I'm well aware that D&D's economics are based off Gold Rush towns in their sheer level of absurdity, but as someone who studies economics of the medieval age, this bothers me. I went through my own fantasy nation, Bronzeisle, and decided to make it all make sense.
This is a worldbuilding exercise by me to try and make some sense out of seemingly random numbers. I’m probably going to fail. This week, we’re looking at bread, milk, cheese, beef, pork, and chicken. The necessities in life.
For ease of understanding, the seasons are renamed in my campaign. The calendar is 360 days and begins in the spring month, Pollengrass, which is then followed by Sunpeak, Harvestfall, and finally Deadwood. I use the terms fairly interchangeably with their actual counterparts here.
So, what is the price of bread? Well, first we have to discover how much it costs to plant wheat.
BREAD
Planting 100 pounds of grain seed (wheat, rye, barley) will yield 1500 pounds of grain on average. One acre of land can handle this amount normally. Planting takes up most of Pollengrass (spring) and ends in Harvestfall (fall). Not many people just want wheat itself, so the wheat has to, in most cases, be milled first. 100 pounds of grain will result in 70 pounds of flour. An average-skilled miller takes 10%, and about 20% is lost in the milling process. Bread, of course, requires flour AND water to make. For most, the cost of water is negligible, but we’ll say 1 gallon of fresh water costs 2 copper pieces and can be used to make 4 loaves of bread. A loaf is a pound, and has about 4 servings in it. That pound loaf costs an average of 8 copper. This means making a loaf of bread actually requires 1.1 pounds of grain to be recovered from the miller, who then takes his 10%, and including what is lost in milling, it requires 1.4 pounds. The average person needs about a pound of food per day. Half, one quarter, or even one eighth of this could be bread. Let’s say this super-average farmer plants 10 acres of grain, getting back 15,000 pounds at harvest. The government taxes 1500 pounds. The farmer is left with 13,500 pounds of raw wheat, which he takes to the super-average miller. Due to average loss and the miller’s cut of 30% total, the farmer comes away with 9450 pounds of flour.
I’m saying all this to say that a pound of wheat bread costs 8 copper. A pound of white bread costs 15 copper.
The farmer comes away with 60 pounds of flour for every 100 pounds of wheat he planted. Average price of regular brown flour is 5cp per pound, while the more expensive white flour is about 10cp per pound. This means the farmer that plants 50 acres (5000 pounds) of brown wheat seed gets 75,000 pounds of wheat at harvest, and 45,000 pounds of flour after tax and milling. At average market price, that returns 225,000cp, or 22,500sp, or 2250gp, or 225pp.
A 1-acre plot of brown wheat yields 1500 pounds, and yields 900 pounds of brown flour after milling and tax. At average market price, this returns 4500cp, or 450sp, or 45gp. If this is a field of white wheat, it yields 9000cp, or 900sp, or 90gp.
Forgetting everything else, one human will need 360 pounds of bread per year to stay fed. This is not at all a nutritious meal. Assuming the farmer has a spouse and 8 farm hands, these 10 people need 3600 pounds, roughly, of bread per year.
I think this is all I can say about bread, but you can read about milk, beef, chicken, and pigs further down.
CHEESE and MILK
Now that the price of bread has been established, we can talk about things that aren’t bread.
A dairy cow, before it can produce milk, must first have a pasture. For the most part, this means the farmer must have the land- roaming dairy cows are an easy target for cattle rustlers. Cows can eat hay and corn.
A dairy cow needs 4 pounds of hay or corn per day, which means 1 acre of land just about feeds a cow for a year. To keep a cow producing milk, it has to have a calf every year. This calf can be slaughtered or sold, with the average calf commanding a measly 10gp at market.
A good cow in Bronzeisle can produce 6 gallons of milk. A good cheesemaker can turn 4 of those gallons into 1 pound of cheese. This can be done at home with cheap, easy to use supplies, but if a town is large enough to have a cheesemaker, he will usually charge 1sp per pound of cheese, or 5cp if you give him the supplies.
