Also: count me as a vote for a campaign setting with lots of blank spaces and details that need to be filled in. That makes the campaign setting acres more usable, for varying purposes.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Golarion Population Totals
Global Assumptions
1. Golarion is more advanced than late medieval Europe in many ways. This affects the urban/rural population percentage. Therefore, a 10% urban percentage will often be the low end of the scale.
2. Golarion is not as populous as medieval Europe. Late medieval France, alone, had 10 million people. I’m assuming that no nation in Avistan approaches this number, simply based on urban populations listed in the book. Also, based on discussions on the board, I think people envision populations for individual nations being significantly lower than 10 million people.
3. Each nation that does not receive a “detailed map” requires an urban adjustment; a grossing up of urban population to represent cities that are not listed in the setting book with a population number. For some nations (Irrisen) this number will be small or nonexistent, for others (Taldor) it might be considerable.
The Empire of Cheliax
Final Population: 3.4 million
Setting Information: 237,000 people in 7 cities; 18 cities shown on detailed map
Methodology: Cheliax is referred to several times as the “largest” nation in the Inner Sea. Its size is used to justify its imports and exports. This implies that largest might refer to population. Assuming that the 11 cities not listed in the setting book average 7,500 people (a reasonable number for a nation as old as Cheliax, which was compared to a fading Roman Empire), Cheliax has an urban population of 320,000. Using the default urban/rural settings, you can produce a population of 3.2 million.
Cheliax might be more urbanized than a default setting, but around 3.2 million makes sense as a final population number. If you are uncomfortable with Cheliax being only 10% urbanized, then simply assume that Cheliax’s cities are more populous, and average higher than 10,000; or, more likely, that even the detailed map of Cheliax is leaving out towns and cities that boost the urban population.
For a variety of non-math reasons, I feel that Cheliax’s population needs to be at least 3 million in order to produce workable numbers for the other nations in this region. Much lower will produce too much compression for other states like Andoren and Taldor.
Isger
Final Population: 200,000
Setting Information: 16,000 people in 2 cities
Methodology: Isger is frequently referred to as being economically destitute. It is a vassal state of Cheliax, and is only important because of trade routes that pass through it. Therefore, it is unlikely to have a high population.
Its economic status, though, suggests it is less urbanized than many other Inner Sea areas. Assuming other towns and cities total about 50% of the population of the two listed cities gives an urban population of around 24,000. Using the default 10% urban ratio produces a population of 240,000. That seems slightly high, so I adjusted it down.
Nidal
Final Population: 480,000
Setting Information: 54,000 people in 3 cities
Methodology: Nidal is another vassal state of Cheliax, but one with considerably more power and influence than Isger. Nidal is also one of the oldest nations in Avistan. However, very little is mentioned about either its size or economic power. Nothing suggests that Nidal is particularly urbanized or populous.
The geography of Nidal also suggests there might be fewer cities than Cheliax or Isger. Therefore, I only see an urban adjustment of about 33% necessary. That yields an urban population of 72,000. Because of Nidal’s age, an urban percentage of 15% seems justifiable.
Molthune
Final Population: 400,000
Setting Information: 42,000 people in 3 cities
Methodology: This former province of Cheliax is one of harder nations to peg. Molthune is given a small urban population by the setting and it is not much larger than Isger in geographic size. However, frequent references are made to the fact it is an impressive military power (though this is contradicted by the fact that the setting book explains that it is too weak to target anything other than its former province of Nirmathas). The heavily forested regions and mountains also depress its ability to have a large population. Therefore, I’m assuming that Molthune has a smaller population than Nidal. An important consideration is that Molthune originally possessed Nirmathas, yet no reference is made to the fact that when those two nations were joined they were a large economic or political power. So, Molthune plus Nirmathas should be greater than Nidal, but less than a nation like Andoren (by a considerable margin).
