Medieval Demographics Made Easy: For Non-Humans?

[Xeviat]

[note=Deja Vu?]I thought I made this thread before, but I cannot find it, so I will remake it. While I will be working primarily upon my own races, I hope that insights garnered from this thread will be helpful for other races and settings. The races of my world cover a wide variety of environment and niches, so they should be widely applicable. Like many aspects of my setting, I hope to approach this from as believable/realistic an approach as possible; none of my races have magical metabolisms, though some have a handful of magical abilities, so reality should dictate their demographics.

Thanks all for putting up with me over the years. Things are coming together, and I hope to start putting my Wiki together soon.[/note]To understand this thread, one should familiarize themselves with Medieval Demographics made Easy. It is a very useful resource for campaign designers looking for strong realism in their settings.

But the system created by S. John Ross linked above seems like it will only be accurate for a planes dwelling, largely agriculturally based race and society. Hunter-gatherers will be far different, as will races who live in far different terrains.

MDmE uses a number of simple equations, and the variables here are what we need to look at in order to change things for other races. Here are the variable points from the system:
[list=type]Population Density: 30 to 150 per square mile, 6d4x5, average 75.*Size of largest city (square root of population x 2d4x10) and determination of smaller cities and towns.*Agriculture: One square mile of land supports 180 humans by late medieval standards.[/list]
I am going to set aside placeholder threads for the major races of my world, and I will file away discussion about each into their posts. What will follow will be:

Elf: A wild people who live in the forests of the world. They do not cut down trees, but they do hunt animals. They are semi-nomadic, traveling far and wide in search of food. While they could expand further if they took to agriculture and animal husbandry, their spiritual connection to the world does not allow it.
*Dwarf: A hardy people who live in the foothills and under the mountains of the world. They are largely carnivorous, eating livestock they raise, growing grain simply to feed their livestock. Since they live in largely subterranean settlements, they are able to build vertically.
*Halfling: Originally a nomadic people living as gatherers, now halflings also live amongst many of the other races, primarily humans. Naturally, they are herders, but only for wool, milk, and eggs (they heard something like sheep and something like emu); aside from milk and eggs, they are plant eaters. Since they are half the height of humans, they will end up eating less, but how much less I do not know. Their restricted diet might make up for this.
*Ifrit: A reptilian people who live either in deep jungles or in desert badlands. Because their environments are poor for agriculture, they'll be largely carnivorous, but their semi-exothermic nature means they'll have a slower metabolism and thus will need to eat less.
*Triton: An amphibious people who live on ship towns in the deep sea or on islands, sticking to the coast. They create artificial reefs to cultivate the fish and shellfish that make up their diet.
*Valkyrie: An avian people, originally they were migratory and to this day a full third of the race still moves across the continent twice a year. They are fruit and meat eaters, tending to orchards and herds.

Thanks in advance everyone.

[Xeviat]

[note]I'm starting here, alphabetically, and am taking suggestions for information that will be necessary for discussion.[/note]Dwarf
Size: 4.5 to 5 ft. tall, 115 to 160 lb.
Environment: Foothills, Mountains, Subterranean.
Diet: Meat, farmed, fed with farmed grain.
Settlements: Permanent.
Evolutionary Ancestor: Badgers.
Lifespan: 80 years average, 120 years maximum; adolescent at 10, adult at 20.
Childbearing: Fertile once per year, eight month gestation, 1 to 2 per birth (40% chance of fraternal twins).

I would prefer for Dwarfs to have the capability of being entirely subterranean, but getting food while closed off from the surface would be difficult. There are cave biomes, but something always moves in and out (bat guano supports mini-ecosystems).

[Xeviat]

Elf
Size: 5.5 ft tall, 90 to 120 lbs.
Environment: Forests, all climate.
Diet: Omnivorous, they hunt their meat and plant orchards for their fruit. Everything is sustainable.
Settlements: Semi-permanent; they stay near their orchards, but many orchards have existed for hundreds of years and are scattered amongst the woods.
Evolutionary Ancestor: Semi-mortal Spirits who became acclimated to this world; their ancestor, the Sidhe, are echos of humans, but from the spirit world.
Lifespan: 500 average, 1000+ maximum; adolescent at 20, adult at 100.
Childbearing: Fertile once every 7 or 13 years, year long gestation.

I foresee elves having far lower population density due to their lack of fine tuned agriculture or animal husbandry. A square mile of forest will also support far fewer elves, but within the forest no area is considered "wilderness". They are lighter than humans, and thus could get by eating far little.

A curious thought is this: I have long described elven hair as starting out green and fading to autumn colors as they grow older. What if they're capable of some amount of photosynthesis? They would then need to trim the trees in their settlements to let more light in, but it would let them get by eating far less. It is a change I am willing to make, but then one would need to ask why they do not expand out of the forest; their spiritual connection to the woods would have to be what keeps them there in that case.