We’ve already determined that an acre field of average wheat can yield a farmer about 45gp per year, so we can justify the standard price of a cow, which is 50gp. The farmer could be using the field for something else like that wheat. Instead he chooses to raise a cow. This means the price of the cow is more dependent on the worth of the land it uses than the materials it produces.
So, 4 gallons of milk make 1 pound of cheese. A cow can produce 6 gallons a day, or 2190 gallons a year, or, if it is all used to make cheese, 547 pounds of cheese. We can guess that 4 gallons of milk is worth about 4 copper when there’s far too much of it in the summer, and 8 copper when there’s less in the winter. This comes to 1cp per gallon in summer and 2cp per gallon in winter.
This means cheese is worth 8cp, right? Well, no. It’s labor-intensive, but because cheese is often made in bulk, it’s less expensive than one-off jobs would be. Throw in an extra 4cp for labor costs, as practically all materials except the milk itself are reused in the cheesemaking process. Sure, there are things like rennet, but we’re going to count those as very minor expenses, 1cp per pound of cheese. The worth of this cheese on the books is 13cp. The average farmer will sell this for anywhere from 15cp to 2sp, but we’ll stick with 2sp for further calculations.
This pound of cheese could feed one person, although there are several problems with this. 1. it’s difficult to just eat cheese alone all day, 2. this is far too expensive for the average person, and 3. the average person would be lacking in key nutrients.
A half pound of cheese, half pound of bread comes to 14cp for the average person.
BEEF
Cows can also be slaughtered for food. To keep cows to purely be slaughtered is the height of decadence for a farmer, as beef cows command an average of 60gp at the market. They can be grain or corn fed, but most choose to let them roam on open land. Either way, a beef cow needs about 1 acre of land to grow to an appropriate, healthy size of 600 pounds. The farmer only needs to feed them throughout Deadwood (winter), which usually lasts about 90 days, but it’s often too cold for plants to grow 120 days of the year. This means the farmer needs to provide 1/3 of the food for the cattle himself.
Feed corn is cheaper than corn that humanoids eat, so we’ll establish here that 1 pound of feed corn costs 1cp. This means each cow costs 4cp per day to keep fed during the winter, or each cow costs 480cp (48sp) to kept fed for the winter. If a farmer really wanted, he could front the entire 1440cp (144sp, 14gp 4sp) and feed the cattle for the whole year, still making enough money when he sells them at market. It takes about two years for a cow to get to slaughter weight, although calves are often slaughtered between 3 and 16 tendays.
Speaking of the market, the butcher mostly cares about how much the animal weighs. Mostly bulls will be taken to market, as the cows can be used to produce more bulls, and gain more money. If the bull weighs about 600 pounds, it will produce a 360 pound carcass, and 240 pounds of beef. The butcher will often try to lowball the seller, but the bull will often sell for 80 gold. The butcher will then want to nearly double his money and make 140gp off the meat alone. Some people will buy the refuse from the bull, like the bones, tongue, eyes, heart, stomachs, and testicles, but we’ll focus on the meat.
The average pound of beef will go for 6sp at the market, making it the most expensive item by far. Beef is often saved for VERY special occasions, if eaten at all by the people who produce it. The last three days of the year, known as the Knight’s Nights, were historically a time when serfs would be allowed to eat beef.
PIGS
Pigs are more important for most people than beef. They eat the leftovers of anything they’re given, making their food costs largely negligible. For consistency’s sake, we’ll say that each 5 pounds of food produces 1 pound of edible refuse.
Pigs can forage, but like cows must be fed for 120 days of the year during Deadwood (winter). The pigs need about 2 pounds of feed per day during this period. This means pigs cost 2cp to feed a day. To feed a pig for the winter, it would cost 240cp (24sp), or 720cp (72sp) for the whole year. However, a pig can get up to slaughter weight in only 6 months, which would cost only 360cp (36sp).