Adding an additional 50% in urban population seems high, therefore Molthune will receive an adjustment of only 33%, yielding an urban population of 56,000. Molthune’s geography suggests an urban percentage of 15% is appropriate. I adjusted the population up slightly to distance it from Isger.
Nirmathas
Final Population: 150,000
Setting Information: 15,000 in 2 cities
Methodology: Nirmathas is formerly part of Molthune, so much of that discussion applies here. The caveat is that this region is almost assuredly much less densely populated than southern Avistan. The entire country is forest, mountain, or river. Another factor is that Nirmathas must contain enough people to produce a military sufficiently credible to have won its independence from Molthune. It isn’t hard to imagine, though, a small, capable guerilla army being able to win a war for independence without equal numbers. In fact, the setting book describes this exact event.
There is no need for urban adjustment for Nirmathas. I determined this population mainly by deciding Isger probably had more people, but Nirmathas needs at least enough of a population to support a temporary army of several thousand fighting men. The urban percentage might seem high, but the reasoning is based on using the default percentage, plus the inhospitable terrain of the rest of the country. Many Nirmathians might be forest-dwellers, but these rangers and hardy folk can’t possibly be that densely packed anywhere.
Druma
Final Population: 280,000
Setting Information: 35,000 in 4 cities, but including 5,600 Dwarves in Highhelm
Methodology: This nation presents almost as much of a problem as Molthune. Molthune is lauded for its military strength, and given a very low urban population. Druma is lauded for its wealth, and given an even smaller urban population, especially when you exclude the Dwarves. This presents a problem, since in the Middle Ages, population usually equaled wealth, especially for landlocked nations like Druma (one seldom hears about the excessive wealth of under-populated medieval Ruthenia). But, that’s where the fantasy element kicks in. The setting information gives numerous reasons why Druma might be wealthy despite having a low population and it is easy to imagine that a wealthy mercantile power might find ways to deter invasion other than having a large military. Plus, Druma might have a disproportionately large military compared to its population if that material wealth was used to hire mercenaries (and they do, note the Mercenary League).
Excluding the dwarves (who properly belong in their own kingdom and are almost certainly disproportionately not living in rural, agrarian areas), yields an urban population of about 30,000. A 50% adjustment increases that to 45,000, and using a high urban percentage of 20% produces a result I adjusted upward slightly. Druma stands out as a classic fantasy kingdom, where wealth is defined more by minerals and trade and not so much by land and population.
Andoren
Final Population: 2.1 million
Setting Information: 170,000 in 6 cities; 11 cities shown on detailed map
Methodology: The three flagpole nations of southern Avistan (the whole continent really, outside of the region of Varisia) are Taldor, Cheliax, and Andoren. Cheliax is the most populous, based on my assumptions and the word “largest” in the text. But which is second: rump-Taldor or Andoren? My answer is Taldor, by a nose. This could easily be wrong and adjusting the numbers wouldn’t be hard. My logic is that it is hard to imagine a former province being more populous than the imperial heartland and Taldor has been “civilized” longer than Andoren. The other side is that Andoren has probably grown in population more rapidly than declining Taldor and that Taldor is much smaller now than it was when Andoren was a province.
Using the 7,500 average for Andoren’s non-listed cities (the number I used for Cheliax) seems a bit high, so I used 6,000. That produces a round urban population of 200,000. The default 10% urban will produce a population of 2 million. Geographically, Andoren looks like it could support a high population, so I think 2 million seems the right number, even if you might think Andoren is more urbanized than a default DnD nation. Once again, though, I don’t want to be bound by math and produce too low of populations. If you think Andoren should be more urbanized, simply use a higher figure for the non-listed cities. I’m also comfortable with Andoren dwarfing Isger, Molthune, and Druma in population, and being about 67% the size of Cheliax.
