If you suddenly spawned in a random generic low fantasy town, what would be the best way to earn a lot of money?
If you suddenly spawned in a random generic low fantasy town, what would be the best way to earn a lot of money?
If you suddenly spawned in a random generic low fantasy town, what would be the best way to earn a lot of money?
Begging for alms, thuggery, or prostitution are your only hope for making a decent amount of money with zero marketable skills or connections in a tight-knit, rigidly structured society such as mentioned.
Mercenary work. Make a primitive club and join a nearby band of mercenaries, then loot the bodies of your enemies afterwards.
Medieval towns wouldn't really be tight-knit or rigidly structures. The rural villages for sure, but not the bigger towns.
Yes, but he specifically said a generic low fantasy town which, as per the collective pop culture consensus, means a strict despotic hellhole with an inquisition and more than likely a church that has a doctrine cribbed from christianity without the parts about peace and love.
imagine playing a low fantasy world without being about a heroic religious order fighting savage pagans who happen to not be all that bad and full of waifus who are either convertable shieldmaidens or cute christian peasants
It's kinda sad low fantasy just means "grimdark" to people.
That said, I think OP actually did mean what low fantasy is supposed to mean, so little-to-no magical and supernatural elements.
>Medieval towns wouldn't really be tight-knit
You're fricking moronic.
These or math tutor, accountant, might sit in a town square and tell stories plagiarized from the real world
>plagiarized from the real world
>Esteemed bard, I have heard great things about your prowess in reciting great epics and legends. I am all ears, prove whether there's any truth to the rumors.
>Forsooth, I recite to thee the Tale of Dr. Michael Morbius. It all began when..... And then these five dudes with bats show up..... He telemorbs behind the big guy and says "It's Morbin' time!"
>I implore you, join my court!
>If you suddenly spawned in a random generic low fantasy town, what would be the best way to earn a lot of money?
Scrounge in the nearest water feature. Fantasy coins tend to be more valuable than real ones and as long as you don't mind making a massive public ass of yourself it'd be a good way to make a quick buck.
do you think wells in third world countries still have coins in them?
>do you think wells in third world countries still have coins in them?
Literally yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Guatavita
I'm a reasonably talented juggler I guess
Define "a lot of money" and are we talking short term or long term? Long term you'd want to go the isekai route and market future knowledge.
Short term just rob and murder someone wealthy-looking. That's not really sustainable long term cause of the whole law enforcement thing but you stand a decent chance of getting away with it the first time.
As much as you can as quickly as you can. Actual amount and timeframe is up to you and what you think is the most interesting answer.
Low modern fantasy or low medieval fantasy or low sci-fi fantasy or what?
see attached image you dimwit
that's not a town.
yes, it's an image of a town
That is the image of a city. Have you seen the size of the castle? And with perspective you can understand the size of the city too.
It's very high density construction for a town, anon.
In fact a town probably wouldn't have that massive gatehouse everyone is walking through.
>Basic chemistry and medical knowledge
Set myself up as an alchemist. Be clear to the people in charge: I can't turn lead into gold or anything like that, but what I can do is check whether the stuff the other alchemists are producing is really gold or not. You don't want them to con you, do you?
As a side note, I can set things up so we don't have disease ripping through the town every few months and can get your deaths in childbirth way down.
Bonus, I can also help you produce simple explosives.
>what I can do is check whether the stuff the other alchemists are producing is really gold or not
In other news, anon's skeleton was found floating in a sewer ooze.
>As a side note, I can set things up so we don't have disease ripping through the town every few months and can get your deaths in childbirth way down.
The doctor who pushed hand sanitation because his students were drunks studying corpses before operating on women giving births, killing many through infection, didn’t end well. Dunno how better you’d fare.
I'd go join some mercs. I'm fit enough for it.
And I'd be the local arm wrestling champion to earn my keep until then.
You are weak compared to literally everyone in a random generic low fantasy town. Only the female children are weaker than you.
Find nitrate, sulphur and charcoal and mix black powder.
Build muskets and cannons.
Raid and enslave other towns.
Build printing press.
Print books.
Improve education.
Become an empire.
Sit back and enjoy the fruitage of your labour.
One person can realistically only do one of those. Making gunpowder or improving education are your best bets, printing press takes a surprising amount of technical knowledge.
Study local prices and look for some loophole - disassembling ladders to quarterstaves of something along those lines.
>printing press takes a surprising amount of technical knowledge.
the principle is simple, it's literally just re-purposed wine press, though manufacture of the letters won't be an easy task
>disassembling ladders to quarterstaves of something along those lines.
You disassemble ten foot ladders to make ten foot poles, you dolt. Is all the old lore forgotten?
>disassembling ladders
Don't cite the deep magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written.
>manufacture of the letters won't be an easy task
Did you never made a potato print? Give me enough potatoes and I can print you a book.
I'm deeply saddened nobody took this excellent bait
yeah go ahead and keep your limitations to yourself
> realistically
> this thread
I don't have to do all those things, I just need to convince people to help me do it. After the first three are a success, more people would flock to me to do my bidding.
>Find nitrate, sulphur and charcoal and mix black powder.
>Find
So you've already lost, now back to your anime of choice
Ok so how does nitrate look and where can you find it.
You can take the contents of other peoples piss pots but there's plenty of competition for that.
You can shovel dung heaps, but that is also a pretty competitive trade.
Sulphur is hard to come by if the area you're in has very low volcanic activity. And i doubt the miners would just let you take some.
>its the guys that thing they are going to usher in le modern age
Kek i was going to post this
Getting a little up there in age but I could still hack it as decent pugilist at least until I can get my bearings. Merc work is way to fricking dangerous unless this is a place I can the class levels or equivalent
>so how would you get money?
>well first I would open mining operations for minerals there is no market fo-
>with what money?
>the money I'll get from making arquebuses and canno-
>that you'll pay a smithy who to make doesn't know what a cannon is with what money?
>the money I'll get from raiding and enslaving other tow-
>with what army you haven't got the money for or feudal right to levy?
>Hello, my good friends and I want to tell you all about the benefits of being beaten to a bloody mess with a harp!
I would go full ironic meta and ask the local blacksmith to forge me some dice, then tell them I'm a bard who has this game called Dungeons and Dragons and charge them to play it
That's like saying you're a comedian with a game called Torture Chambers and Terrorist Cells, setting up a booth, and charging people $20 to play it.
Only in a universe where Gary Gygax wasn't born yet
Stuff like Poker and Chess, they already have some version of it, but D&D? No, that's a modern invention
I get the format of the game is a novel concept but the content isn't at all fantastical to them. Say you run a quest about a goblin cave, some people are bound to know somebody who was killed by them but you're treating them like setting pieces for a board game. I suspect D20 Modern would go over better, is all.