At time of slaughter, a pig weighs about 200 pounds, produces a 120 pound carcass, and has about 80 pounds of meat. Similar to the cow, the pig’s extraneous organs will be sold to various people, but the meat is most important here. The pig can be sold for a little more than a fourth as much as beef, or 15gp. The butcher will then sell that meat for 2sp per pound. This makes pork a good option for the poor farmer who happens to have a holding, but not enough to maintain even the smallest cows.
CHICKENS and EGGS
Chickens mainly produce eggs and more chickens. Both of these are valuable commodities. Similar to pork and beef, chickens eat feed corn, but at a much slower rate. Per tenday, a chicken eats 1 pound of feed corn. The average chicken is slaughtered at 6 tendays, meaning it costs just 6cp to bring a chicken to slaughter weight. Chickens often roam around town freely and return to their coops at night, meaning they often supplement their rationed feed with bugs and spilled grain.
The average slaughter weight chicken weighs 4 pounds, and produces 3 pounds of meat, more or less. This is, of course, much less than the average chicken in contemporary times, whose weights can reach twice that. Regardless, this chicken will sell for 5sp to the butcher, who will then sell the meat for 2sp, making only a 1sp profit per chicken. The upside to this is a good butcher can prepare a chicken in maybe ten minutes, with a big scalding vat to seat several of them at a time. This presents a profit margin of 6sp per hour, or 48sp per 8-hour workday.
Welcome to actual economics. The chickens aren’t as profitable as pigs in the long run, which is why they’re often just slaughtered and eaten at home. Similarly, the eggs chickens provide aren’t as profitable in small batches, but provide for the family. A female chicken provides roughly an egg every three days, or 120 per year. An especially fertile chicken can produce up to an egg every other day, or 180 per year, but this is quite rare. These female chickens often live for up to 6 years, producing roughly 720 eggs in their lifetime.
These eggs, though, are worth next to nothing. They cell for 6cp for a dozen, or… half a copper coin each. This technically isn’t even a real measurement, like half a penny. This means our average, 120-per-year hen brings in a grand total of…. 60cp per year, making keeping her alive only 1sp more profitable than killing her. Grim prospects for chicken farmers.
Chickens become invaluable in larger numbers. Keeping a single chicken seems a bit odd, anyway. So we’ll give our theoretical farmer 15 hens and 3 cocks to keep them happy and productive. He also has 3 acres of feed corn, which gives him 1500 pounds of feed for the birds. The birds only need 36 pounds each, or 648 pounds a year. Throughout the course of a year, this farmer will eat 72 roasters as well, selected from the eggs the hens lay. These will grow to six tendays and then be slaughtered. Our three acres of land give us 4500 pounds of feed corn. The roasters eat 2592 pounds of this over their existences, and the hens and cocks eat another 648 for a total of 3240. Our farmer can sell the remaining 260 pounds for a profit of 260cp (26sp).
REVIEW
Let’s see how our meal is looking. We have bread. We have cheese. We have a choice of chicken, beef, or pork. Assuming a 1:1:1 composition, let’s see how much a burger, a pork sandwich, and a chicken sandwich would cost in our world so far, assuming the consumer made them, but bought the materials from fair dealers.
A third of a loaf of bread is 2.6 copper, which we have to round to 3. A third of a block of cheese is 6.66 repeating copper, which we, again, have to round to 7.
This is where it gets fun. A third of a pound of beef is 2 silver, again the most expensive thing by far. A third of a pound of pork is 6.66 repeating copper. A third of a pound of chicken is 6.66 repeating copper. Let’s see how this affects our menu.
Hamburger………….22 copper. Cheeseburger……….30 copper. Pork Sandwich………16 copper. Chicken Sandwich……16 copper.
Our menu is shaping up, but incredibly expensive. We haven’t calculated for the economy of scale or other price reduction methods that exist today.
Next time we will discuss fruits and vegetables, in a vague attempt to round out our current diet of bread, meat, and cheese.