The Empire of Taldor
Final Population: 2.4 million
Setting Information: 187,000 in 6 cities
Methodology: Taldor is an important nation and much of the discussion about its population is in the Andoren section. Although I don’t have a detailed map for it, its geographic look and its age suggests it has far more than 6 cities of 5,000+ people. A 50% urban adjustment would yield a population of 280,000. An urban percentage assumption of 15% would yield a population of under 2 million. This would give you a nice range to work with for Taldor of between 1.8 million and something above Andoren’s 2.1 million. I settled on the final number because it still leaves Cheliax comfortably in the lead, but makes Taldor the second most populous country in the region. Taldor’s wealth and demographics aren’t given the same level of discussion in the Trade section as Cheliax and Andoren, but I’m comfortable this is a reasonable figure.
Galt
Final Population: 550,000
Setting Information: 76,000 in 4 cities
Methodology: Galt is a former province of both Andoren and Cheliax. (The Cheliax empire at its height was a funny looking thing.) It has 4 reasonably dense cities listed in the setting book. However, using 10% as its base urban percentage and making an urban adjustment would probably give too high of a population. That being said, something has to explain how Galt is able to be so poorly run as a nation and still remain independent. Taldor’s decadence and Andoren’s lack of imperialist ambitions, though, are more likely than Galt being overly-populous and supporting a huge citizen army.
Therefore, I saw Galt as being more in the range of Nidal, but slightly more populous. An urban percentage of 15% yields a population of 507,000, and that was adjusted upward slightly because of Galt’s summary in the setting book, and the fertile appearance of its countryside.
Absalom
Final Population: 410,000
Setting Information: 320,000 in 3 cities
Methodology: Would people get upset if I said Absalom reminds me of Waterdeep? That being said, using Waterdeep’s numbers (100,000 people in the city and 1 million in the country) as a guide doesn’t make much sense here. First off, we have 300,000 people in Absalom the city. Secondly, the country is really just a small island and doesn’t look all that fertile. The text is very clear that Absalom is not self-sufficient in terms of foodstuff and that the government is obsessed with stores to avoid succumbing to long sieges. Therefore, one can almost certainly conclude that the rural population of Absalom is small, or even non-existent.
Non-existent is not that reasonable, because Golarion is not a world over-stuffed with magic (a nice breath of fresh air from a certain other setting) and certain food products simply can’t be imported during this time period because they won’t stay fresh. But I believe I’m not alone if I say I’m assuming that at least 80% of Absalom’s people are represented by the three cities listed in the book.
Controversial Issues
1. Is Cheliax too high?
2. Is Molthune too low?
3. Is Galt too low?
4. Is Andoren more populous than Taldor?
Note: Do not consider anything I've said here a fiat or some attempt to say I'm right and any other interpretation is wrong. I am sure there is other info I don't have that can help this discussion.
Also, if I need to redact any info for copyright reasons, let me know.
|
My logic is that it is hard to imagine a former province being more populous than the imperial heartland and Taldor has been “civilized” longer than Andoren. The other side is that Andoren has probably grown in population more rapidly than declining Taldor and that Taldor is much smaller now than it was when Andoren was a province.
Tongue in Cheek response: What? US and England?!
Note: So far like the numbers, haven't finished reading yet though.
As Charles has pointed out, Andoran is misspelled 18 times in the above. I can't fix it now. :)
Also, Galt is referred to as a province of Andoran. That should read Taldor.
In response to Charles' query, I agree that the revolution could explain Galt's population. It also could contribute to Galt being less urban than its total suggests. People could have fled the cities to avoid being caught up in the terror.
This would push Galt's population higher (say, 700,000) as its urban percentage declines. I'm open to that interpretation. It's reasonable. It's also reasonable to assume that the Terror is largely confined to the upper class and has very little demographic impact, outside of the initial emigrations that must have occurred when the Revolution was young.
Andoran as the US and Taldor as Britain is a parallel I didn't consider. :)
Edit: As I mention in the section on Druma, I am primarily concerned with the humans or "citizenry" within a nation (the gnomes of Cheliax count for example, but the Dwarves of Highhelm do not). Monstrous nations and tribes within an empire's boundaries are not counted.