Oh, I get what you mean
Let's consult the local pewtersmith about this idea I have called Warhammer 40k then
>anon unwittingly expands GW's business model to an unsuspecting kingdom
And I thought mudcore was grimdark.
>Invent Warhammer 40k in alternate fantasy world
>It becomes huge, the most popular game in the land making you vast sums of money
>interdimensional super lawyers break through space and time to send you a C&D letter from GW
...I now really want to play a system called Torture Chambers and Terrorist Cells.
With a misson-to-mission type format where you're a group of G-men trying to stop terrorists before they commit some atrocity or other.
Like Dark Heresy but set in current year and instead of Heretics its jihad and other political extremists.
better idea - "invent" the standard tarock card deck and start selling cards. IRL it took less than a hundred years for playing cards in Europe to go from practically unheard of Eastern novelty item to widespread social vice that needed heavy church regulation to prevent the population of Europe from gambling away their possessions.
If you get an early monopoly on the production of cards you could make it pretty big within a decade I think.
>If you get an early monopoly on the production of cards
Literally impossible
I just need enough headstart to get the money to hire enough goons with rusty pipes to enforce my "guild monopoly"
You'd have to be warring with already existing criminal groups with better manpower and craftsmen then
Penicillin
Introducing them to firearms then gunsmithing (since I am one)
Blackpowder first, or right to smokeless?
Almost certainly black powder. Smokeless needs both a significant amount of cotton on hand, and a decent sized petrochemical industry to produce vaseline as a stabilizer. Nitric acid and glycerine are the easy parts, not much harder than charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter, but vaseline is not easy, and cotton's a maybe.
The idea of processing oil and making stuff like kerosene was a thing since before the dark ages, and petroleum jelly was first discovered as a by-product. Yeah, I don't personally know a simpler, more setting-viable method of making it, but it's silly to say one doesn't exist - not when we as a people have had basically zero reason to look for or remember one.
So how many guns did you build with nothing but a blacksmiths forge and tools?
More to the point have you ever extracted penicillin? Do you even know what type of mould you need left alone how to identify it and how to administer it without killing the patient?
Sorry, I forgot take my namefig off
If it is possible to get, I also have the knowledge to build a radio and with no laws surrounding the spectrum it's gonna be pretty cool as long as I don't get burned at the stake for witchcraft
Another good idea is just teach people the science math formulas like F=ma and e=mc^2 and be the most famous scientist in their universe of all time
"S-sir? Yes, could you let me in to see the royal alchemist? I swear I've got these funny letters he'd be really interested in!"
You dont even understand those formulas yourself how are you going to teach them to anybody?
Gay prostitution
Now that I'm thinking about this idea some more I have a question about it
Is there anything like Oxford in this setting
If I can work my way there I'd be at the top of every field with how much wikipedia browsing I've done over the years
It's probably gonna be for nobility only, or requiring a huge tuition fee which defeats the point.
There is something like reddit in this setting. Go back to it.
Die because I need modern medicine to live.
t. Type 1 Diabetic
Do Americans really?
Dude, I was literally born with the beetus. Type 1 is an autoimmune disorder, it is not because I am a fat frick.
I know that, but you would be eating shit like cabbage and gruel and be able to keep your blood sugar low naturally, I think?
Type 1 is a big old b***h.
No wine, ale, bread, fruits, carrots, onions, and more are allowed. Going full carnivore is still a crapshoot with type 1.
Having nothing to lose is a boon, go become a necromancer's guinea pig
You can live with untreated diabetes longer than you think
Also diabetes was very rare in the dark ages because sugar was very scarce and only for the nobility mostly. Diabetes has been known through the eras to be a rich person disease
>Also diabetes was very rare in the dark ages
He'd still already have it, dingus.
I know that, and I'm saying he wouldn't die because in the dark ages your average person ate nothing but shitty vegetables like cabbage and asparagus unlike today where everything is made of high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar, and wheat/rice starches
Shut up, moron. Diabetes type 1 an autoimmune disease (for ll unknown reason lymphocytes T went berserk and destroyed beta cells responsible for a production of insulin) and has nothing to do with a sugar consumption.
>Diabetes has been known through the eras to be a rich person disease
Wealthy adults, or the young children who would suffer agonizing deaths from being born with the disease.
"invent" the ball point pen
ball point pens are actually crap compared to a quill pen but a quill pen is expensive and harder to use, no would be feeling it
>Pluck a feather from a goose and cut the tip off with your knife
Difficult, expensive
>Manufacture a very fine ball bearing and a tip to perfectly house it in the medieval era
Much cheaper
>"invent" the Dip pen
build a castle out of money.
I'd find a nobility sugar mommy to work under or a protag-like adventurer group to stick to after I impress either of them with some basic chemistry and gunsmithing skills (material acquired from money gotten from manual labor), then with more money and resources I'd work from there with making other sellable products of practical science fields. Maybe even incorporate magic into them if it's possible.
Gotta have security, discretion, business connections and marketing before you go hard on introducing your production, and gotta leave room for improvement - enough so you can easily one-up or even temporarily disable the copycat competition by introducing the negating products or better products.
>material acquired from money gotten from manual labor
good one
Early in the morning
Going to meet a man
Wants a truck unloading
For cash-in-hand
You don't ask questions
When there's nothing in the bank
Got to feed the kids
And put the diesel in the tank
t. Mark Knopfler
I'd become a sissy prostitute for dick, taking multiple loads in my ass every day.
OP asked for securing income, not what hobbies you will pursue
either find a noble family or hitch a ride to a wealthy city and become a tutor: reading writing, mathematics.
This applies to every anon, because you probably know more math then 99% of medieval people, and I'm assuming that they either speak english or you now speak "common"
Damn, I didn't think of it
Yeah, I guess tutoring would be easier and faster there
Frick now I'm flashing back to college when I tried to read Canterbury Tales and said frick this book and just read the sparknotes, and I wasn't normally that kind of student
No one in this world is going to understand one word you're saying
>I'm assuming that they either speak english or you now speak "common"
"Common" isn't English, it's Esperanto
I hope you people are good at word problems. The standardized symbols we use today for mathematics didn't see widespread use until the 16th century. Before that everything was word problems.
Furthermore, concepts that are general knowledge today were only known by scholars and were often regarded as secrets to be hoarded, rather than knowledge to be taught. Spreading these secrets would likely make you the target of an assassination attempt, since mathematicians kept their jobs by beating each other in homework duels.
As a mathematician, I would hesitate to use my knowledge of mathematics for profit were I to awake tomorrow in no magic fantasy land, it's just too dangerous.
Who cares, low fantasy sucks, I'd just kill myself because I'm going to die of some horrible disease or world-ending threat I have no chance against in the next 5 minutes anyway.
I'd probably just die.
Suckin'
Prob by becoming a betting bookie. Basic understanding of fractions and high school probability/statistics would make you top 1% of intelligence in the kingdom.