[Xeviat]

Halfling
Size: 3 to 4 ft tall, 30 to 60 lbs.
Environment: Planes and light forest.
Diet: Herbivorous, plus milk and eggs from their herds of wooly mounts and large birds.
Settlements: Nomadic
Evolutionary Ancestor: Spider Monkey.
Lifespan: Average 50 year, Maximum 70; adolescent at 7, adult at 12.
Child Bearing: Fertile every month, five month gestation.

In the wild, halflings are nomadic because their home island is home to large predatory drakes that made the creation of permanent settlements difficult if not impossible.

Now that they have come to the main continent, they have taken to living amongst human settlements. Some tribes still live semi-nomadic as traveling merchants.

[Xeviat]

Ifrit
Size: 6 to 6.5 ft tall, 200 to 300 lbs.
Environment: Tropical Forests, Tropical and Temperate Deserts.
Diet: Carnivorous.
Settlements: Permanent.
Evolutionary Ancestor: Large venomous lizard.
Lifespan: Average 120 years, maximum 180+; adolescent at 15 years, adult at 30 years.
Childbearing: Fertile once a year, 1 to 2 eggs laid a month after fertilization, egg hatches in four months.

[Xeviat]

Triton
Size: 4.5 to 5.5 ft tall, 90 to 120 lbs (higher body-fat percentage for buoyancy)
Environment: Aquatic.
Diet: Fish and Shellfish, farmed from artificial reefs or fished with nets in the wild.
Settlements: Permanent or Mobile.
Evolutionary Ancestor: Something akin to a salamander.
Lifespan: Average 60 years, maximum 85 years; adolescent at 10 years, adult at 15 years; aquatic larva for 5 years.
Childbearing: Lay eggs and sperm once a year (done in a communal pool); 2 to 4 eggs laid at a time, but only 60% viability. Eggs must be separated because larva are cannibalistic.

Most Tritons live in permanent settlements, on islands, along the coast, or even around inland lakes. Their artificial reefs are netted off, allowing the movement of young fish but not adults, and keeping predators out. They tend to kelp and other plants for their fish, and practice seasonal rotation of fish crops (certain fish are eaten at certain times of the year to sustain the farms).

Some Tritons live on large ships, and eat what they trade and net themselves.

[Xeviat]

Valkyrie
Size: 6.5 to 7.5 ft tall, 110 to 150 lbs (small frame, hollow bones, bulk from feathers)
Environment: Mountain Plateau.
Diet: Meat, fruit, nuts; farm raised (hunt and gather while migrating)
Settlements: Permanent (third of population migrate twice a year between two permanent settlements)
Evolutionary Ancestor: Griffins.
Longevity: Average 40 years, Maximum 80 years; adolescent at 3 months*, adult at 2 years (not sexually mature until 5 years).
Childbearing: Fertile twice per year (spring and fall), one egg laid at a time. Devout Valkyries voluntarily only lay an egg during the spring so that the egg can hatch on holy ground after migration in the summer. Children are developed enough to make the flight home by the beginning of autumn.

Valkyries are large but light. They are largely gliders (like albatross), so long distant flight does not take obscene amounts of energy. Their home terrain isn't too great for food production.

*This might sound very odd, but apparently almost all bird species are ready to fly/leave the nest at 3 months, no matter the size (or so we were told at the San Diego zoo). I decided to keep this for Valkyries and other Drakes, as it is kind of interesting.

[LordVreeg]

Griffon Ancestry?  Now, that is novel.

Love the diet info.  Boy, I don't read about that too often.  Think you could come up with avg caloric consumptions?  Think I will work on that...

I'm sorry if I have already discussed this with you in earlier threads, but a couple of questions pop right into mind.

The first deals with this.

Earth Magic: Earth includes protection spells, creation magic (making or altering objects), magic that wards and binds, and magic related to stone, soil, plants, and metal.[/blockquote]

Secondly, by the lack of intermingling (it is mentioned with halflings only) I am getting a much more primitive feel from 3 worlds than I seem to remember.  Food is one of the first things bartered or traderd for (let alone actually bought), but that is not mentioned.  And it would normally be a huge cultural diet modifier.

[Xeviat]

Griffon Ancestry?  Now, that is novel.

As talked about in the FAQ, Drakes are a group of birds that evolved a third pair of limbs, so that they have four legs and two wings. Griffins, Hippogriffs, Drakes, Wyverns, and Valkyries are all in the same family. I found it easier to make a race with wings on their back than wings for hands (I already have a wild race like that, the anthropomorphic bats). I thought it was cool.

Love the diet info.  Boy, I don't read about that too often.  Think you could come up with avg caloric consumptions?  Think I will work on that...

It is something really important when considering the world.

