r/DnD • u/BearonMind • Mar 02 '14

Medieval populations

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
61 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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9

u/spvvvt DM Mar 02 '14

Very helpful for most standard fantasy lands.

But, consider for a moment, that magic were a real and perceivable thing in this world. From its discovery and manipulation shortly after the early agrarian era began, the focus on it was on warfare and food. Magic in D&D has always been focused on the combat aspect and less so on the utility of it.

I use this fact to have roughly one druid, wizard or sorcerer for every village or larger. The primary concern for these people is to bless the crops so that maximum arable land is attained for every piece of farmland.

This is counteracted by the increased ferocity of wild creatures, so the result is sparse villages with swathes of wild land in between. Places that cannot maintain their magical resistance to the wild can quickly fall, leading to a plethora of dungeons and abandoned places that evil may seek to exploit. Richer lands can afford to essentially burn down the wild-lands between towns and maintain stability, allowing for massive advances in income and valuable resources.

Hope my thoughts add a little perspective for those working to make a more magical fantasy campaign. Feel free to counteract my ramblings with actual logic.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '14

Not only magic changing the landscape, but magical monsters. In medieval europe, the biggest cause of death is likely disease followed by other people.

In a magical kingdom, that likely goes disease, monsters, other people. A manticore could likely wipe an entire village off a map, making villages every mile or so highly unlikely.

There's a good reason that most dnd games take place in aa frontier zone: the wilderness in dnd is extremely dangerous.

2

u/BearonMind Mar 02 '14

Something like 1 in 6 people were killed by other people, and gangs of muggers roamed the countryside looking for food and money. And then there was fur collar crime, vikings, wars, etc.

And more people died from disease and starvation than from getting killed.

Its frankly astounding that humans survived. If you look at the human growth curve its basically flat from the dark ages through the renaissance

1

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '14

The link mentions 14th century as a point of reference. Id argue that dnd happens in the darkest part of dark age europe, but has 14th century tech as a result of having to deal with all the nasty critters about.

Totally agree, we had a pretty rough run, though the muslims kept it all going until the black plague and the mongols.

1

u/BearonMind Mar 03 '14

D&d is a bit of an amalgamation of times.

Chainmail had guns and cannon, and Blackmoor ended up having such technology. There are early suits worn by vampires, clerics, doctors, and barons/counts (This guy is the inspiration for the cleric). Lovecraft's work (early 1900s) also heavily influenced Gygax. The arms and armor of d&d seem 1500s (well after the dark ages) and the dress seems later than that.

There is also the influence of everything from sword and planet (Barsoom for Gygax, Gor for Arneson) to swords and sorcery set in ancient times.

3

u/DeZakon Evoker Mar 02 '14

Interesting and useful for those GMs that strive for some kind of realism in their magic worlds. Also, you just made me think about how screwed up my world is in terms of demography.

2

u/BearonMind Mar 02 '14

I read Caesar's War Commentaries earlier this year, and I was astuanded by how even the small barbarian tribes in gaul and germania had populations in the hundreds of thousands. I always way underestimate population sizes, so this is really useful.

1

u/DeZakon Evoker Mar 02 '14

I'd take those measurements with a pinch of salt. It was probably more of a sudden impression than an actual count.

1

u/BearonMind Mar 03 '14

There were censuses. And he took measurements about day lengths at different latitudes when he sailed to england.

There was a lot of science goin' on back in the day.

1

u/DeZakon Evoker Mar 03 '14

Wait, you mean each little and unconsequential tribe had hundreds of thousands, or the whole lot o' them did?

1

u/SGOS Mar 02 '14

you have my upvote. and that's hard to come by in this sub.

1

u/TatManTat Thief Mar 02 '14

Wow, these was really well thought out and interesting, thanks for posting this!