This is primarily because there is no information to use for these populations.
Creative Director
|
So far, this is looking pretty solid and well thought-out!
Personally, I would think that the population numbers would be for just humans, elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, and half-orcs*. Things like goblins and orcs and the like would not figure in to most populations, since they're monsters and not part of civilization. Exceptions would, of course, exist; the Hold of Belkzen would probably list total orc population and not bother with the relatively insignificant amount of humans living there.
*And dwarves too, I guess.
So far, this is looking pretty solid and well thought-out!
Personally, I would think that the population numbers would be for just humans, elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, and half-orcs*. Things like goblins and orcs and the like would not figure in to most populations, since they're monsters and not part of civilization. Exceptions would, of course, exist; the Hold of Belkzen would probably list total orc population and not bother with the relatively insignificant amount of humans living there.
*And dwarves too, I guess.
That's exactly how I see it.
As I mentioned, the only exception to this that I saw were the dwarves of Highhelm. They seem more part of their own nation than any part of Druma's national population.
I'm going to leave these up for at least a day or so before pressing on to make sure I get as much input as possible. The rest of Avistan isn't a major project, but Garund will be.
As a fan of the Realms for over 20 years, all I can say is that the more you "nail down" specific numbers and facts of the setting, the more ammunition you hand anyone that wants to be a massive pain and start poking holes in your setting, and giving people an excuse to spend tons of energy "proving" that X or Y in the setting is wrong, instead of enjoying the setting for what it is.
I don't fault anyone for being curious, but I just wanted to say that I can see the wisdom in never being too official about any of this sort of thing.
|
wrote a lot of stuff re: populations of nations in the campaign setting
Interesting reading. I haven't made it through the full thread yet, and have just glanced over the initial estimates you came with so far. It looks pretty good so far.
One thing that popped into my head when I read the first few posts was that unlike any RW model, one must not only keep the fantasy threats in mind (as had been pointed out), but also keep in mind the fantasy heroes that make their ways through the country side. Fantasy threat levels should be mitigated by this aspect.
Additionally, different aspects of the nations will have a definite impact on the population centers. Absalom would most likely only have a minor amount of population outside of the listed population amounts for the three cities in the nation as most of the remaining Isle of Kortos is described as wildlands.
Geb would also have a more centralized urban population (living population at any rate) than other nations, utilizing undead for food production. Unless you consider non-sentient undead in the population counts, of course.
Just some additional aspects to consider in this project.
I look forward to seeing where your final numbers end up.
|
|
I posted a long list of quibbles and my thoughts on the Chronicles Campaign setting book, but I put it in a forum that is infrequently visited (this board is really kind of hard to use; and thanks to Charles Evans who suggested I try here).
One of my big complaints about the book is that the nations are not given population totals. This puts a bit of a burden on a GM, since not even the continents and world are given rough totals to extrapolate from.
My first question is whether this information is available anywhere and, if not, how one would go about figuring out the rough population of most of the major nations and regions.
This information is important in extrapolating army sizes and the actual relative balance of power between nations in order to craft believable backstories of political intrigue.
I have other questions and comments, but I'll stick to this for now.
Thanks.
The problem I suspect for Paizo is this: Noone reads 'Power and Privilege' by Lenski anymore.
Armies are not the only thing you can extrapolate from such population information. 'The nature of [the State] will vary greatly, depending on the degree of technological advance...'
Likewise 'with technological advance, an increasing proportion of the goods and services available to a society will be distributed on the basis of power'.
For your exploration of army = %population, 'the degree of inequality in societies of a given level of technological development tends to vary inversely with the [millitary participation ratio], that is the proportion of population utilized in millitary operations'.
Ultimately you could become bogged down in such mundane thought as if Sand point has a call up militia of 90% of its adult population it must be a community of far greater social equality where as a standing army and city guard in some place like Korvosa being 30% would allow for far greater degrees of inequality. Consequently something like access to Magic items might be based on Power. So there will be a 'Police' who seek out magic items held by the poor and impose a level of taxation on such magic - involving the seizure most magic items. This would put a different cultural spin on your setting if you want Korsova to be a city free of such horrific social stratification.