This is fine and makes some sense, but magic is a survival tool.  No magic to increase crop production, no photosynthetic boosters, no "destroy lesser parasite" spells, no 'growth hormone multriplier' cantrips?
Magic.  It's not just for combat anymore.  (especially when logic intercedes).

There is very much magic to aid crops. As the MDmE article suggests, this ups both the population density of a kingdom as well as the amount of people that can be sustained on a square mile of farmland. But I would like the kingdoms to function nominally without huge magical interventions; the magic helps push things closer to modern production, but not entirely so. Magic is a part of the world, and simple spells can be performed by anyone (I equate it to making Macaroni and Cheese from the box; anyone can do it, some better than others), so pest control spells and rain inducing spells and the like will be common; but since magic is very much a part of the ecosystem of the world, I'm under the assumption that insects will be able to deal with it, as will germs and such. The whole arms race and all that.

Secondly, by the lack of intermingling (it is mentioned with halflings only) I am getting a much more primitive feel from 3 worlds than I seem to remember.  Food is one of the first things bartered or traderd for (let alone actually bought), but that is not mentioned.  And it would normally be a huge cultural diet modifier.

Again, I'd like the kingdoms to be able to function largely independently. Many of the kingdoms have quite a bit of distance between them. Some are in very close proximity (The Human Holylands region is very close allies with the Hill Dwarfs region, so a food trade will exist there). Having a society that operates entirely on imported food would be dangers, so I'd rather deal with that merely on a supplemental level; if it exists, it is probably temporary in the grand scheme of things.

I'm going to add lifespan information to the entires. That might be important too.

[Xeviat]

Just giving a bump here.

For races that eat similarly to humans, I can probably get away with just adjusting the number of people a square mile can sustain by the difference in body mass (all things being equal, caloric needs are largely determined by body mass, though a really active or sedentary race would need more or less).

I do also have information on how many pounds of grain it takes to produce a pound of different kinds of meat. This will be helpful for determining the amount of animals a square mile of farm land could support and thus determine a rough poundage conversion (grain to pork or sheep has a 4:1 conversion; four pounds of grain net you a pound of pork or sheep meat; it's 9:1 for cows, and 2ish:1 for fish, if I remember my nutrition class).

Any new thoughts on this topic?

[Xeviat]

I got the okay from the writer of the MDME article to make an "e-supplement" for non-human races, as long as I refer to the original article and as long as it still requires the original article for use. So if I can get some interested input here, and get the supplement written up, he'll put a link to it on his site and we can get the CBG some more exposure.

Awesome hu?

I'm going to put some more thought into this. I'd love to hear more input. For the base article, I'll focus on the traditional fantasy races and simple archetypes, and then have a section on adjusting the numbers for more unique races.

I need help searching for real world demographics on more tribal societies of hunter gatherers and such.

[Xeviat]

I found some demographics on hunter-gatherer societies:

A concise history of world population; by Massimo Livi Bacci
0.1 to 1 person per square km (more near water)
Arctic: 0.0086 person/km2
Subtropical savanna: 0.43 person/km2
Grassland: 0.17 person/km2
Semidesert: 0.035 person/km2

I'm going to do some research on Amazonian and Congo tribes, it could help with Elves.

[Xeviat]

Alright, I do need to collect a general consensus on what the standard and typical fantasy races are: If I am going to be making an article appealing to the majority of setting designers, I'm going to want to cover the typical bases. But this also means I'm going to have to look at the way most races are described, rather than the way I describe them in my world.

Of course, for the true homebrewer, I will break down the variables so people can create formulas for their own races or variations of races.

Right now, I would really like to discuss the big 3: Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. Additionally, Goblins and Orcs would be interesting to discuss, typical baddie types that probably live off a mixture of hunter-gathering and raiding.

Is anyone interested in helping still?

[Nomadic]

I would say that the typical fantasy stock is: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling (also covers gnome), and Goblin (also covers orc).

Human can be left out as we obviously already have a reference for that. So then that just leaves it up to you to decide which one you would like to discuss first.

[Tillumni]

some input on the elves that could explain how they can maintain a hunter/gather society, while still having a relatively highly develioped socieity:
must settines seems to agree that elves have a rather low population density, how ever it could be higher then for must other hunter/gatherer society, simple because they keep other carnivors out of thier forest such as orcs and trolls. this means there's a larger amounth of prey species in any forest under the elves controll, compared to a unclaimed one that have monsters living in it.

also depending on how willing elves are to guide animals, then they might try to ensure that plants edieble for the elves are mustly left alone by the animals so long there's something else for the animals to eat, in exchange for the protection that the elves provide.

generally, a more efficient hunter-gather society, from what I've understood in the various campaign worlds.

and quik note on the dwarfes: the dwarfen fortitude could allow them to also survive on diet that would make the other races sick, essentially giving them more option and possible more efficient food sources not avaliable to the other races.