In real life, you could get by joining one of the many monastery orders and become a gardener for the monks, most of which would be happy to teach you the local language and maybe even a craft if you make friends. And in low fantasy, European monks know kung fu shit as well.
Ded.
wtf i love pathfinder now
Pathfinder isn't low-fantasy.
Honestly original LOTR is probably closer to low fantasy:
>spellslingers are rare, Gandalf is (simplifying things immensely) the closest LOTR equivalent of an angel and even his abilities are awkward and debatably useful
>magical creatures aren't too common and usually fairly tame in how magical they are exactly, generally just bigger and smarter versions of mundane creatures
>non-human sapients aren't all that wacky either, they're all still pretty similar to humans in a lot of ways
The key is that when someone sees a glowing sword, or a firey demon from the depths, or a flowing 8 foot tall robed man back from the dead, it's genuinely shocking. Not just "Oh yeah of course, enchanted weapons are everywhere, I fight demons all the time, and the church has a discount running on Ressurections".
It's easy to forget this of course because we see the story through the eyes of its protagonists, and honestly I wouldn't really consider LOTR proper low-fantasy(though its definitely down there).
But yeah when I think low-fantasy I do not think
>World where every rock has a magical beast hiding under it and everyone has +1 weapons
Instead I think
>It's pretty similar to real life, except if some of the fairy tales and mythos were true, but still rare enough to mostly be rumor and conjecture.
The definition of low fantasy I learned when I got my completely useless english degree is way off from what you think it is
low fantasy is when it's all completely realistic and possible. there may be alchemy but there is no magic. the beasts aren't real. there are no other races like elves.
lord of the rings is absolutely high fantasy and it's kind of the flagship novel of that genre where he INVENTED a lot of the ideas that are just common sense today
You weren't kidding when you said useless.
It's more like fairy tale shit where a witch eats Hansel and Gretel or whatever's going on there. It's what people believed thought was possible in the era it was written.
You cut it off in a way to me look an idiot
Intrusion fantasy places less emphasis on elements typically associated with fantasy and sets a narrative in realistic environments with elements of the fantastical. Sometimes, there are just enough fantastical elements to make ambiguous the boundary between what is real and what is purely psychological or supernatural. The word "low" refers to the prominence of traditional fantasy elements within the work and is not a remark on the work's overall quality.
An alternative definition, common in role-playing games, rests on the story and characters being more realistic and less mythic in scope. Thus, some works like Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian series can be high fantasy according to the first definition but low fantasy according to the second.[3] With other works, such as the TV series Supernatural, the opposite is true.
So you're agreeing with me when I literally said:
>It's pretty similar to real life, except if some of the fairy tales and mythos were true, but still rare enough to mostly be rumor and conjecture.
No, you said lord of the rings was low fantasy and that's bonkers. Are you going to tell me Jurassic Park is soft sci fi next
>I wouldn't really consider LOTR proper low-fantasy
You'd think your English degree would have given you better reading comprehension, there's a difference between "closer to X than Y" and "equals X".
No, I got that, and I don't agree at all.
Tolkien invented tropes like hey Elves are good with bows and Dwarves are good with axes. Tolkien's concept of an Elf had frick all to do with the Elves in the fairy tales
My personal perspective is LOTR came first then D&D standarized a lot of it and then Final Fantasy ripped it off and it all went mainstream from there
When FF came out the contemporary view of it was like holy shit this is like a D&D campaign but it's a video game this is amazing. Dragon Quest kinda did it first but that game sucked and wasn't popular outside of Japan
I don't think low fantasy is obligated to adhere strictly to the original folklore and fairytales.
I just think that's the approach most people take because it fits a more realistic setting where magic is rare, obtuse, and often dangerous better.
There's a fair number of settings that spring to my mind where magic played a very minor role, so they couldn't really be called high fantasy, but also had their own folklore and mythos going on.
Not him, but what you'll find on Wikipedia can differ very much from what's found in academia. This is also why banking on r/legaladvice is atrocious. Think about it, why would actual legal experts who earn their money with their expertise give it away to some consoomer predditors for free?
I don't really trust academia either.
I use wikipedia because, when discussing the meaning of words and phrases that aren't technical, its better to turn to what the average person would interpret as a definition.
Wikipedia editors aren't the average person
It's as close as I can get without running through the streets grabbing random people and asking them what their definition of "low fantasy" is.
Any board you care to name is closer to the average person than the "people" "moderating" Wikipedia.
Can't agree, if only because Ganker users are shitposting spergs, while Wiki contributors are dedicated spergs.
One has an internal obligation to be accurate, the other has an internal obligation to get as many (You)s as possible.
You understand that wikipedia is backed by citations, just like academia. The information is sourced often from academic sources, or the kinds of journalistic sources that academia could also lean on. The main things separating wikipedia from academia are the target audience and accessibility.
Work in the mines, level up my swordsmanship and pilfer all the gems that somehow every single miner keeps missing. Buy myself a nice cottage outside town complete with blacksmithing bench. Craft things from the iron I mined.
Then go to the local library and study magic. Since its low fantasy best I’ll do is learn how to extinguish candles with my mind but that’ll be enough to impress the locals and get a cowgirl wife.
Wander around forests eating random plants to get alchemy experience. Get enough knowledge to craft a potion of constant lactation. Receive milk baths daily.
>Wander around forests eating random plants to get alchemy experience
instant death from tricky plant with deadly mushroom spores
I once played an Skyrim mod called Requiem where if you eat a Daedra heart you straight up die
>If you suddenly spawned in a random generic low fantasy town
I die of diabetes type 1.
Any modern clothing you are wearing will be seen as being of unusually fine make by fantasy standards. That, and the fact that you probably look nothing like the locals, should allow you to pass yourself off as a traveler from a distant land.
You can leverage this. Nobles and wealthy businessmen can be easily persuaded to entertain foreign guests, because they represent a rare source of information and goods that can be capitalized upon. This gets your foot in the door. From there, you have a limited opportunity to make use of your modern day knowledge to impress them, and convince them to give you a chance to demonstrate your usefulness.
From here, you just have to help them build something novel that they have never thought of before, stealing from the vast wealth of modern day ideas and culture. Make even a single successful 'new' invention for them, and a lot of money will stand to be made and as long as they think you can do it again you will be well taken care of.
This all depends on three factors, however: the first is that you don't just get murdered before you can talk to anyone important, the second is that you can actually communicate your situation and ideas to the locals, and the third is that you are not a completely useless frick and you actually know how to do/make something useful. Not "oh, I could google that if i wanted to/I could bring a book with me if I had warning". I mean you, right now and with no further researched needed, know how to make something to make your fortune.
Hmm, guess I could build the radio but I wouldn't figure out how to power it cause I don't know off the top of my head how to make a battery and I doubt they could build a windmill or dam that provides power
The good news is that a basic generator is not complex. The bad news is that you need magnets and a bunch of copper wire, neither of which are going to be easy to come by in a pre-industrial setting.