Of course such information can be of value. Technological development can have an inverse effect on the degree to which environmental variation affects agricultural productivity. Such information will explain why cave dwelling Kobolds must migrate to a new land and raid for food, where as a Kobold Kingdom where evey Kobold must be educated in Modern Farming techniques and civil engineering could ride out a drought.
Sean
|
Creative Director
|
As a fan of the Realms for over 20 years, all I can say is that the more you "nail down" specific numbers and facts of the setting, the more ammunition you hand anyone that wants to be a massive pain and start poking holes in your setting, and giving people an excuse to spend tons of energy "proving" that X or Y in the setting is wrong, instead of enjoying the setting for what it is.
I don't fault anyone for being curious, but I just wanted to say that I can see the wisdom in never being too official about any of this sort of thing.
This is actually very astute and gets to the core of my hesitance to open-arm embrace a population total project. It's a fine line at times, the difference between enough info to run a game and too much info. The more we nail down, the more folks can get in there and find all sorts of loopholes and problems. And while it can be helpful to have super-detailed information... it's not something that is necessarily good for the game at the start.
Remember... Forgotten Realms had over 4 decades to get its details to where they are now. Golarion's barely had a year.
SO. Hammering out populations is fun and useful, but getting into TOO much detail causes things to fall apart...
This is actually very astute and gets to the core of my hesitance to open-arm embrace a population total project. It's a fine line at times, the difference between enough info to run a game and too much info. The more we nail down, the more folks can get in there and find all sorts of loopholes and problems. And while it can be helpful to have super-detailed information... it's not something that is necessarily good for the game at the start.Remember... Forgotten Realms had over 4 decades to get its details to where they are now. Golarion's barely had a year.
SO. Hammering out populations is fun and useful, but getting into TOO much detail causes things to fall apart...
Obviously, I don't feel that giving players the population numbers is too much detail. And in terms of poking holes in the setting using population numbers, that isn't very likely. There isn't all that much information in the book that could be used to rebut any population number you put out. (This was actually my biggest concern about even starting to do the numbers; the possible range is extremely broad).
I would also rebut this point of view by pointing out that if you provide TOO much information, people can ignore it. If you provide too little, people are left out in the cold. In other words, err always on the side of giving people more rather than giving people less.
The Realms is plagued by a group of naysayers that argue the setting is too crowded (and I agree with that) and their conclusion is that the designers should delete things (and boy did they ever for 4th edition). That's erroneous. Players can delete and ignore information far easier than they can create it.
Ultimately you could become bogged down in such mundane thought as if Sand point has a call up militia of 90% of its adult population it must be a community of far greater social equality where as a standing army and city guard in some place like Korvosa being 30% would allow for far greater degrees of inequality.
I'm not sure hyperbole is useful here; Sandpoint has a call up militia equal to 5% of its population.
That said, I do agree with you, James and anyone else who's noted that too much official detail is a bad thing. Even if there were no nit pickers (and they will always be with us), the accumulated weight of canon makes it progressively harder to produce material that doesn't contradict; and some DMs will feel they have little room for customization.
I do hope the developers won't be too conservative, though. I didn't follow PF through the beta rules testing, despite being a charter AP subscriber. I'm just now gearing up to run Runelords for the first time and I'm being bombarded with player questions about specifics of Varisia I can't answer. I'm not comfortable with inventing too much right now just because I've only got a tenuous grasp of the overall world and I'm not certain where some of it is going -- or perhaps more to the point, where much of it has been. At this point, the more canon I have to work with, the better.
