Talk:Paper/@comment-45.56.46.26-20180604091236

It's kinda an interesting side commentary on how the existence of magic can suppress the development of even fairly basic technologies. Papermaking is not that hard, but it is not particularly economically viable as a profession to compete with the utility magic.

The same is likely true of sugar, refined sugar is more difficult to produce than paper (and has tighter resource requirements). Spice, it would depend on the spice.

Things like plumbing and basic consumer electric appliances (refrigerators, lights, fans, etc.) are obviously never going to have non-magical versions develop because the magic items are so superior.