I have been using an amazing article for building nations and settlements for my games for some time: Medieval Demographics Made Easy (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm). One thing that makes this article difficult to use is that it is strictly "humanocentric". Many races would likely require a much different take; a traditionally forest dwelling race, like elves, wouldn't likely build massive settlements, while a subterranean race, like dwarfs, have the capacity to build vertically and would thus be limited only by the amount of food they could produce. I'd like to have a discussion about this topic, because it will likely help many designers on establishing norms and guidelines for populating their setting.
To make it of most use, I'd like to first focus the discussion on the typical fantasy races:
Dwarfs
Elves
Gnomes
Goblinoids
Halflings
Orcs
One number that is of fundamental importance: The linked article above states that the typical amount of people one square mile of settled, arable land will support 180 people. So the traditional fantasy races may face some problems because of this:
Dwarfs live underground in most settings. Sunlight is required for farming, so food produced underground is going to probably have to be livestock (which need to be fed too) and fungi (mushroom farms might be possible, I'll check around for growth rates of edible mushrooms).
Elves typically live in the forest, and are generally known for "living with the land". Chopping down trees for farmland is probably out of the question, but maybe cutting down trees to plant orchards (fruit or nut bearing trees) wouldn't be. I could imagine elven "farms" simply being regions of the forest where all of the trees bear fruits and nuts, perhaps scattered around so when one tree isn't bearing fruit this season another is.
Gnomes would vary based on the type of gnome your setting uses. If you're using the more traditional urban tinkerer gnome, they'd probably be able to utilize human numbers (though you could get away with multiplying the number of gnomes a square mile could support by 4, since that's the standard amount of small creatures that can be fed by a medium-sized creature's food and water). The 4E version of the gnome, a fey that lives in burrows, might be more similar to elves.
Goblinoids could probably use human numbers for actual settlements. Hobgoblins are the typical "civilized" goblinoid, and I see no reason why they'd be that different from humans.
Halflings traditionally have a lot in common with gnomes. The only difference is that halflings seem to be less likely to make actual cities, so maybe halflings should be limited to towns and villages.
Orcs would probably lack settlements all together, living in village sized nomadic groups. The lack of agriculture would severely limit their population density.
As for some stranger things:
A theoretical aquatic race would be limited by the food production of the ocean shallows. If they could actually live in the water, they could possibly live on the entirety of the continental shelf; I don't believe a race of people could really live in the deep ocean since deep ocean waters are rather sparse of ocean life, IIRC.
Thoughts and ideas?
You know, I originally ran some numbers for my campaign setting to figure out just how much grain I would need to grow to feed my people, and produce extra for trade. My numbers where flawed to begin with, but I arrived at a somewhat acceptable number.
My studies into the middle ages have proved a little useful, but most of it directly relates to weapons (did you know it takes 3 pounds of charcoal to smelt one pound of ore?). I do know a few handy things relating to agriculture, like the fact that 7kg of fodder makes 1kg of beef. I also know that in medieval Norway, eating a lot of beef was a sign of hard times, as you had to kill your milk producer to get it.
I'll read your article and give you better feed back when I am able.
M.
I would think that humans would be fairly realistic.
Dwarves might have above ground farms in valleys and such.
Elves would have gardens, and orchards.
gnomes would probably be like humans.
Also remember that things aren't realistic. Dwarven livestock could actually be large cave lizards, or something.
That article also motivated me to figure out just how big my place is.
The paper I drew my rough map on is 8.5 x 11. Each inch is 10 miles. They're coastal, though, and there's mountains. Roughly, I have 3,938 square miles of land :|
1 city, what looks like 3 towns, 7 villages, a hamlet, and a thorp. Maybe I *should* scale things up and try to work more places in? I've been adding locations, but the thing is that the more I add, I want to involve them somehow so I create more work for myself, further delaying my debut.
Blargh.
M.
M.
Oh yeah, I'm not striving for total realism, but when something is realistic it makes it easier to believe. If you have a city full of a million people and just outside of it is untamed wilderness, some inquisitive player's going to ask where their food comes from. "A Wizard did it" will only fly for so long.