Antibiotics are easy to make, but unless you have a microscope you have to do a lot of trial and error to identify the specific kind of bread mold you need to use for it. Though if you can find a glasscutter, making a microscope/spyglass is a pretty good first step towards proving your usefulness.
I thought Copper was easy to get since Greece, you need to make Bronze and that's easy to get back then
I know it's pretty easy to make a car battery and not impossible to make a large energizer bunny type battery but I don't know how off the top of my head like I do with the radio
Copper as a material? Not hard to find. But making that into copper WIRE without the use of machines? Kind of a pain in the ass, I imagine. You might be able to get it, but its going to be expensive.
Funneling molten copper into cold water isn't hard
Sure, it won't be industrial-grade due to many factors, but will do for starters
Thats not how you make copper wire thats how you get small clumps or drops of very brittle copper at best.
They invented the telegraph pretty easily once they figured out how electricity works. People forget about that thing because it doesn't exist at all anymore
Correct, but you are talking about a knowledgebase and industry capacity that was centuries ahead of what OP is dropping us into.
Wire making is actually feasible with medieval tools. It requires some experience and a workshop and is incredibly labor intensive but most gold smiths should have the required tools and experience to make it since gold wires were used in goldsmithing for thousands of years.
lode stones.
For me personally it really comes down to whether or not they have a printing press already and if they have paper. I do in fact unironically know how to make one, though I don't know how to make paper. If they do have paper, but do not have a printing press, then I have decent odds. If they don't have paper, or if they already have a printing press, then I can't really think of anything I know how to make that would be useful enough for them for me to be worth keeping around. Unless there is literal Christianity, since I went to seminary and I know my bible very well I could do okay as a priest. Course their bible would be in Latin probably. Shit.
Stories. You might not know any fricking science or chemistry or medicine, but you know what you do know? Stories. New stories, more refined and structured and complex than they know.
All you have to do is be able to speak their language and be a good story teller. Go up there in front of a crowd, and start telling them an epic tale you call STAR WARS, or whatever else you know by heart. You'll wow them, and become known as great bard. And unlike building something, this costs you nothing to try. Anyone can get up there and start telling a story and working an audience.
Isekai and it's consequences has been disastrous for the medieval fantasy community.
Aside from that lot's of money in short term? Probably selling your clothes down to your underwear, doesn't matter if it's good quality or not, local clothes sellers will be amazed at the sewing and other techniques used to make these clothes.
Then it all depends on your skills and knowledge, although most people here do know basic math, and implying that you know the "common" language of this world and the world uses similar number systems, you could easily be a tutor, just have to find right connections.
Another way is to probably invent banking system, or at least start some kind of loan shark type of deal, make unregulated paper "bank notes" that you would give for the people's actual money, ofc after you get enough money from loan sharking type of deal.
Then only sky is your limit.
>invent investment banking even though I know it will damn this world to a financialized hellhole
A man's gotta do something to put food on the table, even if it means becoming the Serpent in Eden.
>Be bigger and healthier than 90% of the population due to spending my life eating well and working out
>Be a mercenary/guard or a physical instructor to nobles and rich peasants
>Build your own mercenary company, or start a nutrition plan so your men would eat and train properly with 21st century knowledge.
It helps that I'm a lifelong athlete with nutrition and training knowledge.
>get mogged by meat+milk diet plebs with 10x average testosterone levels and muscle density
I eat milk and meat my whole life. Most peasants cant afford to eat as much meat as today's standards. Their growth are stunted from a severe caloric and nutriment deficit. Nobles are another thing, of course, they can afford to eat well and exercise. But a fit and healthy 21st century athlete is like a top tier noble/knight physical wise.
nobles ate trash shit foods. they ate the equivalent of junk food, and had insane fad diets.
Knights were trained from childhood to fight and handle their weapons. You'd be fricked in combat.
Do not rely on being an athlete either. You might exercise a lot compared to the sedentary lifestyle of today, but back then people were a lot more active.
Unironically adventuring. Or
>You're probably bigger then most people. I know I am. Also, fitter and combat trained and conditioned.
>Everyone else deals in silver, but if you find 10 or 20 gold coins after a minor dungeon delve, and the killing of a starving goblin or two, suddenly you're a wealthy man.
>Rinse and repeat a bunch of times, being careful about it and getting good gear, and with, maybe, five raids, you're a well off adventurer.
>everyone deals in silver, but a starving goblin has gold laying around
lol moron
bet you’re fatasfatass too
I introduce myself to the local merchant's guild and teach them the wonders of double-entry bookkeeping. When they understand that I can revolutionize everything they know about trade, we'll begin to orchestrate the rise of the merchant class and the end of nobility.
Scams. Another world wouldn't know as much as a modern person about the plethora of scams, cons, and grifts. You could successfully pull off the Nigerian Prince scam pretty easily, as you would clearly be from a far-off exotic place based on your dress and mannerisms.
Genius.
Best answer in the thread, you've opened my eyes. Thanks, anon.
The Nigerian Prince scam actually pretty old. It's an Advanced-fee scam, which became popular in the 1700s; while that's certainly not Medieval, Age of Sail and Late Renaissance are pretty common fantasy settings.
It's less about the specific scam, as it is about communication. We live in the information age, we KNOW about scams and cons because we hear about them, word gets around. In a fantasy setting there is no TV news, there is no social media, you could pull a Bernie Madoff in one city, and word might not spread to the next city over for weeks, or longer, giving you time to operate there as well. There's no DMV, no photo ID, if you simply travel far enough in one direction you'll be among people who might take years to learn what you've done, and they're not likely to have a picture of you to know it was you to begin with.
I lie down and die
>My liege, please allow me to talk to you about the Harper initiative.
Offer your services to the local lord an hope that he doesn't go Roman on your ass once you reveal that you know multiplications and can do calculations in your head.
I had a semester of Roman Law in law school so I guess that's my best bet, though I doubt that the generic fantasy setting has Roman Law. If it does, I should scrounge together enough money to make my way to the setting's Bologna equivalent.
So anyway, there's clearly an alternative definition which is more or less what I was trying to say
But whatever, funny flames haha Ganker haha
Use knowledge of math and trigonometry to get a job at the tax office. Use part of my pay to develop wood pulp paper. Use money from wood pulp paper to make printing presses. Use printing presses to publish propaganda pamphets for the king. With the King's endorsement I'll have more business than I know what to do with.
I'll start my own jiujutsu dojo. When I get famous enough I bet I could become some nobleman's retainer.
I bet you get your shit pushed in by some knight or random brute thats twice your weight and has actual experience in combat and probably trained his entire life much more than any of us whimps of the modern era ever has....
More to the point why would anyone value unarmed, unarmored fighting technique when armor and weapons are ubiquotous amongst the people that actually need them? If anything you get persecuted for teaching peasants martial skilks that could be used to oppose the local ruler...
