Thinking Medieval: Privacy is a luxury in Scarterra

A Lack of Physical Privacy

  Most things in Scarterra are made by hand in Scarterra, and this includes houses and waste is taboo. There are some magical spells that can make construction of large buildings a little bit easier, especially castles, but the construction of living spaces is still a costly endeavor.   Many Scarterran towns and cities are surrounded by stone walls, or at least have wooden stockades. That means past a certain point, you cannot expand the city without building a new set of walls which takes a lot of labor and materials. This means walled settlements tend to be fairly cramped with people packed pretty close together. This means houses are pretty cramped and the houses tend to be close together which is why fires were often so devesating to medieval Earth towns. Scarterran towns are also proverbial tinder boxes and besides accidental fires, they have to deal with the remote but very real possibilty of magical invokers or dragons.   For similar reasons, castles also tend to pack people in fairly tight, especially during an actual siege where extra people are likely desperate for a safe place to sleep.   Rural houses can afford to be more spacious, but rural areas still have to deal with a relative scarcity of construction materials and labor, so it's not like rural houses are huge, though some wealthy nobles vastly prefer living in a manor house than living in castle, willing to trade security for the luxury of space. Many wealthy nobles have a manor house and a castle and only use the castle when they feel threatened. A manor house or noble's estate can still be pretty crowded because wealthy Scarterrans often display status by supporting large entourages of servants and retainers.    

A Lack of Social Privacy

  One side-effect of physical crowding is social crowding. It's hard enough to keep secrets from people under your same roof but if you live in a one or two room house it's even harder. This is part of why medieval toliets are called privvies, because there are not a lot of other places one has privacy.   If a couple wants to be...intimate...that doesn't mean they have to have an audience, but it is difficult for two lovers to go off without people knowing what they are doing so its harder to have secret love affairs. In general, Scarterrans are more open about talking about sex than modern Americans from Earth are as we are still dealing with echoes of the Victorian Era which was more uptight talking about sex than Medieval Earth was.  

by me with Hero Forge

"Lanpos and Minla are off on another ciesta, no wonder they have so many children...Speaking of which, their oldest daughter is a spending a LOT of time gathering fire wood and looking for mushrooms. No I don't think she is meeting a boy. She took the tests to try to become an Intiate with the Stewards last spring and I hear she didn't make it. I think she's hoping if she spends enough time in nature that she'll become a self-taught theurgist like her aunt who I hear is not just a leafer but is currently with a HUMAN..."   -Breeoa the Gnome Village Gossip

  In villages, everyone knows everyone which is both a good and a bad thing.   Scarterran, like medieval Earth, does not internet, television, film, radio, or even newspapers. Most Scarterrans work fairly boring and repetive jobs, so they are thirsty for entertaintment. One of the most of the popular pasttimes is to gossip about what the neighbors are doing.   Dwarves tend to be a bit more private and gnomes tend to be a bit more nosy, but rich or poor, pretty much every Scarterran culture and subculture has its share of gossipy busy bodies among them.