Thinking Medieval: Most commoners have a love/hate hate relationship with strangers
This is part of my "Thinking Medieval" series
In medieval Europe and in a great many pre-industrial cultures of real world Earth and even corners of the modern Earth, it is common for a great many people to seldom travel beyond a ten mile radius from the place of their birth. This often leads to a distrust of foreigners and in this context, some the fifteen miles away is a "foreigner". This applies to many Scarterrans as well. Most Scarterrans are farmers or have a profession that largely caters to farmers in their home area such as a village blacksmith making metal tools for the farmer's in his area. Most Scarterrans don't travel very far from their homes and anyway from more than a two days' journey away is a foreigner. In the real world there enough reasons to be suspsicous of a stranger from a strange land, but Scarterra is a world full of magic and monsters and active gods and goddesses. Some of the gods and goddesses of Scarterra have fanatic followers whose morality is incongruent with regular farming folk. So Scarterran peasants have even more reason to be suspicious of strangers than real world Earth peasants do. On the other hand, there is no internet, television, cinema, radio, or even newspapers. The only way for an average farmer to get news from faraway lands is to talk to someone from from faraway lands. Since Scarterra is a fantasy world with magic and monsters, that means the news they are not getting is that much more juicy. Many Scarterrans fear and distrust strangers while also being desperate to meet and talk to them. This means that a complicated set of norms and mores have developed around hospitality.by Eron12 with Hero Forge"Everyone is cheering because the adventurahs killed the big tree making twig blights. They are celebrating the destruction...of...a...tree. We have lumberjacks for that! We never had to worry about twig blights or anything like that until the adventurahs came into town. You want to ge rid of the monsters, get rid of the damn adventurahs!" Glimmermoon, bar wench
History
An old gnome saying is to 'Try to be open minded but don't be so open minded that your brains spill out onto the floor.' I've had a few unexpected house guests that turned out to be very nice and interesting people and a few that were a little rude, but I've never been personally cursed or blessed with a dramatically evil or dramatically wonderful guest. One just needs to be careful with whom one does or does not invite inside. We just have to trust our instincts and hope for the best.Aunt Ragani the goat herderby Me with Hero ForgeScarterra is full of many apocryphal stories about Scarterrans taking in house guests who then betray them horrible, including figurative and literal monsters that wreak havoc after gaining entrance to a person's home via false pretenses. All these stories make Scarterran wary of letting strangers inside. There are also stories of spirits, Fair Folk, or even mortal royalty disguising themselves as poor travelers and then coming back to reward those who showed them kindness and to punish those who treated them rudely.
Execution
Specifics differ, but in Scarterra as many historical eras on Earth, hospitality norms and taboos are often considered sacrosanct.
Stealing from or harming another person is of course a crime but betraying a host or a guest is a serious taboo and is often punished very severely when caught. Enforcing guest and host taboos is the main way Scarterrans reconcile their distrust of strangers conflicting with their desire to interact with strangers.
Of course it helps if the strangers in question are clean, attractive, and respectable looking. Scarterrans, peasants and princes alike are so starved for diversion that entertainers have an easier time finding shelter while traveling than others. Even those who aren't entertainers by trade will try to collect a few stories and songs that they can entertain their hosts with.
In general, hosts are expected to the put the needs of their guests above their own. Guests are expected to show gratitude and if they stay for an extended period of time, provide a material gift or help their host with his chores and labors.
Components and tools
Along widelly traveled routes in Scarterra, there are typically Inns located strategically at one-day journey intervals. Scarterran inns rarely have taverns in them because taverns tend to be noisy and people sleeping in inns want quiet, but many inns have taverns or Ale Houses near them and this is considered a convenient and relatively safe way for locals to talk to strangers (or talk to the inn keeper's family) and get the news.
If for whatever reason an inn is unavailable, a traveler usually has to find a person or family to take them in and offer shelter, even if it's just a pile of hay in the corner of their barn.
Participants
If a traveler can find distant family members, they fall back on those ties. If a traveler is associated with one of the priesthoods directly or indirectly they will try to stay at an affiliated temple or at least ask the people there if they know a place they can stay.
It's common for professionals to want to engage in shop talk. A traveling merchant is likely to seek and find and the home of a merchant to stay with and a traveling blacksmith is likely to knock on the door of a blacksmiths shop asking for shelter.
Sometimes fantasy racism can rear its ugly head as people also are favorably disposed towards people who look like themselves and are often unfavorably disposed towards people who look different from them though in a few cases outsiders have exotic appeal.
Members of minorities will usually try to seek out their own kind to stay with while traveling. tengku tend to stay at the homes of other tengku and satyrs tend to stay with satyrs. Gnomes tend to be more open-minded than most but even they prefer to mingle with their own kind. This doesn't just apply to different races, there is also a bias towards people of similar elemental ethnicity though this discriminations is less pronounced. Sometimes individuals with exotic or unusual elemental ethnicity are considered attractive and intriguing.
Nobles and other wealthy Scarterrans are expected to be make public gestures of generosity so there is a lot of pressure for them to take in hungry and tired house guests from time to time. But the implications "don't invite bad people into your home when you live in a castle. A lot of landed nobles have guest accomodations on their land outside their castles and fortification so they can meet their social expectations of hospitality without compromising their own safety. Most Scarterran Hospitals run primarily on the largesse of wealthy nobles.
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