A while ago I realized that Dwarfs wouldn't be able to grow the wheat and hops they need for their beer unless they grew it above ground. Then I started imagining the grain trade they'd participate in, selling metal and crafts for the grain they need to brew their famous beer, which they then sell. In my own games, my dwarfs don't see what the big deal about alcohol is, since their resistance to poison makes it quite difficult to get drunk, so I don't have to worry about that paradox.
Quote from: Kapn XeviatA while ago I realized that Dwarfs wouldn't be able to grow the wheat and hops they need for their beer unless they grew it above ground.
'Cept you don't need wheat and hops for beer, simply a starch and a seasoning. Wheat and hops happens to be the most common in reality. I could easily see a cave-moss beer seasoned with extract of mushroom. It doesn't sound particularily appetizing, but...
Quote from: Kapn XeviatDwarfs live underground in most settings. Sunlight is required for farming, so food produced underground is going to probably have to be livestock (which need to be fed too) and fungi (mushroom farms might be possible, I'll check around for growth rates of edible mushrooms).
I think your best bet is to come up with fantasy species of 'shrooms that grow fast, big and allow a decently balanced diet with only small quantities of other ingredients needed. It's also worth keeping in mind that since the invention of agriculture, mankind has applied selective breeding to the crops we grow on our fields, resulting in ever more productive strains. There's no reason for mushroom-farming dwarves to be any worse at it.
Quote from: Kapn XeviatElves typically live in the forest, and are generally known for "living with the land". Chopping down trees for farmland is probably out of the question, but maybe cutting down trees to plant orchards (fruit or nut bearing trees) wouldn't be. I could imagine elven "farms" simply being regions of the forest where all of the trees bear fruits and nuts, perhaps scattered around so when one tree isn't bearing fruit this season another is.
Swine herding would be one of the best ways for them to produce food in a forest environment. Whether or not you want your elves to be swineherds and eating mucho pork is a different question :-p
QuoteDwarfs live underground in most settings. Sunlight is required for farming, so food produced underground is going to probably have to be livestock (which need to be fed too) and fungi (mushroom farms might be possible, I'll check around for growth rates of edible mushrooms).
Elves typically live in the forest, and are generally known for "living with the land". Chopping down trees for farmland is probably out of the question, but maybe cutting down trees to plant orchards (fruit or nut bearing trees) wouldn't be. I could imagine elven "farms" simply being regions of the forest where all of the trees bear fruits and nuts, perhaps scattered around so when one tree isn't bearing fruit this season another is.[/quote]
The predominant theory I've heard for human subsistence in the Amazon was orchard-planting within the forest itself. Charcoal was used to make the otherwise poor rainforest soil into a much more productive material, and the orchards were apparently grown right into the forest. Some pruning or even logging might be needed to allow some sunlight to reach the new saplings, but clear-cutting is hardly necessary.
Cool guys, some good ideas here.
Quote from: Kapn XeviatA while ago I realized that Dwarfs wouldn't be able to grow the wheat and hops they need for their beer unless they grew it above ground. Then I started imagining the grain trade they'd participate in, selling metal and crafts for the grain they need to brew their famous beer, which they then sell. In my own games, my dwarfs don't see what the big deal about alcohol is, since their resistance to poison makes it quite difficult to get drunk, so I don't have to worry about that paradox.
Lets not forget about Trade. Humans can grow the food the Dwarves need and in exchange the Dwarves provide the humans with all the metal works they require. Baring Trade, one could postulate that, has has been stated, underground flora and fauna would have to be used, especially Mushrooms, mosses... That's an interesting idea, if the Dwarves were able to create pockets of sun lit areas with in their holds (via shafts and mirrors), they could grow things like Potatoes and Carrots!
Quote from: Kapn XeviatHalflings traditionally have a lot in common with gnomes. The only difference is that halflings seem to be less likely to make actual cities, so maybe halflings should be limited to towns and villages.
Orcs would probably lack settlements all together, living in village sized nomadic groups. The lack of agriculture would severely limit their population density.
