ to a B- well amount of essentia. Costing probably similar amount of money as buying an A- or B+ class sigil. Though the cost is less of a problem than actually finding someone to do it.