So while I appreciate the difficulties, and do not want Golarion to race to become the Realms, color me interested in longitude/latitude, trade economics and at least some population guidelines.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
James Jacobs:
Taldor is desribed as having '...Thousands of noble houses...' (Page 136, Campaign Setting) who are jockeying for positions. Granted some of these houses may be middle class, or even have been reduced to penury with only dreams of some day regaining access to a better life, but is the assessment of 'thousands' essentially correct as regards to total number of different noble houses?Edit:
Nidal is described as once having had an army of more than 10,000 devoted souls waiting, when Zon-kuthon emerged from his long imprisonment (Page 111, Ridwan (city in Nidal), Campaign Setting). Is that any indication of the current size of the armed forces? (It was, after all, a long time ago that Zon-kuthon emerged from his imprisonment, and Nidal has been conquered by Cheliax in recent history...)
A thousand noble houses is not that many, depending on how you interpret house. I interpret it to be more as noble "families" which would include cadet branches. If you interpret it more as the Dune concept of House, then you will face a problem.
A noble family might consist of as few as 1-2 surviving members struggling to keep the name going, especially in an empire as old as Taldor. (Heck, even the Habsburg Empire, which really only lasted about 400 years, struggled to keep its ruling house intact for much of its middle history.)
So 5,000 noble houses might only mean 50,000 nobles, which is 2.1% of the population number I've given above. That seems about right to me for a nation that seems kind of top-heavy and decadent.
This is actually very astute and gets to the core of my hesitance to open-arm embrace a population total project. It's a fine line at times, the difference between enough info to run a game and too much info. The more we nail down, the more folks can get in there and find all sorts of loopholes and problems. And while it can be helpful to have super-detailed information... it's not something that is necessarily good for the game at the start.
Remember... Forgotten Realms had over 4 decades to get its details to where they are now. Golarion's barely had a year.
SO. Hammering out populations is fun and useful, but getting into TOO much detail causes things to fall apart...
How about my request of descriptions over how the people live, how the patrols keep peace/oppress people, State of the army/draft?
Are people spread across the countryside or do they huddle near cities for protection?
What is the favorite way to tax?
Weird customs?
I am interested in things that would impact players as they move across a given country.
|
Whew... After reading all those posts between the two threads, I'm finished. I think I deserve a metal or something. Two things: One, I agree with jscott991, in so far as having the population totals would be nice, just because I've been working on so much conversions and adaptations from other fantasy settings (non-RPG style, such as the Mord-Sith from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series). Two, one thing I hope you learned, jscott991, is that Pathfinder isn't really geared towards Paizo handing everything to you in an ironed out, steamed and pressed fashion. That's one thing I really like about the setting.
Stuff is intentionally left for you, as the DM, to fill in the blanks. There's so much room to expand and create your own stuff, using their world as a template. Much of the locations on the maps are just locations and names. Maybe they've been given a little bit of a blurb about what's there, but not a lot information is given. This is intended. If at such a point in time a location is refined that you've invested time and energy and creative process to, either ignore it or integrate it somewhere else.
All in all, yes, I'm glad someone else has worked out the population numbers. In time, it was something that I would have had to do and am very pleased someone else did first.
|
What's really funny is I checked in on this thread not even realizing I was missing population totals in the Campaign Setting. In fact, I wasn't even sure I'd need them.
Now that I've read all these posts I find myself completely curious. There are some really good thoughts and ideas in here overall. Good thread!
I am interested in things that would impact players as they move across a given country.
That reminds me: one of my players worked out an annual "migration route" for her Varisian clan and I need to double check it for feasibility, at least in terms of total miles covered. She's got them as far east as Janderhoff and Strathu, as far north as Riddleport and as far west as Magnimar over the course of a year, with stops of at least several days at each town along the route.
This is mainly background color for her RotR character, but it justifies some knowledge of areas well away from Sandpoint/Magnimar -- areas not covered in the AP material, so I have to expand my preparation for the game.
That reminds me: one of my players worked out an annual "migration route" for her Varisian clan and I need to double check it for feasibility, at least in terms of total miles covered. She's got them as far east as Janderhoff and Strathu, as far north as Riddleport and as far west as Magnimar over the course of a year, with stops of at least several days at each town along the route.