I find these two interesting. Both races are very nomadic in traditional literature the difference beinge one is a nomad of the wild and the other is a nomad of civilization. I've never seen Halflings as a race that would ever have their own lands, let alone their own city. They wander other people's civilizations making due via bribery, gambling, theft and other seedy means. Orcs, on the other hand I would see as the consummate Pastoralist except with out the horses. They wander the outer reaches of the 'civilized zone' attacking, looting but also trading when the need arises. I could also see them with flocks of goats and sheep, not unlike those in the bibilical stories. Of course Orcs also have a penchant in traditional fantasy for being the race that constantly breeds well above sustainability and thus are forced to go on great sprees of looting every few years just so the Orcs can feed their babies. Huh, in that light Orcs seem more tragic than evil...
At any rate those were just a few ideas that sprang to mind, hope they helped.
There's a problem with humans growing dwarfs food: that means humans need to be growing a surplus in order to have enough to trade to dwarfs. If humans live on the planes like they typically do, they might have enough surplus grain to sell (something that frustrates me in Civilization games, that I cant send surplus food from one city to another).
As for your thoughts on Orcs, I really like that. Orcs in my game aren't evil with a capitol E (they're a half-blood between the Oni of my world and Humans, just like Elves are a half-blood between Sidhe and Humans). I really like the idea of them as nomadic herders.
When you look at why a race would be the way they are, lots more depth can be brought to them. Thanks E_E, you gave me a new look at Orcs for my world.
Lol, i applaud the idea. Through wouldn't magic make things a little different
It depends on what kind of magic there is in the system. Some systems, like 3E D&D, have spells for everything; if someone in the world would use it, there's a spell for it. In 4E D&D, though, non-combat spells were turned into Rituals and only the ones that are used by players were published: a "water the plants and watch them grow" ritual wasn't released.
I, for one, think magic would probably be similar in ends to modern day breeding of crops/farm animals and modern day pest control. It would push the maximum arability of the land up, and you might be able to squeeze a few more people per square mile of farmland.
Kapn, could you take a look at my setting thread here: http://thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?63323.last
And tell me if I'm going about it the right way?
M.
Will do.
Anyone else have more thoughts on this?
Mushrooms need food - their energy comes from whatever they grow on. So unless these are magical mushrooms, just having mushrooms doesn't solve your energy problem. A completely sealed, lightless "realistic" ecosystem would need plants that get energy from the earth's heat. I think a few of these actually exist in the deep oceans, but I don't know of any underground ones.
For orcs, you could always do what they do in Warhammer and have orcs that don't need to grow food because they themselves are weirdo plant/fungus symbiotes.
"Sealed" being the key word there. No settlements save for experimental scientific ones have ever been designed to be "sealed" - unless they're under siege, which presents its own problems. Unless having a dwarven biodome is necessary to your adventure, I don't think there's anything wrong with, say, a dwarven delving depending on above-ground farms and villages just like a castle would rely on the productive land around it.
Of course, if you're going the Underdark route, where the world beneath has its own self-sustaining ecosystem, some kind of magical/pseudo-scientific handwaving needs to be done. Plants that use earth energy (from magma vents and such) are possible, as Bill Volk said, but there's also FR-style "Underdark radiation" (which has been used to explain everything from metals to mutations and plant growth), for instance. Maybe there's a reasonably common kind of magic item that produces "real" sunlight, and dwarven fields are dotted with lamp-posts.
Quote from: Bill VolkMushrooms need food - their energy comes from whatever they grow on. So unless these are magical mushrooms, just having mushrooms doesn't solve your energy problem. A completely sealed, lightless "realistic" ecosystem would need plants that get energy from the earth's heat. I think a few of these actually exist in the deep oceans, but I don't know of any underground ones.
Chemosynthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthetic) is what you're looking for. It's definitely not traditional fantasy but it sure as heck would work.
Underground lakes and rivers could play a part in enabling lightless food production. Subterranean streams coursing near volcanic hotspots could convey the heat over long distances, thus providing warmth for life-forms. Such rivers may very well originate from the surface, in which case they'd be providing a continuous flow of nutrients to the underground ecosystem.
