(09-25-2013, 06:41 PM)Naunet Wrote:(09-25-2013, 06:33 PM)LiadansWhisper Wrote: The NPC in question is a minor noble, so he should have had access to good healthcare, especially considering the quests covering escorting "Phurgions" (sp?) between strongholds.
A "minor noble" can mean a lot less than one may think. Many nobles lived just over the edge of poverty, their holding of land basically being the only thing securing their "status", and often you had minor nobles essentially demoting themselves to peasants when they realized they could not keep up with the financial demands of nobility.
Feudalism, nobility, and the noble life are not nearly as shiny as a lot of people often assume, and there is generally definite, severe sub-stratification within nobility that leaves some nobles with a lot and many with just barely enough.
[edit] Incidentally, we have not run into any NPCs from Ishgard who isn't nobility - again, bearing in mind the fact that nobility itself can have many different levels. I might be wrong, but if I'm recalling correctly (and nobility and feudalism are incredibly complex topics), simply becoming a knight tends to automatically grant you "noble" status - but you never actually get a lot of the perks that comes with being A Noble. You just get the name. So a lot of these "minor" nobles, soldiers, might very well be extremely "low class" in this context.
But they're all sworn, and their liegelords, as part and parcel of their oath, should be taking care of them.
Honestly, as Salty pointed out, high infant mortality rates and high mortality in general was just as much a problem for the nobility during the feudal eras as it was for the peasantry. Â Epidemics like the Bubonic Plague didn't discriminate and would infect people in a seemingly random fashion.
I just really don't see any indication that most or all of Eorzea is at the industrial age. Â There's no sign of it. Â Yeah, there are mining operations and a few oil derricks out in Thalnalan, but neither of those are "industrialized." Â Where are the factories? Â Where are the refineries? Â Seriously.
Magic might fix it, but the last time I was at the Conjurer's Guild in Gridania, I noticed a conversation between NPCs where a Conjurer was refusing to aid petitioners, and from the gist of the conversation, it appeared to be someone who was sick. Â He said, "It's the will of the forest."
![[Image: hFalP38.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/hFalP38.jpg)