>I bet you get your shit pushed in by some knight or random brute thats twice your weight and has actual experience in combat and probably trained his entire life much more than any of us whimps of the modern era ever has....
I'm pretty heavy myself. Won't be a problem. And submission grappling is the tricky kind of bullshit that you need to know how it works to defend against it.
>More to the point why would anyone value unarmed, unarmored fighting technique when armor and weapons are ubiquotous amongst the people that actually need them?
Are you stupid? Unarmed fighting was always valued, both among commoners and nobles.
>If anything you get persecuted for teaching peasants martial skilks that could be used to oppose the local ruler...
So is it not valuable or can it be used to oppose the local lord? Make up your mind.
man you have an ego
how are you gonna submission grapple in the era of daggers and swords
you'll just get stabbed
you're not even making exp level 2 if that's how you're gonna play this campaign
he could market it as a sport perhaps?
>Let me tell you good people about non-fungible tokens.
I'm too moronic to reproduce 21st or even 18th century technology, but my otherworldly knowledge alone would qualify me to become a pretty decent mystic.
>/x/anon gets an audience with the court wizard
>starts explaining the kabbalah and shows him some sigils
>it promptly tried, convicted, and executed for demonology
Well since I can, presumably, read and write in local language, then I guess I'll go for some job as a clerk
>clerk
unironically this
the fundamentals of mathematics are essentially universal unless theres something metaphysically wrong with the universe and the lack of electronic bookkeeping means that clerks are always in demand
Money? I'll try my best to stop the capitalistic disaster. If they already invented agriculture, I'm going to burn the farms back to stone ages.
Take a bar of iron, point it north and hit it with a hammer a lot. The shaking mixes up the fields and magnetic north will align them slightly.
Put those bars in a device that spins them around a wire wrap. The wrap likewise wraps around a bar of iron. Remember to insulate it between the wrappings so there's no shorts.
Spinning the lightly magnetized bards around the wire will cause current which, on the second wrapping, will magnetize the iron rod. Swap out the newly magnetized rod with the spinning rods and the magnetizer will work better. Repeat that process a lot. And this DOES need to be a device. You need RPMs here. You can't wave it about by hand with the starting weak-ass magnets. Gears would be really handy.
With real magnets, the spinning device is effectively a generator. Hook it up to a waterwheel and the other end to whatever electrical devices you want. Just another electrical motor, same thing in reverse, that would let craftsmen have a hand-held zero-effort rotating tool.
Take an ebonite rod and rub it with a fur. Rub it, rub it hard, harder! Do you feel the charge?
What did cultures without scientific understanding of electric phenomena called static electricity, out of curiousity.
>AAAAAAHHHH TITUS YOU KNAVE STOP SNEAKING UP ON ME WITH IUPITER'S BAD TOUCH
>Hey look, if I do this thing that happens! Neat huh?
>Really neat, now stop shocking me.
You sound like you think medieval man would call anyone who know how to flambé a wizard.
He just means he wonders what they thought the explanation was before the more modern understanding of electricity.
I'd definitely find it pretty curious that occasionally when touching someone/something, the point of contacts sparks and I feel a jolt.
No, I'm just wondering how they explained the phenomenon, since they didn't have have an understanding of electricity the way we do.
Long before any knowledge of electricity existed, people were aware of shocks from electric fish. Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish. Electric fish were again reported millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians. Several ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, attested to the numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by electric catfish and electric rays, and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects. Patients with ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them.
Ancient cultures around the Mediterranean knew that certain objects, such as rods of amber, could be rubbed with cat's fur to attract light objects like feathers. Thales of Miletus made a series of observations on static electricity around 600 BCE, from which he believed that friction rendered amber magnetic, in contrast to minerals such as magnetite, which needed no rubbing. Thales was incorrect in believing the attraction was due to a magnetic effect, but later science would prove a link between magnetism and electricity.
>Patients with ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them.
I wish I could be a sadistic healer healing folks through pain and suffering.
I love this image so much. I've also seen a version where the guy speaks Hebrew and the consoomer just replies with "what?"
So tell me mr master chemist/smith/machinist where do you get the materials, tools and workshops required for such an endeavour?
Have you ever extracted ammonium nitrate from natural materials? Do you even know the very basics of gunpowder?
Machine building. Cogs, water wheels, pumps, maybe lenses if there is a glassmaker nearby.
>what would be the best way to earn a lot of money?
Learn the native script, then start doing scribe work. Knowing how to read and write is already impressive, doubly so if you're good at mathematics.
That'll get you a solid income and give you access to things of value (like scholarship) as well.
Rolling a nat 20.
Become a smith's apprentice
I have one thing or two about metals
T.Structural engineer
Buy ladders, break them and sell the parts as saps
Isekai sucks cuz it always does the “ope you’re teleported with just the clothes on your back lol”, if I could just bring my ukulele and harmonica I’d be completely fine just cranking out songs in the town square.
But with just what’s on me? I’d be nervous to try and wow people with my phone, I’d probably turn that off ASAP and save it for a later date. My best bet might be to just hit up the highest authority I can, and convince them I’m a traveler from a far-off land with a wealth of information to share. I could probably expand their maps with how vague everything was back then, or draw them some exotic animals and teach them about those. If they need proof, I could offer up my clothing and insist that the advanced stitching techniques alone should prove that wherever I claim to come from has knowledge worth sharing.
Of course, this is all assuming that I can actually read, write, and communicate in whatever language I land in, which I feel like is a pretty low chance. I’d probably sound like a complete foreigner and a total psycho more than anything else.
>with how vague everything was back then,
Back when, anon? You're in Fantasyland, not time-travelled into medieval Europe.
>take quests
>give quests to adventurers for half the reward
>???
>profit
Pyramid scheme
a pyramid scheme about building a pyramid
Finding the nearest bridge to jump off and get out of such a horrible setting
Figure out if they are using tractors already and if not, get into farm tools business.
t. farmer
You'll need to figure out how to make it work without agricultural subsidy.
I said "farm tools business", not "farming".
You know: where the real money is. Doesn't matter if it's a crank-operated winnower or a combine harvester.
>generic low fantasy town
Go to either the mayor or the tavern and explain that I'm a traveler looking for work. I should be able to get basic run-down of the available opportunities the likes of which no normal person would say
Wouldn't people with easy access to lighting spells allow for a much earlier understanding and study in electricity? It seems like it would make things so much easier than relying on scary thunderstorms or lame static electricity. Actually, it feels to me that a lot of spells would just accelerate attempts to figure out physical nature faster.
There are usual fantasy copouts for that
Magic's existence could guide people into a different avenue for advancement, perhaps one that doesn't have the same snowballing benefits of science.
This could only get worse if scientific knowledge is so dogshit that magic makes it look pointless. What's the use of understanding static electricity when John can shoot lightning by focusing?