Quote from: GhostmanUnderground lakes and rivers could play a part in enabling lightless food production. Subterranean streams coursing near volcanic hotspots could convey the heat over long distances, thus providing warmth for life-forms. Such rivers may very well originate from the surface, in which case they'd be providing a continuous flow of nutrients to the underground ecosystem.
With Dwarves' mastery of stone and metal, it would be quite cool to see them build Aqueducts that dead-end in the foothills of the mountains.
Thanks everyone, that gives me some great ideas for dwarven ecology. I'm imagining a group of dwarves that are particularly close with the nearby human kingdom, so close that they have built aqueducts to take the human sewage and garbage away to underground lakes, where the organic waste is used to fertilize mushroom farms. These mushrooms are then fed to the livestock that the Dwarves eat.
Another thing to consider: do these dwarves use fire to cook food and such? If so, how do they vent the smoke? If their underground environment is really deep, air circulation might be a problem as well. I don't think that mushrooms poop oxygen the way plants do.
I actually decided that my subterranean dwarves will have already figured out steam power, using geothermal vents and coal to power fans to ventilate their deep citadels. So that shouldn't be much of a problem.
But it is a problem for other worlds. I've seen drawings of dwarf caverns with ventilation shafts, but I don't think a shaft is really going to draw that much oxygen down or remove carbon dioxide (CO2 is heavier than 02 after all).
Well, you don't need steam power to run a pump. In the middle ages, oxen/cattle were used to pump water by hooking them up to a treadwheel around a central shaft (which was then attached to a pump, maybe an Archimedes screw). The same principle could work for air; a simple two-gear transmission could make the fan go much faster than the oxen (and not much torque is necessary since you're only moving air).
Quote from: Polycarp!Well, you don't need steam power to run a pump. In the middle ages, oxen/cattle were used to pump water by hooking them up to a treadwheel around a central shaft (which was then attached to a pump, maybe an Archimedes screw). The same principle could work for air; a simple two-gear transmission could make the fan go much faster than the oxen (and not much torque is necessary since you're only moving air).
Well if you have steam power no reason not to use it, well unless you've got lots of slaves. :P
I figure that steam power would probably be more efficient in the end than the amount of energy that would have to go into producing the feed for the oxen.
An air pump is something you're probably going to want to have running at all times, unlike a water pump where you could get away with only having it on when you need it.
And a steam engine requires fire, which requires even more oxygen and makes even more smoke...
If your dwarves are really advanced and have a lot of underground water sources, they could break water down into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis. But once again, this probably requires burning something to get energy, and all the excess hydrogen creates the risk that everything will suddenly explode. Even worse, it'll make their voices all squeaky.
Or take the more simple route with water and set up a waterwheel to power the fan/pump. Any underground river will do.
Watermills will probably be the more simple solution.
Since everyone here has their thinking caps on, I need to figure out how much food continental shelf regions of the ocean would provide in comparison to farmlands. Again, by medieval farming standards, a square mile of land supports 180 people (this doesn't mean a square mile of farm, but a square mile including farms and villages and such).
I say coastal continental shelf because I'm under the impression that deep ocean is pretty barren of fish-life. One of the races I'm working on is primarily aquatic (they can breath underwater, their babies have to live entirely in water, and they eat primarily fish). They're advanced enough to know how to raise fish "farms", but I can't really find any information on how much food coasts and lakes provide compared to farmlands.
Quote from: Bill VolkAnd a steam engine requires fire, which requires even more oxygen and makes even more smoke...
Well I take it the fans will be near the surface in order to draw in fresh air and expel waste air. In this case you just have to have smoke shafts leading from the boilers to the outside.
Quote from: Kapn XeviatI say coastal continental shelf because I'm under the impression that deep ocean is pretty barren of fish-life. One of the races I'm working on is primarily aquatic (they can breath underwater, their babies have to live entirely in water, and they eat primarily fish). They're advanced enough to know how to raise fish "farms", but I can't really find any information on how much food coasts and lakes provide compared to farmlands.