This is mainly background color for her RotR character, but it justifies some knowledge of areas well away from Sandpoint/Magnimar -- areas not covered in the AP material, so I have to expand my preparation for the game.
In my RotRL game I have described Varisia as a land sliding slowly into anarchy. With little safety to be had away from the major cities. I told my Varisian's how their tribe had had to combine with other tribes for protection and how some of the routes are no longer safe to travel limiting them on where they can go. All the while putting more and more pressure on them to settle in a town.
I love a little tragedy and it is a great motivator for players from the tribes.
A) My tribe isn't traveling enough for my free feet. Time to set off on my own.
B) The tribe needs a new safe route maybe I can find it or secure it.
I arbitrarily told them their normal route through Churlwood was not longer safe and the last time they tride to pass them several members died. Now they are stuck north of Churlwood between Riddleport, Roderic's Cove, and Ravenmoore.
Since there have been no strong objections to the totals for southern Avistan, I intend to press on and finish the rest of the continent using these numbers as the baseline.
I'm happy for all the feedback.
I hope this information is helpful to people and Paizo.
Another round of entries should be up tomorrow.
I'm really enjoying your work. From the impression I've gotten of Taldor in discussions on the boards, and running some of the modules set in Andoran, there is no way I would think that Andoran would be more populous than Taldor, for what that is worth. While the former may be an empire in decline, the later is a province turned nation, which is newly independent and still being settled.
Rarely does a "I wish to complain..." thread remain so constructive. :)
Since there have been no strong objections to the totals for southern Avistan, I intend to press on and finish the rest of the continent using these numbers as the baseline.
I'm happy for all the feedback.
I hope this information is helpful to people and Paizo.
Another round of entries should be up tomorrow.
You've done some excellent work. Well done. I love it when one of these threads becomes so productive. I want to especially commend you for your Methodology entries - it is both interesting and educational to read your approach.
Some of my thoughts regarding Taldor, another influencing factor on determining its population could be its relationship with Qadira. At first, I was going to suggest increasing your estimate given its long history as a centre of civilization, that its the founder of other empires, and that Taldor seems to have the role of holding back the multitudes of the East. However, on reviewing the Companion on Qadira, the impression I get is this single satrapy of the Empire of Kelesh could likely overwhelm Taldor if the Emperor allowed it. One of the few numerical details I've seen is the mention that 600 years ago an invading Qadiran and Keleshite army of 40,000 was enough to cause Taldor extreme harm, plus make it unable to prevent the splitting away of its Northern holdings (the Even Tongue Conquest). In comparison, the present Qadiran army is listed at more than a hundred thousand, not including potential conscipts or slaves. So Taldor should have a population to support a military that could resist that kind of force for a while, but likely eventually be overwhelmed.
The problem I suspect for Paizo is this: Noone reads 'Power and Privilege' by Lenski anymore.Armies are not the only thing you can extrapolate from such population information. 'The nature of [the State] will vary greatly, depending on the degree of technological advance...'
Likewise 'with technological advance, an increasing proportion of the goods and services available to a society will be distributed on the basis of power'.
For your exploration of army = %population, 'the degree of inequality in societies of a given level of technological development tends to vary inversely with the [millitary participation ratio], that is the proportion of population utilized in millitary operations'.
Ultimately you could become bogged down in such mundane thought as if Sand point has a call up militia of 90% of its adult population it must be a community of far greater social equality where as a standing army and city guard in some place like Korvosa being 30% would allow for far greater degrees of inequality. Consequently something like access to Magic items might be...
The fact that magic is a highly influential force can skew any estimate of populations and the reasons for their success or decline.
A party of retired 20th level adventurers, friendly to the king (he'd better hope), are an ace in the hole for him. Likewise, a country rife with powerful druids would be unusually productive in agriculture if the locals let them do their thing. I think they would.
