gemheart value

[king of nowhere]

I ran some calculations on the value of gemhearts, after discovering that the cppermind lists sizes for gemstones.

In particular, a broam is said to be 400 mg, and a chasmfiend gemheart is said to be as big as a man's head, and made of emerald. I checked the average size of a human head, it's 5 kg. The human body has a density of about 1 kg/L, while emerald has around 2.8, giving 14 kg of emerald. that translates to 42000 emerald broams. although one should not do a comparison of gemstones purely based on mass alone, a significant part of those gemhearts will be cut for currency, so 40k emerald broams is a reasonable estimate.

with slave bridgemen worth 3 broams each, one can see that losing one or two hundred of them every time you fight for a crysalis is an insignificant cost.

it's a bit harder to calculate how much running the warcamps cost. slave kaladin earned 1 clearmark per day; a free bridgeman would earn twice as much. I don't remember any exact references to other wages, but a skymark per day (5 clearmark) seem rougly sensible given the premise. So, for an army of 10000 men paid 1 skymark per day on average, you'd spend a total of 250 emerald broams.

running an army has other costs, like soulcast food, equipment and support personnel, but the numbers check: a gemheart can support a highprince at the shattered plain for about one month.

on the other hand, a gemheart would only buy 40 horses. i know horses are supposed to be super duper expensive on eastern roshar, but that still seems too much.

[Ookla she/her]

Ah, but horses are hard to get on Roshar. They need certain food that doesn't grow abundantly outside of Shinovar, they can be quite skittish and wouldn't respond well to highstorms, and would generally be a pain to transport from Shinovar to Alethkar. I assume that much of the cost would be from the difficulties of transport. I think 10k emerald broams seems less overpriced when you take that into account--you have the cost of the animal itself, then whatever the merchant had to expend to keep it alive, then the merchant's profit that lets him keep operating. Is it still incredibly expensive? Yes. But is it totally unreasonable? I don't believe so.

Plus, even in our world, where we don't have so many issues caring for horses, a really quality horse like you'd want for battle (or in our day, racing) can sell for many thousands or even into the millions of dollars. And I assume that the only horses rich men on the Shattered Plains would want would be the quality ones. 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

on the other hand, a gemheart would only buy 40 horses. i know horses are supposed to be super duper expensive on eastern roshar, but that still seems too much.

Well, that fits, horses are nearly priceless on Roshar. Sadeas' heavy cavalry charge is 100 horses in total, losing nearly half of them would be a disaster.

WoR prologue:

Quote

They escaped the city quickly, and the cavalry Dalinar sent after them were destroyed. A hundred horses, each nearly priceless, lost along with their riders.

WoR ch 67:

Quote

"There’s a matter I’ve been wanting to discuss with you,” Dalinar said. “I find it impressive what you’ve been able to do with light cavalry on your plateau runs. Tell me, how do you decide when to risk an all-out assault with your riders? The loss of horses could easily overwhelm your earnings from gemhearts, but you have managed to balance this with clever stratagems.”

WoK ch 32:

Quote

Normally, two riders abreast on each bridge added up to a mass of a hundred horsemen, thirty to forty across and three ranks deep

 

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Well, that fits, horses are nearly priceless on Roshar. Sadeas' heavy cavalry charge is 100 horses in total, losing nearly half of them would be a disaster.

WoR prologue:

WoR ch 67:

WoK ch 32:

 

wow, it looks like indeed, a few dozen horses could be worth a full gemheart.

which make me question the value of using them in battle, given that you could have hundreds of regular soldiers for the same cost. looks too expensive to be practical. and then, horses get old and die by themselves even if not killed in battle. a warhorse will be battle-worthy for what, 10 years? if you have 100 horses, on average every month you'll lose one to aging. 1000 broams every month, to maintain a squadron of heavy cavalry. just before all other costs are factured in.

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

which make me question the value of using them in battle, given that you could have hundreds of regular soldiers for the same cost.

Shock. Cavalry is mostly a shock unit on a battlefield - their main goal is to break enemy formation. Horses give a range, speed and mass advantage to their riders, they have a huge psychological impact on an enemy, not to mention that horses themselves were trained to fight, bite and kick as well, often protected by armor. Horses also can take a heavy blow and live. They fight in tight formations, which secures flanks of each rider and makes them really hard to kill. Then, after enemy formation is broken, cavalry retreats allowing infantry to follow, or press further to completely rout an enemy unit. Infantry simply can't compete.

Historically horses were expensive - some horses were worth as much as a cost of several villages and riders often had many horses, just in case one of them died in a battle. Yet, horses were still used, they were dominant throughout the medieval period and beyond. The advantages of cavalry in war far outweighed monetary costs. Sure, it's not Roshar, but it all still holds true.

Parshendi do not have any proper formation - they fight in pairs. They don't use polearms or spears - they use short ranged weapons like axes or swords. They don't even use bows once bridges are in place - they don't target horses with arrows. They are outmatched by cavalry. There are still massive risks, they are fighting on very unfavorable terrain, but horses are simply too valuable on a battlefield not to use them.

WoK ch 32:

Quote

Stormfather! Kaladin thought. The heavy cavalry had been cut off. A cavalry charge needed an unbroken line; it was the intimidation as much as anything that made it work!
But here, the Parshendi could dodge out of the way, then come at the horsemen from the flanks. And the foot soldiers hadn’t gotten in quickly enough to help. Several groups of horsemen fought completely surrounded.

 

59 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

and then, horses get old and die by themselves even if not killed in battle. a warhorse will be battle-worthy for what, 10 years? if you have 100 horses, on average every month you'll lose one to aging. 1000 broams every month, to maintain a squadron of heavy cavalry. just before all other costs are factured in.

No idea about this. Horses can live up to 20, or even 30 years so maybe they can fight for 15 or so? Still, just because they aged doesn't mean they aren't worth anything - they can still be used for training or some other duties. Yes, it's particularly expensive on Roshar, but nobility there bathes in diamonds - 100 horses is not that much for a Highprince. Having an effective cavalry formation on a planet dominated by infantry is hugely advantageous - cavalry don't just fight in battles, they scout, skirmish, provide supplies and secure logistics. They are fast, maneuverable response units, they are great at being rear or vanguard, they can quickly secure a location before an enemy gets there. They have so many uses in war that they are literally priceless, so priceless that they were still used during the era of machine guns - WWI and even WWII.