I imagine that's because there's never been a real life situation in which a community relied on farmed fish as a staple food. Fish farms can be pretty densely packed depending on the fish, and you might be able to get statistics in terms of tonnage, but even then it's hard to say how much of that is edible and how much is byproduct. Real fish farms also require a lot of food and produce a lot of environmentally hazardous waste, which a people that actually lived in the same water would likely be sensitive to. I would imagine the ecosystem wouldn't be able to handle anything too dense.
If you're not fixed on a carnivorous race, you might consider seaweed farming, something the Japanese have done for a long time by using nets, stakes, and other surfaces like that to attract seaweed growth. I'm not sure that's as productive as a real fish farm but it won't fill the water with fish crap, and has more of an agricultural feel to it.
Ancient Greece.
M.
Though many people ate fish in ancient Greece, especially those along the coast, it was hardly a staple - wheat was. There's a distinct difference between eating a lot of something and it being the foundation of the diet, as Xeviat is suggesting for fish.
In addition, the Greeks didn't farm fish as far as I know. The Romans did, but it was fairly low-intensity stuff like stocking ponds, not a real aquacultural operation meant to sustain a population of exclusive fish-eaters.
Yeah, I need their food to be mostly from the water. They do have coastal settlements, but those settlements can only go so far from the water. I also wanted them to have boat-towns.
I hadn't thought of the waste issues of fish farms. Is fish waste useful for fertilizer? Because they could use solid blockades for the fish rather than just nets to section off the farms, then they could use the fish-pooed water to grow seaweed in.
I'll wiki fish farms, and then I'll look through my cookbooks and see if there's any info on the percentage of meat to waste you get out of a fish (though I imagine they'd have recipes for the fish organs and might even have found use for fish bones ... mmmmmm calcium).
According to wikipedia, modern fish farms raise 50,000 fish in a 2-acre (8,100 m2) area. 1 acre = 0.0015625, so 640 acres is a square mile gets you 16 million fish in a square mile of farmland. I'm pretty sure that size of a farm wouldn't be feasible, but if it were spaced out it could be fine. Salmon are long lived, so they're probably a bad fish to use; the articles I'm finding say they take 1 to 5 years in the ocean to reach sexual maturity, and that's after living 3 years or so in streams. But, a salmon nets about 50% it's weight in meat, so that can probably be used as a baseline.
Wow, that's complicated ... what I go through to find believable numbers.
How do you imagine them to be preparing their food? Fire won't burn underwater, which obviously makes cooking kind of difficult. They could do it on the coasts, but relying on that would cause trouble should they ever lose control over the beaches and get pushed back to the sea by land-dwellers. And fetching firewood might also be problematic if the coasts become deforested for any reason.
On the other hand, you could build some interesting plots from such troubles...
Another thought is perhaps their digestive system is tailored towards being able to eat raw fish.
Quote from: Kapn XeviatIt depends on what kind of magic there is in the system. Some systems, like 3E D&D, have spells for everything; if someone in the world would use it, there's a spell for it. In 4E D&D, though, non-combat spells were turned into Rituals and only the ones that are used by players were published: a "water the plants and watch them grow" ritual wasn't released.
I, for one, think magic would probably be similar in ends to modern day breeding of crops/farm animals and modern day pest control. It would push the maximum arability of the land up, and you might be able to squeeze a few more people per square mile of farmland.
When it comes to 4E you still have a problem about how everybody has spells at there disposal.
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EE
Building off my last point, if you have magic at your hands you can live in some crazy locations with almost any sort of life style
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EE
Quote from: EvilElitestWhen it comes to 4E you still have a problem about how everybody has spells at there disposal.
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EE
Not sure what you mean by this. Only Ritual casters have access to spells. NPCs only get training in one skill, which means only scientists and priests are going to have access to the feat (since you need training in Arcana or Religion to take the feat). I suspect characters trained in Nature will be able to take it come PHB2, since druids and shaman would likely want rituals.
But that's fine. Societies would probably research rituals to call rain or drive away pests or spur their crops to grow faster/larger. People pray for these things all the time; that's the difference between fantasy worlds and reality: in fantasy settings, you can prove that the prayers work (while such things are left to faith in reality).
