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Re: Dungeons and Demographics (Score: 1) by Samwise (samwise1@msn.com) on Mon, December 05, 2005 (User Info | Send a Message) | Basically, yes.
The eco-factor is going to be huge, and must be a priority consideration. As I noted regarding the Jotens, you can support 100 people per square mile on prime farmland, with decent (medieval to renaissance) technology. That drops precipitously as you head into hills and forests, and plummets more when you hit swamps (and other wetlands) and mountains. Since humans control all those good lands, you are obviously going to have significantly smaller numbers of humanoids etc. Equally though, the population pressure on them is going to surge regularly, and you get them raiding in a manner that forms a staple of D&D plotlines. Likewise as you note, how they live is going to affect population density. Taking a resonable source, the Champions of Mystara section on world building (which is rather shockingly detailed): Nomadic Hunter-Gatherers 1/10 square miles Pastorlaists 1/square mile Horticulturalists (slash/burn types) 12/square mile* Agriculturalists (using crop rotation, irrigation, and the like) 25-100 square mile
*The text reads "Horticulturalists or hunter-gatherers will settle". I think it means pastoralists here, referring to people keeping herds in set pastures.
If Orcs and such are barely settled pastoralists or horticulturalists (which except for giving them herds their lair types would generally indicate), their population will at best equal the current population of human lands. If they are forced into the fringes, or are considered more nomadic, you get drops as shown above.
All it takes is actually digging out the data on such and applying it.
As a follow up note, it is often best to use a very simple approach when considering certain things. Take the two million humanoids you got "filling in" for the "missing" humans. The Gran March is a human nation, not under siege by swarms of humanoids. So right there we should be able to reasonably eliminate any conception that the "missing" population denisty of 30-90 humans per square mile is filled up with a raw body count of "others", whoever they may be. While that may seem like a minor conclusion, it is really quite significant. It means we are shifting from trying to force the population to immediately fill up all that space to simply developing the space we have. In the case of the Gran March, it means there is a really huge reason to have a Knighthood of watchers. With the population density that low you could run a small army through the area without anyone realizing it. That's a pretty strong case to have people with significant authority to keep an eye out for them. Look at rangers and marshalls in the American West of the frontier era. |
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Re: Dungeons and Demographics (Score: 1) by Anced_Math (gran.march@gmail.com) on Mon, December 05, 2005 (User Info | Send a Message | Journal) http://www.greyhawkonline.com/granmarch/ | I have begun revising the spread sheet you mentioned. I addressed the eco factor originally by using humans as the baseline, or a factor of one. The (admittedly arbitrary) factors I used in comparing each race to human, were how much a) the creature would eat and b) how much they would destroy and or dominate the area around. I have since been reconsidering this, or modifying it. I think it should also include the intercine nature of the species.
Some creatures occupy a large niche in the world, but they are either not interested and the lands that humans have (lizard men), or they are more occupied with fighting each other (goblins). There are exceptions to both of these, such as humans encroaching in the Rushmoors, or a dangerous goblin leader arising and enforcing discipline, but generally these are not the case.
Also, be careful how Arable land is calculated. Land occupied by a dragon could be arable, but it is not. In Gran March, the amount of arable land was considerably less that I originally anticipated once I actually counted out the hexes.
The last thing that I think should be considered is the affect of intercine warfare. After the fall of Vecna, the Flan were left leaderless. A severe decline in their population could have occured easily. Particularly if there were events such as the Oerdians chopping thier way thorugh. I am not sure that the population of the Sheldomar has increased dramatically so much as it ihas remained near constant. In my assesment, the population has only begun increasing since the Tavishes. Or it could have gone up and down.
All that said, the spreadsheet indicated (at least to my satisfaction) that the population is equal to medieval levels. |
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