Like the essay. I figure that, as you stated, Humint (Furint?) would be more important than ever in a world with a multitude of sentient species. Though if you've got magic (depending on how it works in your setting), that can accom;lish a lot of things that even technology can't -- which would probably make the use of innocents who don't know what information they even possess even more important.

I still use “humint”; the whole cutesy “fur-” thing rings hollow for me. If the world is completely furry, they won’t know anything about hairless apes and therefore wouldn’t set aside vocabulary to describe those nonexistent hairless apes. Instead, they would use the word “human” and its synonyms to describe themselves; they simply mean something slightly different than you or I would. If the world contains hairless apes as well, the very definition of “human” comes into question—but given the sloppy way languages work, particularly English, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts the word would be extended to include everybody.

How effective magic would be depends on a host of assumptions. Most critical, perhaps, are first, how broadly the magic can work, and second, how effective the gathered data can be used. Most of the time, magic is portrayed as very narrowly focused: spying on an individual or a single room, for example. Moreover, in most fantasy worlds, the level of societal sophistication is not up to the kind of analysis that makes intelligence truly useful. There are exceptions, of course— chipotle’s Ranea comes to mind—but generally speaking, in a world of swords and castles, the magic would be only so helpful in espionage.

. . . In any event, thanks for the comments! Stimulating thinking and discussion is what these hand-outs are all about.