Another common copout is the world just being so batshit insane that people don't have the time and resources to spend on science. This ones weaker though, since they still apparently had time for magic.
That said all of this is moot in a Low Fantasy setting, because if you have "easy access lightning spells", you're not in a Low Fantasy setting.
>moot in a Low Fantasy setting
anyone good at gimp/photoshop and want to whip this up
seriously not one person wants to spend 30 second slapping his face on some guy in plate mail
i am not impressed
"Not one person" includes you, gaynaut. Funny line, worth a giggle, not worth the minute of making and posting it. Do it yourself if you find it so hilarious.
i'm dealing with tech issues out the ass on my desktop and have turned to an ascended phoneposter with a bluetooth keyboard to stay sane, so no, i have an excuse
i looked into good image software for phones and there's fricking jack shit
Crazy you made four blogposts, any askers though?
No, because they would predominantly be exposed to these forces through magic.
There is no physics-accurate explanation for how you shot lightning from your hands, therefore the lightning you shoot from your hands does not follow the physical rules we take for granted 100%. If it did, it wouldn't exist at all. Since the lightning you shoot from your hands isn't following the laws of physics, studying that lightning can only impart a very warped understanding of how electricity is 'supposed' to work.
A generator in a fantasy land would not involve any magnets, iron rods, or even a single inch of copper wire. A generator in a fantasy land would be wooden puppet hands rigged with clockwork to go through the hand motions that a wizard uses to cast lightning bolt, summoning electricity from nothing and shooting it at a lightning rod connected to your power grid. Because, to them, thats how electricity *works*.
Become a bookeeper using modern writing, math and record keeping skills
prostitution
Beyond the basic survival needs of seeing if there's a local humanitarian church or other group giving handouts enough to let you survive the initial entry and adapting to the local food/sicknesses, you need information.
Look up the local trade guilds, merchants, blacksmiths and craftsmen then see what if any modern ideas or knowledge you might be able to leverage. Things like assembly line production, what we might consider basic math could be the sort of unheard of thing that only wizards know, charcoal water purification, aquaculture/simple hydroponics, artificial pollination, plant grafting.
Until you can start to get 'PC levels' or pick up magic, the only big money makers you'll have access to are going to be remarkably similar to the way you'd get it in the modern world that you've come from. Well, unless you get damn lucky and get picked up by someone of money as a curiosity or entertaining fool/storyteller.
Join the adventurers' guild.
Go outside and walk back and forth until some basic b***h slimes appear, kill about twelve of these frickers to get some money for starter gear
Critical hit. Thou art dead.
like it seriously makes no sense in the android ecosystem bro
i got some really good video editing and audio editing software and my phone came bundled with microsoft office but some image editing software with layers? nope, nothin
why the frick won't the wizards at linux inc port gimp to android already
seems like the most viable option i have is to get a cheap chromebook and throw linux on it instead of use the regular os, but that will slow down the purchasing of my next desktop
i'm like giga pissed because i'm a meme master, there are many OCs i've made that get reposted over the years, here's one of the more popular ones
i misclicked cause you pissed me off and i can't delete the post for some reason
In the glory days I made tons of edits of this guy
He's not really relevant anymore on Ganker and I'm not solely responsible but he's more important now as what mask the American hackers use to make sure no one can figure out who they are
Become apprentice to one of the few wizards of the lands, because he (or she) is so very intrigued with me being a planar/ dimensional traveler.
God damnit there are no wizards in this setting and if they do all they got is like some really cool corrosive acid and maybe fireworks or a magnet
Low fantasy doesnt mean no magic and no wizards. Its a broad term
Scroll up and you can see us arguing over whether or not academia or wikipedia is more accurate
>become a guinea pig for the mad wizard's experiments
>die in a couple of weeks
Enlist in the town guard or something. Chances are I'm taller and healthier than an average person in the town. I'll say I'm a traveller who's been robbed that's why I'm new and have no money or anything.
I'll try using my knowledge of modern police practices, like fingerprints matching and facial composite sketching.
Alternatively, I can draw so I can ask to be the apprentice of a local artist.
Artist? No, that's heresy, you'll have to talk to the local monastery and shit out pictures of their equivlanents of jesus and the virgin marry and anything else will get set on fire
>implying I'm not okay with drawing their religious stuff
anon it wasn't heresy too draw non-religious art it was just that the church was the only ones who could afford too pay artist so all the art is religious.
>Alternatively, I can draw so I can ask to be the apprentice of a local artist.
Apprentice? Dude if you can by modern standards you probably know more about art than they do.
Remind yourself what medieval art looked like. Can you draw better than this? Congrats, you're a fricking master.
You know, now that i think about it that HAS to already exist: some isekai where a mangaka gets sent back in time and has no skills but drawing good, and instead of becoming an adventurer he just draws anime art for nobles and gets fricking wealthy doing it.
I know what medieval art looked like. But you're making the same mistake as literally every other shitty isekai. You can't just appear out of nowhere in a medieval town and start doing something, anything, that no one else can, and amaze everyone with it just like that. In case of art, there are traditions, there are styles that people are used to, and who knows how they'll interpret something drasctically different. If you're too good, they might think you're using some kind of sorcery or tricks. This is probably an exaggeration, but still there will be questions, like who taught you and where you come from. In any case, I have no idea how to paint the way medieval painters did it, cause they had to make their paints on their own, with eggs and various plants or minerals. The best I could do in a medieval setting is take a piece of charcoal and draw with it, and that won't take you far.
low fantasy is for brainlets, medium-rare is for great people
Flashing back to my useless english degree if they think your depictions of jesus are good then you might to get draw a portrait of a noble but if you make it too realistic they're gonna get pissed and execute you for taunting him
If you mean getting rich, i don't think it's actually possible under reasonable circumstances. My best shot would be writting a "fictional" book based on the real contemporary world and become the reverse Tolkien.
Or i would sell the info i know about various creatures from generic fantasy monster manuals to "adventurers".
>Or i would sell the info i know about various creatures from generic fantasy monster manuals to "adventurers".
...why would they buy them? If adventuring and monster hunting is real, there are actual monsters in this world and what you "know" from DnD is almost certainly completely useless and will just get people killed. And anyone who does this for a living will know more about the monsters of this world than you do, easily spotting your bullshit.
If monsters and adventurers are not real, then the good news is your bullshit wont get anyone killed but the bad news is that there is no one likely to actually buy what you are selling.
I just don't see an outcome here where your fantasy lore gets you anything.
I'd sell the "meta" knowledge of the setting's monsters. Buying my book would be the equivalent of being a character whose player owns the monster manual, he'd know all the weaknesses and behavior patterns.
I assumed most people in any fantasy setting never met most of the creatures in the monster manual just like your lvl 1 character don't actually know the details of, for example, the False Hydra's biology.