As for my aquatic race and cooking, I never intended them to live entirely underwater. But, them eating raw meat almost exclusively sounds just fine: I'm a sushi lover, and as long as they're eating fresh fish I see no problem with it being raw. I figure they'd have potent digestive bacteria and enzymes to protect them from disease and parasites in the fish. I also figure they'll salt cure fish they want to preserve.
I'm going to start a separate thread for the "scientific" discussion of my race. I'll post it tonight, as I've got to head out for a late Valentine's date.
Quote from: Kapn XeviatAccording to wikipedia, modern fish farms raise 50,000 fish in a 2-acre (8,100 m2) area. 1 acre = 0.0015625, so 640 acres is a square mile gets you 16 million fish in a square mile of farmland. I'm pretty sure that size of a farm wouldn't be feasible, but if it were spaced out it could be fine. Salmon are long lived, so they're probably a bad fish to use; the articles I'm finding say they take 1 to 5 years in the ocean to reach sexual maturity, and that's after living 3 years or so in streams. But, a salmon nets about 50% it's weight in meat, so that can probably be used as a baseline.
Much like a modern feed lot, modern fish farms require a lot of heavy-duty antibiotics and/or vaccinations to function. Fish in such close quarters rub against each other and get a lot of sores and infections; if you kept cattle in feed lot conditions without modern technology, they'd probably all die of disease in short order, and the same is true of fish farms.
Salmon are a bad fish to use mostly because they're predators; it's far easier to feed vegetarian fish. You would have to catch other fish in order to feed the salmon, which somewhat defeats the purpose of a subsistence fish farm. You're better off raising carp (seriously) or another fish that doesn't eat other fish.
You could block off fish farms in order to keep the waste from getting into the general environment, but waste concentration in the water like that would probably kill the fish. There are serious modern-day concerns about concentrated fish waste and its effects on the surrounding environment, creating algal blooms and things like that. I would guess, however, if your fish farms were significantly less concentrated than modern ones (which they would have to be anyway) and located in areas with reasonably strong currents to disperse the waste, it wouldn't be too much of a problem. Still, your mer-people (or whatever) might think of them as "noxious" areas, kind of like how humans don't like feed lots, paper mills, or rendering plants (or other places with a horrid stench).
No, because in a 4E all of the PC classes are distinct powerful beings who can do absurd things on a regular basis. Like for example, the mages ability to reuse there abilities between combat. So unless they in the middle of a fight, the 4E mages can be just as crazy in terms of high power magic totally changing of the society. It would be just as powerful in terms of world changing events as 3E, the classes are just as powerful
2E might be a little use more accurate
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EE
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EE
I thought that the PC classes in 4e are extremely rare parts of the population. So even if your city has ten or twelve PCs who can shoot off a flaming burst every six seconds or a force orb every five minutes, good luck convincing or forcing them to hang around in a mill using magic to keep a steam engine warm or something. After all, they're PCs and you're not.
However, you might have a whole little class of magewrights who can prestidigitate and maybe cast first-level rituals, like in Eberron, but they would be most useful in the service sector and wouldn't go a long way toward keeping a society running.
This is fascinating, actually. I'm so stealing that idea of chemosynthetic mushrooms for my Duergar... *yoinks*.
I watched a bit of a documentary about fish farms, actually. The effects of the waste on the environment were pretty shocking. You have to keep the waste moving and attempt to diffuse it pretty rapidly or you get serious problems on your hands.
EE, I get this nagging feeling that you really don't like 4E. Nothing that wizards or any other classes can do all day is really going to impact farming or demographics, except that armies might be on the look out for a lone mage commander amongst the opposing army. Then again, I'd probably be more worried about an enemy warlord than an enemy mage, but that's just me.
Bill's right; classed characters are assumed to be one in a million in 4E's meta-setting. Ritual casters are one thing, but most of the magicians of the world haven't even mastered a simple magic missile or scorching burst. Someone could make a magic item to replicate a certain piece of technology, but that's one of the awesome things about fantasy settings (and one of the few things I actually like about the Eberron setting, incidentally).
That's something you have to deal with in 4th edition. It ONLY has rules for PCs fighting monsters, so everything that's not related to PCs fighting monsters has to be made up by the DM. However, I've found that this can be liberating at times.