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[Warlord255]

It doesn't even need to be a miasma-like flow. It could just be an event that triggers a happy thought if they're close enough to the source.

Like a 'good' sound!

This works for me. You could still attach the like tags (If plump helmets are being cooked and they like plump helmets, for example) without much trouble.

[Golgath]

I approve of this idea, and hope it comes into play some time.

[They Got Leader]

Agreed.

With scents, what about flowers? (Er, for dwarves, glowing mushrooms?) You cant make perfume out of... rock (probably magma). Well, most dwarves would buy the smell of ale.

I could imagine it:
"You smell nice tonight. What are you wearing?"
"Essence of Plump Helmet. Isnt it lovely?"

[Pilsu]

I don't really see medieval folk wearing perfume every day. Something more fitting for festivities

[Bunny]

nah, medieval folk (those that could afford it, anyway) were big on perfume.  There weren't no deodorants, and hygeine wasn't as good, people often had bad teeth and breath, so perfume and incense was very heavily used. 

Peasants had to put up with just being stinky.  Imagine a tiny house, about the size of your front room, crammed with a married couple, an aging relative and half a dozen children... all sleeping and eating in the same tiny room after spending a hot June day toiling in the fields, hauling rocks from the fields, trudging through cow muck, getting sweaty; all except the second eldest son, who works at the tanners and has therefore spent the day processing cat piss.  Oh, and the teenage girl children are all wearing chastity belts... which limit their access to being able to wash downstairs.  And the youngest is still in nappies (which are reusable, not disposable in these days).  And the privy outside needs redigging.

For real authenticness, once hygeine gets into the game, perfume should be an expensive item (and therefore only accessible to nobles) and miasma should occur around any dwarf who refrains from washing away the multiple layers of blood and vomit he is caked in.

[Time Kitten]

And the privy outside needs redigging.

INSIDE.

The outhouse is an American invention.

[Silverionmox]

Houses among the farmland were spacious enough; after all, they consisted out of mud and sticks mostly. What did happen was sleeping above the stables, for the warmth in winter. The smell is a free bonus. People slept in their day clothes, usually. Underwear was used if affordable. Chastity belts were a nobility thing, for the more valuable heiresses. The younger daughters of the lower nobility probably were encouraged to snare some baron if possible (it's that or the monastery). Social control kept the peasant girls from having sex too often, not chastity belts.

Yes, before America, people slept next to their turds.  :rolleyes:

[Kilumanjaro]

just one word:

Chamberpots.   

[Time Kitten]

Two words, to be thought of in context with that last one word.

Street dumping.

No wonder these people had plagues!

[Bunny]

    And the privy outside needs redigging.

INSIDE.

The outhouse is an American invention.

No... no it really wasn't.  How do you think indoor toilets worked before plumbing?  People had a chamberpot... but that was just for if you woke up in the night and needed to go, and couldn't be arsed to mission across the freezing cold outside to your loo.

Just watched a piece on BBC iplayer about the history of British gardening.  There was a lovely section on how most of us peasant-class Brits in the 19th and early 20th century didn't even think of using our little outdoor space by our houses for gardening... and then, the privy was moved indoors with the advancement of plumbing, and we suddenly had a private outdoor area that didn't stink, and that had a handy shed in it, and thus gardening was spread to the masses.

[Silverionmox]

Decorative gardening maybe, but kitchen gardens were pretty much mandatory for peasants. Even poor people in towns kept rabbits in boxes to raise a bit of livestock.

[Bunny]

Oh aye, but a bit of bare scrub out back with a pig, an outhouse, half a dozen chickens and the drying laundry would STINK... is kinda what I'm trying very poorly to get across.  Hence perfumes were a desirable product, albeit the peasants that needed it most couldn't really afford it.  So just put up with stink.

Man... my little ramble really has buggered this thread, sorry.

So!

Perfume...

[bjlong]

Note that good scents covering up bad scents would only be a morale thing--the miasma should still infect wounds.

[Silverionmox]

The stink in a medieval city is much the same like the ever-present rumble of combustion engines nowadays: in a few centuries it will seems unthinkable to live in it, but it was just the way things were there and then.