Realistically, I would probably just become a bandit or something. It doesn't matter how much I know about modern technology or biochemistry or nature; I'm not smart enough to build any of that shit on my own. Just smart enough to understand it if it's put in front of me.
Working as an accountant with my math and writing skills, assuming isekai mechanisms grat me language knowledge.
Do I even understand the languages people speak? It would be a nightmare.
I mean, just learn the language.
That takes time, and is going to be extremely intimidating for anyone no used to learning new languages.
How are you going to buy yourself the time to do it? You have no money, no weapons, no food, no shelter. You are a vagrant who cannot communicate with anyone in town. Lets say you can teach yourself the language in as little as two months with no one to help you, as impressive as that is how do you expect to last those two months?
>That takes time
Sure, but so does getting used to the local customs societal norms.
>going to be extremely intimidating for anyone no used to learning new languages
EFL problems.
>How are you going to buy yourself the time to do it?
Be a servant or a porter or something.
Learn the local language and writing systems first. Work whatever jobs I can at this point.
Use my knowledge of mathematics to make a decent living - some merchant or banker would want to hire me, and probably pay well enough to support me.
While doing so, find the nearest courthouse and acquaint myself with the region's legal system, and learn the system well enough that I can become a lawyer.
While plying said trade, build connections with wealthy burghers and local nobility. Get involved in scholarship, whether magic or science - if I do well enough, plenty of nobility will give patronage.
Use those connections to amass wealth, whether through trade or new inventions. If I feel ambitious enough, I could try shooting for lesser nobility at this point.
>Use my knowledge of mathematics to make a decent living - some merchant or banker would want to hire me
"So, what can you do?"
"I know statistics, probability, calculus, linear algebra, complex analysis..."
"Uh, yeah... whatever those are, here's an abacus in base 12, multiply 6438 by 818 real quick."
>6438 by 818
818=409*2
6438=1073*6
818*6438=1073*409*12
1073*409=409000+73*409=409000+29200+687=438887
438887*12=4388870+877774=5266644
5,266,644
An abacus would probably be faster, though
>Base 12
That would frick me up at first, but would just take some learning
This is actually off, because I made an error with 73*409, calculating 9*73 as 687 rather than 657, which made the answer off by 360.
Sell phone for a ridiculous price
Probably to some noble
IIRC some other isekai had a guy try this, and he got immediately arrested and put into debt slavery when the battery ran out.
Kek, amature
That's why you turn on airplane mode, and battery saving mode, then lower the brightness before making the sale, to buy yourself more time
Then you immediately flee, get rid of your clothes, and get a haircut
Meant for
tbf it was a plotpoint that the guy was an egotistical frickwit, and much of the story is him getting fricked over by various get-rich-quick schemes.
I'm 6'2 250lbs and bench my bodyweight for reps I'd probs find a job pretty easily as a mercenary.
Are you going to be able to maintain your gains with no equipment and poor diet
The chickens were very small and lean compared to today even 30 years ago, we only recently figured out how to make them get silly huge, and the cows were only slaughtered for nobles
You might be lucky if you get a bite of duck on christmas
Maintaining gains is generally easier than obtaining them.
He might lose some muscle but he'd still eclipse anyone who isn't either a genetic freak or really wealthy and dedicated to fitness.
This thread really does still have two misconceptions and we're up to 200+
1) I know stuff sort of I can do this easily (even I fell prone to it at first)
2) Magic, yay! Not realizing that in low fantasy magic is actually just superstition and always has an implicit real explanation
A dwarf is just some midget with a beard
A troll is just a giant with a weird face like elphant man
A wizard has just figured some science thingy out and no one understands how it works
Gandalf was set up as a low fantasy wizard at first sort of where he really did was fireworks and his powers keep escalating as the series goes on
>in low fantasy magic is actually just superstition and always has an implicit real explanation
Idiot, that's not what low fantasy means.
>2) Magic, yay! Not realizing that in low fantasy magic is actually just superstition and always has an implicit real explanation
What?
prostitution is probably the easiest, but it is very risky. other than that, i guess you can find yourself a club or something and sign-on to a merchant caravan as a guard. you couldn't really do much else if you were just dropped there out of the blue since almost every profession would likely require you to join a guild and become an apprentice, and that usually requires money in of itself.
The easiest & fastest thing grifting. Swingle hard & stay moving. Then once you have capital use modern marketing techniques to Pavlov the populations. Imagine if you could convince a handful on lesser nobles to buy into a timeshare castle belonging to a higher up noble who needs a way to revitalize a bit of land that used to be profitable but its resources have now dried up. You skim off the top & make friends with everyone involved.
Most people people in this thread think they can communicate well enough & source free resources to make gunpowder or modern medicine & shit & thats just not the case. You dont want to invent something that could be turned against you or something you have to convince people of first.
Lying & marketing are resource free ways to make money. Sailors can't communicate for shit in foreign ports but that doesnt stop them from gambling. Grifter is an old profession & we have had a long time to perfect it. Do three card monty, or something easy. Dont be stupid about it either. If you swindle the guy with an a bunch of scars & murder in his eyes make it like it was for entertainment & not his money. Of course sir take your money back, its all a trick, all a trick, im no pickpocket im just making ya laugh! Then get him on your side & grift someone he doesnt like & give him a cut of that.
Steal. Just club some rich buffoon over the head, snag his wallet and disappear. You have no history and nothing to tie you down. Just run.
Hang myself and hope for a better respawn next time.
Musique
I use my understanding of modern technology to revolutionize the world.
Being a general engineer is finally useful.
How common are black folks? because if they rare as hell then I am becoming a court homie
anons theres a Black person on my board
Fricking court jester.
>niggle me this
>niggle me that
>give me a white b***h
>or you get no more crack!
You'd have it made, dude.
Depending on the setting, we'd either be fricking famous, fricking prestigious, a fricking joke, a fricking slave, or fricking dead.
>How common are black folks? because if they rare as hell then I am becoming a court homie
In classic northern European fantasy settings? Very rare, the high rare of communicable disease and the vitamin D deficiency kills them off very fast
>isekai'd
>waste your life updating various scientific, technologic, economic, and cultural systems using centuries of accumulated knowledge, growing fat from the endless piles of gold you accumulate via standing on the shoulders of giants
Frick that. Grab a table leg and head into the cellar, looking for giant rats.
Life is to short to waste chasing gold.
XP>GP
You forgot the part where you die branded as a retad, simply because their language and accents are far too different to possible comprehend.
Point and smile is enough to get by in a foreign country. Anything more complicated than that can be learned over time. Language barriers are not inpenetrable.
Right, so the first thing you do is take up peasant tasks as though the jobs can't be done by anyone. You're now decent at killing giant rats, so long as disease from their bites & scratches don't frick you over. Ok, now go fight a goblin horde. You're likely not to be alone, so now you know how to fight goblins so long as you're not outnumbered, get stabbed, or suffer from disease. You've barely survived. Now comes the zombies & skeletons. Then the orcish warband.
