Blaze1616 he/him Posted March 10, 2015 Author Posted March 10, 2015 Interesting. I always had headcanon that Forgers were special, which is why they were prejudiced against. As a minority that causes you to guess whether you're being lied to or not at all times, Forgers would likely be prejudiced against, and so I figured they were a select group of people because why willingly join such a group if you don't have to?
natc Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 Interesting. I always had headcanon that Forgers were special, which is why they were prejudiced against. As a minority that causes you to guess whether you're being lied to or not at all times, Forgers would likely be prejudiced against, and so I figured they were a select group of people because why willingly join such a group if you don't have to? Well, thieves tend to get arrested and there's always more of them. Making counterfeit replicas is a profitable business. Illegal replicas even more so. Forging is just the type of system that requires a lot of expertise to get right, like AonDor, and Elantrians have all the time in the world to practice their powers (or not) with the free resources they churn out. Especially when you have to actually know how the object was made in the first place and be able to reproduce the object yourself to actually forge it with a stamp. As the book goes with Shai's paintings she could totally just buy paint downtown and paint them herself without magic and it'd look just as good. Shai actually thinks the stamp is so obvious that it's usually a bad idea to use them if you don't have to as people will notice. Forgery is a difficult skill to perfect and perfecting it actually renders the need for the skill nonexistent outside of huge emergencies when you really need to make something with no equipment. Not an appealing field to dedicate lifetime study and risk potential persecution in other cultures for.
Kurkistan he/him Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 (edited) Especially when you have to actually know how the object was made in the first place and be able to reproduce the object yourself to actually forge it with a stamp. As the book goes with Shai's paintings she could totally just buy paint downtown and paint them herself without magic and it'd look just as good. Shai actually thinks the stamp is so obvious that it's usually a bad idea to use them if you don't have to as people will notice. This particular assumption I've always found dubious. Are we to conclude that Shai is an expert desk-maintaner and pottery-maker, then? I think it more reasonable to say that the creation of an entirely new work of art that's meant to be in a specific artist's style is the unusual case that requires extra expertise, rather than the requirement of that expertise being the norm. Edited March 10, 2015 by Kurkistan
natc Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 This particular assumption I've always found dubious. Are we to conclude that Shai is an expert desk-maintaner and pottery-maker, then? I think it more reasonable to say that the creation of an entirely new work of art that's meant to be in a specific artist's style is the unusual case that requires extra expertise, rather than the requirement of that expertise being the norm. Forgery inherently functions as alteration of history and not current state, and the more plausible the stamp is the better it holds. It stands to reason the more you go into detail of the manufacturing process the better it works. It might take for a while without the knowledge base, but I imagine for your average replica you'd want it to fool people for as long as possible.
Kurkistan he/him Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 (edited) "You can always do a bit better" isn't really an issue for non-living objects, though, as we know that all you have to do to make a permanent stamp for those is get past a certain threshold: if the stamp isn't rejected from the object within X hours (I forget the exact number at the moment, if it's given in the book), then it will last for an indefinite amount of time. P.S. To add on to the "Shai must be a polymath" pile, she should also by your system by a window maker and a fire-place installer and floor-crafter... Edited March 10, 2015 by Kurkistan
natc Posted March 10, 2015 Posted March 10, 2015 (edited) The window was originally there, they just never fixed it after it got busted up. And she just moved the floor damage. The fireplace is a tough one but I guess with a room this old you can get quite a lot done. There would be no way in hell that a piece of canvas on my desk used to be, say, the Mona Lisa for example, so the only solution would be to forge it into having been made into, well, a forgery of the Mona Lisa (so much redundancy) by a painter, and you'd have to describe how to paint it. Fixing a window by saying it could've been fixed earlier sounds like a simpler job. For all we know the window next door could've been fixed at some point after all. Or two floors above, or something. I guess I should've phrased it as each of the changes seem to require very exact description, and depending on what it is you're doing and what steps may be necessary you might be keeping a ridiculous changelog on that stamp design. If she can forge cell walls she might know enough about construction work for a working fireplace, now that I think about it. Edited March 10, 2015 by natc
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