Weights and Measures
Every city in the Known World weighs, measures, and pours by the same units, and has since before any city existed. People count in tens and measure in eights: every unit is eight of the one below it, except the last step of each scale, which is sixteen. In the name of a measure, Keiloe means 1,024 — the tenth doubling — and a merchant who means an exact thousand says keiloe feira, a true thousand. The measures came down from the survivors exactly as they are. The Academy holds that doubling is the natural division of any scale; everyone else finds that the measures halve cleanly all the way down, which suits a balance, a pail, and a market woman making change.
Length
The Streid is the base, a person's stride. Clockmakers speak in Threid; distances are given in Keiloe-Streid.
| Unit | Equals | About |
|---|---|---|
| Threid | finest | 2 mm |
| Neidl | 8 Threid | 1.6 cm |
| Paelm | 8 Neidl | 12.5 cm (a palm-width) |
| Streid | 8 Paelm | 1 m |
| Roed | 8 Streid | 8 m (the width of a standard road) |
| Feild | 8 Roed | 64 m (a city block) |
| Keiloe-Streid | 16 Feild = 1,024 Streid | 1 km |
Weight
The Weith is the base, the weight a market sells by. Apothecaries and clockmakers work in Grein; grain is sold by the Baelk; a Beird is what a strong person can carry.
| Unit | Equals | About |
|---|---|---|
| Grein | finest | 2 g |
| Peins | 8 Grein | 16 g (a pinch of spice) |
| Klim | 8 Peins | 125 g (a handful of flour) |
| Weith | 8 Klim | 1 kg |
| Baelk | 8 Weith | 8 kg |
| Beird | 8 Baelk | 64 kg |
| Keiloe-Weith | 16 Beird = 1,024 Weith | 1 tonne |
Volume
The Flaesk is the base, a water flask or a bottle of wine, and a tavern serves by it. A physician doses by the Does; the Baerl is the trade measure for anything poured. A Baerl is a measure and a barrel is a cask, and the two are not the same thing.
| Unit | Equals | About |
|---|---|---|
| Droef | finest | 2 ml |
| Does | 8 Droef | 16 ml (a tablespoon) |
| Taes | 8 Does | 125 ml (a small cup; a serving of tea) |
| Flaesk | 8 Taes | 1 liter |
| Pael | 8 Flaesk | 8 liters (a bucket) |
| Baerl | 8 Pael | 64 liters |
| Keiloe-Flaesk | 16 Baerl = 1,024 Flaesk | 1,000 liters (a ship's water; brewing at scale) |
Land
| Unit | Equals | About |
|---|---|---|
| Square Roed | 8 × 8 Streid | 64 m² (a house plot is measured in these) |
| Sifbau | 1 square Feild = 64 square Roed | 4,100 m² (about an acre; a Brosdh team plows one in a day) |
| Square Keiloe-Streid | 256 Sifbau | 1 km² (an agricultural ring is described in these) |
Farms are registered and sold by the Sifbau — through the civic registry in Shining Reach and the farmers' guild in Forgegate.
Ships
A ship is rated by how many Baerl its hold will carry — a measure of space, not of what is aboard; a three-thousand-Baerl ship is one whether its hold is full of wine, cloth, or nothing. The survivors handed down no ships, and when shipwrights began rating hulls they rated by what they loaded, which was barrels. Heavy cargo — ore, stone, iron — fills a ship's weight before its space, and is reckoned in Keiloe-Weith.
Temperature
Reckoned in Deigr; one Deigr is about 0.39 °C.
| Deigr | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Water freezes |
| 18 | The Frostline |
| 44 | The Greenline |
| 50 | A comfortable room |
| 80 | A hot summer day in Forgegate |
| 95 | A healthy body |
| 256 | Water boils at the coast |
| ~500 | A baker's oven |
Water boils lower in the mountains, and a thermometer set against boiling water in Clearhold's valley reads short of true unless corrected. The Registrars correct for it, which is one of several reasons their tables and the Academy's have never quite agreed.
One standard
The measures were always shared; honesty about them was not. During the war that produced the Pact, men sold short measures to starving cities, and the clause on honest weights exists because of it. After the Pact every signatory received a matched set of master weights, rods, and vessels cut to one reference, and every set has been checked against it since. The reference set is kept in Clearhold, because nobody else would be trusted with it and nobody else would want the work. Registrars carry a traveling set to the other cities, checked before they leave and again on return; a round is void if the traveling set has changed on the road.
Who checks
Every city inspects its markets through whoever already holds authority there: magistrates' officers in Shining Reach, the guild in Forgegate, the harbormaster in Stormharbor, the market elders in Eldershore, the Registrars in Clearhold. A false weight is fraud and is dealt with as fraud is. The Iron Coves have no inspectors and no master set; every serious trader carries his own scale, and the scale that settles disputes belongs to the Fences' Association, whose whole trade would end if it were wrong. Coin scales in the Coves are excellent; everything else is weighed roughly and everybody allows for it.