You're gonna die fast, Anon. Can you even manage to kill another man and survive?
Basic modern day medical knowledge would make a legendary healer.
Describe how. Do you just come to the court doctor and say "Hey, all your knowledge is wrong, disease is spread by tiny little creatures you can't see!"
Stressing the importance of sterilization and a clean environment would alone be enough to make you a better doctor than any doctor at the time.
Yes but you'd need to become a doctor first. You clearly don't have a plan.
Have you heard the wonderful story of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
?
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
He had the method, but not the explanation for why it worked.
Saying "many diseases are spread by tiny creatures you can't see because they are too small" is something that can be step-by-step demonstrated and proven. But, you wouldn't be using this knowledge to try and publish papers and further your academic career, you would be speaking directly to kings and using your knowledge to radically accelerate their kingdoms, laying down your logical explanations and following them with various proofs.
Hell, you could even adapt the theories of the time to your methods. Washing your hands before sticking them into a woman could be... evoking the Cold and Wet nature of the
Phlegm humor to create sympathetic resonance. Or whatever.
you could literally just say that dirty things make you sick and they would probably believe it since they already thought dirty air made you sick.
Well, they didn't believe Semmelwies even though he could literally demonstrate a drop in death rates from something like 30% to less than 1%.
Assuming the professionals of that place don't discredit and antagonize you at every turn for going into their turf.
Sign up for the local watch, learn your way about the city outskirts, perhaps get some keys, rob uptown stores at night.
If your GM is a gay he'll arbitrarily hinder you if you don't make an effort to explore the map a bit.
invent the printing press
>what would be the best way to earn a lot of money?
Leatherwork, cobbler, brewing and selling strong booze, pimping, running a fight stage, pawn shop, creature fighting pit (like wiener fighting but with smaller fantasy creatures), bet maker, fletcher, sausage maker, groom, stable boy, water carrier, dung collector, crier. You don't want anything involving violence or crime everyone is heavily armed and has ptsd and most of the town have killed
>I'll invent [modern thing!]
And an organization with more resources than your hobo ass will see that it works and take it for themselves, and maybe leave you dead in a ditch if they feel you're a threat.
Or an organization with a vested interest in not automating labor or making shotguns a thing will consider you a threat and leave you dead in a ditch. Don't come in here with your fancy cotton gin and think the Textiles Guild isn't going to have some shit to say about it.
Get some money, open up a shop and apply modern corporate structure but without the whole "care for your employee" part.
Only sensible answers in this thread.
Well, depends. Obviously this is assuming all the asinine "gotcha!" BS like language barriers, religious persecution, and communicable ambient illnesses, etc is all non-issue, I can think of options.
First and foremost is black powder production. Saltpeter, charcoal, sulfur, 75/15/10. Production is pretty simple, and the value / utility is obvious.
Another in-demand practice that takes minimum skill, minimum equipment, and can be done by anyone? Charcoal burning. All you need is access to wood, some way to cut it, a shovel, and some place to make a burn pit.
Being able to do algebra and geometry at most highschool/secondary levels would make most anons valuable in supernumerate professions if you could convince someone to let you demonstrate the skill.
There are plenty of others, but they are not glamorous. 90% of anons Isekai'd into such a situation have unrealistic expectations about being mercs or bandits. But y'know.
I mean I hate to be an isekai protagonist but at least where I'm concerned I know how to make pizza and subs, and that's probably the most useful and marketable skill I have.
Go fishin
If you have the skills for a trade go into that.
If you have none get fricked, for coins
The problem is my trade skills aren't really applicable. They don't need an electrician.
Well then time to spread those cheeks anon.
I seriously doubt there is a market for my flesh anon.
Couldn't you find a way to make sugar from beets to make millions?
With farm?
Unless you spawn as someone with land of their own you'd be hard pressed to do that.
You'd be better off as a salt maker.
just buy some beets, tthey can't be that expensive
I agree it'd be better with some form of initial investment but even without it once you manage to create a bit of sugar you can sell it or show it to some merchant who'd then be glad to fund you
Where?
Sugar beet is an 18th century crop and you need a lot equipment to make it.
Moonshining is a more lucrative business.
Sugar beets took ages of selective breeding and effort. Prior to all the frickery they did to make sugar beets the sugar content of the average beet was really really shitty. Literally not worth it.
I wonder how useful my (woeful) knowledge of germ theory would be.
I'm pretty big and didn't have my growth stunted by shit nutrition, so I could probably use that to make some base money with some relatively basic dumb muscle work, just hopefully at a slightly higher than average rate due to being better suited to the job than the chaff. I'd probably hope and aim for a job where I could flex my education, granted, but I'm not holding my breath since getting one of those would depend a lot on who you know even more than today rather than what you can do. After that, though? Do you know what was rare for most of history? Strong booze. Once I get that initial nest egg, I plan to distill some of the local flavours into moonshine and make a tidy profit off of suddenly having a new, exciting product that feeds existing vices better. If one thing binds humanity of the present and past together, it's alcoholism, and I'm sure there would be plenty of tavern owners willing to buy something to draw the lushes to their doorstep. All my more extensive plans can wait until I have some capital flowing.
I'm a metalworker IRL, so even if I'm not allowed to go full Connecticut Yankee on this b***h, I could still likely get a job at a smithy with my skills.
Teach people about germ theory
Become witch, most of your magic is just potions of purified/sterilized water and pasturized dairy.
Prescribe soap and hot water, and sell boiled clothing for wound dressings.
Reading and writing are presumably rare skills. So any modern man can become a merchants assistant, scribe or apprentice at the local mage (we are also a lot more open minded than the villagers). None of that will make you rich quick, but it pays the bills until you figure out how to leverage what else you know into wealth.
Decent ideas are: Inventing electricity by using a water mill to make iron rotate in a copper spool. The printing press. Penicilin.
>Inventing electricity by using a water mill to make iron rotate in a copper spool.
And what do you do with it?
I go to the local adventurers guild and start my life as a low level mage.
There’s a local tavern. They have a few fairytale books laying around. Betty the bar b***h claims she can levitate, but only if you buy her another drink.
I'll just entertain people in the streets by playing Beethoven on wine glasses. I'll tell them I came from the Moon and this is Moon music.
I used to study magic, and since I in particular am being isekaid I have to assume some of that magic will actually work. I form an adventuring party with some other anons to get the money and materials required to start doing magic. If it doesn't, I guess I'll murder a wizard and take his stuff.
My 21st century knowledge of fellatio technique will see me to wealth and success.
You shitters think to big. Low fantasy means only the rich and sometimes not even them know math. With just school math you could hope to found a merchant or noble to keep you under their wing paying for your basic needs.
I’d literally murder everyone for not being Christian