Printing press

A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. Such devices have existed for a long time in Artograch, but the technology is still in infancy. Mass-printing of books is a relatively recent phenomenon - only one century old - and is heavily limited.

Even though more or less practical printing has existed in the Occident ever since the 8th century, the technology still hasn't completely caught on.

Woodblock printing
Woodblock printing has existed in the Shár Empire ever since 1000 BEKE, and has also existed in the Occident since 100 AEKE. The surface that needs to be black/inked is left while surface that needs to be white/uninked is cut off from a piece of wood. The whole block is then put into ink, and pressured onto paper.

Ever since 300 AEKE, coloured woodblock printing has existed in the Shár Empire, making it into the Occident at around 500 AEKE.

Since this method of printing involves the long and laborious process of carving out wood, it was very rarely used for printing books - more often, it was used for printing individual scrolls or posters.

The page-stamp
The page-stamp is the oldest, most expensive and most widespread method of printing, dating back to the Ancient Lizardman Empire, who wrote onto clay tablets and then used these clay tablets as molds, casting copper stamps that they then used to print to papyrus and parchment.

After the fall of the Ancient Lizardman Empire, this technology was revived around 700 BEKE in Froturn, but it did not become a big hit, due to its serious flaws: for every page one had to print, they had to have a cast stamp of the writing, which was deemed too expensive for books. This technique was used for printing out wanted-posters and scrolls, but very rarely books. Copies of the Book of Visions were printed with soft wax stamps.

Three well-known different of page-stamp printing exist, both with their own flaws.
 * Flat-stamping is technique that requires the stamp to be flat and thin, effectively making it little more than interconnected metal, wax or clay casts of letters. While it allows the stamp itself to be thin, meaning that less metal is required - however, it requires everything to be interconnected, making it unfit for non-text printing.
 * Convex-stamping involves either having a sheet cast of metal, clay or wax with letter shapes (and anything that is intended to be printed) bulging out from the sheet, or alternatively having all the printed parts be interconnected from above, to prevent adding unnecessary lines - this method requires more material, but is fit for printing things other than plain text.
 * The third technique - clay-masking or wax-masking - only works with clay or wax - once someone has written into a clay or wax tablet, the tablet is cut in half from the side (making sure that one side is effectively a clay/wax sheet with letter-shaped holes in it), then ink is painted, splashed or sprinkled over the cut-in-half tablet, allowing the ink to the paper only at the parts that are intended to be inked. In addition to being expensive (having to have a whole clay or wax tablet), this method is considered the most time-consuming, since it requires the etching into the wax or clay tablet to be deep and consistent in depth, so that cutting it in half creates a sheet with the letters cut out. This method is also considered very precision-sensitive, as the tablet has to be flat enough to allow any inking tools to have direct access to the paper the tablet is put on/over.

This method of printing is obviously highly expensive, making it generally unfit for printing books, albeit it does have the advantage of speed over all its alternative, the movable-type printing. Throughout the last 1500 years of its usage in Froturn, efforts have been made to improve upon this method of printing, but the majority of such efforts have either failed, or became personal/family secrets that died with their inventors, usage mostly only improving at a snail's pace. By the time it looked like more reliable and cheaper ways of the stamp-printing would appear, it was already too, as a much more cost-effective (albeit slower) rival, the movable type printing has arrived in the 8th century AEKE.

Movable type printing
In the Occident, movable type printing was invented around 700 AEKE in Froturn (albeit quickly spread into Etrand and Artaburro), but it has existed ever since around 200 AEKE in the Shár Empire. Froturnish printers were dissatisfied with the expensive stamp-printing, and sought a way to print cheaper. Instead of whole stamps of pages, they decided to make individual letters out of clay or copper, mass-produce them, arrange them for printing pages.

Instead of putting the "stamp" into a pool of ink, they would put ink on leather and rub it on the letter stamps before pressuring the paper onto the inked stamps. While this method of printing is cheaper than making whole stamps for individual pages, it is a very slow and laborious process. In fact, the overall slow pace of its prolifiration in Froturn, Etrand and Artaburro can be owed to the fact that while much more cost-effective than its alternative, it is a very slow and labor-intensive way of printing - this meant that even after more than a century has passed since its invention, it still hasn't exactly caught on. Another possible factor in its slow prolifiration is the fact that movable-type printing presses are heavily regulated, with every printing press requiring a permit to own, every press having to be registered, every book that is intended to be printed having to be registered and approved by the censors, and every printed book having to have the signature of its printer - such crippling regulations do not exist for hand-written and stamp-printed books, only movable-type printed books.

Printing culture and censorship
In the age of handwritten books, there was a clear set of limit on who could become an author - it was very difficult, if not impossible for the likes of Negbiarth Pheidoras to distribute their creartions - only a very limited crowd could access books that were not endorsed by those in power. In fact, the majority were (and still are) illiterate.

The birth of a much cheaper and easier method to produce books also birthed the necessity to control what types of books can be printed and distributed, lest all the civilians would be reading books that incite revolt against the state and the church.

In Etrand, during the infamous Cairbrean Censorship during the reign of King Cairbré I of Etrand, the Royal Office of Censorship was established and tight rules were set for printing books. For example, it became illegal to own a printing press without a permit from the office of censorship. Printers had to apply for the permit, and if they were caught printing blacklisted books, their permit would be revoked and their printing press confiscated. Before having the permission to print a book, printers also had to make sure the book was white-listed - every book has to be reviewed and whitelisted by the Royal Office of Censorship before it can be printed. The whitelisting proccess also includes giving the book a unique ID, publishing the date of approval, putting the signature of the author, the approving censor as well as the operator of the printing press onto it.

Similiar practices have gotten implemented in Froturn and Artaburro as well, albeit on a much lighter scale. After Cairbré's death, the censorship has become much less restrictive in Etrand as well. In fact, the fact that blacklisting has also existed means that even under Cairbré's reign, several institutions - such as the Mages Guild - had the privilege of printing non-whitelisted books, so long as they weren't blacklisted.