In the interest of pursuing this question without completely hijacking the original purpose of the original thread (and making the discussion easier to find in the future, if anyone should care to do so), I've started this new thread.Manofevil wrote: ↑Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:20 pm In doing all of this, we should also clarify the publication situation in the demiplane. Writing things is great but unless they're published they just sit in a drawer someplace....
Who's the printer? Where is he located? How did they become the printer of all these things? There can be more than one, too.
As for how these various manuscripts are published: The Survey on the Zherisian Expedition (p.41) contains an entire description of the history of "The Press" in Paridon. Curiously, the same section also asserts that "the modern printing press emerged from the inventive workshops of Chateaufaux less that two decades ago". So we have a netbook-canonical indication that the printing press not only exists within the Last of Mists but within the Core.
(Also, even if the Lamordians did not invent the printing press in the Core, can you really see them leaving the concept alone once they hear of it?)
However, even in places where new technologies face painfully slow adoption, there is always the possibility of manual copying. In my campaign, for example, there is a scriptorium in Armeikos dedicated to such work. Although its clerks started off making copies of sheet music, they now copy a considerable amount of material for the University of Liffe. Similarly, the most junior priests of the Mind of Zhakata spend hours copying and recopying the Law of Zhakata as recorded in the Words of the Prophet. There isn't much demand for these writings outside of the Zhukar Library of Enlightment, but the Library is ready if the need should arise.
So. Although we have established printing presses and the feasibility of manual copying, the question remains: Who, exactly, does publish all of the "Dead Travel Fast" romances?