Simply having commoners and other NPC classes with more levels than the next country over can be an invasion-changing challenge.
I'd imagine pockets of "adventurer retirement" areas, where former adventurers have made their fortunes and settled in for a life of relative ease, can alter the landscape unpredictably. The rulers of any country would be fools to not maintain such places, and do their best to attract alignment-friendly adventurers to live in relative splendor, yet be available, should the need arise.
A 10th-level party, reunited to face down one more foe and have some fun in the bargain, would outweigh what a few hundred 1st-level enemy warriors can do, unless their retired opposites came along with the army.
Of course, they might be secretly willing to help the enemy, but that would be an exception to the rule. Most would live in places that suit them, and don't want to be in a war zone, unless there's something in it for them.
I am open to a higher population for Taldor.
2.4 million people could probably not support an army of 100,000 men reasonably.
After reading all of these posts, sometimes population does matter but it really is better left to the DM. Not that population figures would hurt the game just that it wouldnt help it much. Add me into the group that wants paizo to take is slow approach. I'll use my imagination for this stuff or a nifty fanbased article.
If you want ideas on population figures look in Dragon magazine #189-192 they have a great section in the Mystara/voyage of the princess ark series on population/demographics/etc. (I know I dated myself but it really was a good series. LOL)
|
|
I tend to agree with those that wish the populations to remain a bit "nebulous".
Every GM has different plans for their campaign.
Set population totals might hinder that and I don't see the point of rules lawyering population counts.
Common sense or fantastic reasoning both work for me!
In my campaign if the Imprimatur population level was all of a sudden jacked up by official sources far beyond/below what I envision it, I would still be altering it anyway. Being of the Andoran faction, you can see why such freedom appeals to me. (hehe)
It might be cool for some GMs to have such statistics to get an idea of how each nation or region stacks up in population (human and/or other), so i am not actually against it.
However, I don't think Paizo staff has to retroactively "fix" something in the Campaign Setting that was created before the Pathfinder PRG was created, nor should they have to be on the defensive.
"Make up something or go with common sense population levels for what you envision the campaign to be like." Maybe there was a recent plague. Maybe good harvests and weather have been happening overall in Golarion for the past 25 years. Maybe areas are still recovering because of war.
I think no matter what the official population levels are set at, history and weather and things we just don't totally know yet are going to make that number start at some semi-arbitrary level anyway.
I don't think it is a major issue or anything we as a community should get our feathers ruffled about.
Let's just talk about the factors and see what may or may not make sense to the various types of players, GMs and staff here :)
-Adelwulf
As I mentioned before, it is far easier to ignore too much information, than to deal with too little.
Since the books already provide city populations, I can't see the harm in eventually having population guidelines.
I will admit that my qualms about this were that Paizo intended too low of a population for the region. But I think based on what James Jacobs has said, that isn't too much of an issue anymore.
I am open to a higher population for Taldor.
2.4 million people could probably not support an army of 100,000 men reasonably.
They piss away money on their army, like on everything. They get the money by exploiting their common population.
|
|
Golarion Population Totals
Global Assumptions
2. Golarion is not as populous as medieval Europe. [...] Also, based on discussions on the board, I think people envision populations for individual nations being significantly lower than 10 million people.
Why are either of these assumptions being made? Golarion is postapocalyptic, yes, but it's also had something like 5,000-10,000 years to recover. We don't have any major population wiping plagues, even a low-magic world is going to be doing a bit better than a no-magic world unless, like Glorantha, the magic is REQUIRED to get to a no-magic baseline.
The area today known as "Metropolitan" France (basically, what we USians would just call France. French people include the colonies and islands and so forth as par of France, hence the distinction) had, in 120 AD a population estimated in the neighborhood of 7 million people. This is more than twice as many as you give the entire nation of Cheliax.
Rome, the city of Rome itself, had a population of 1 million in 120 AD. Now, by the time of its effective collapse, in 530 or so, that had dropped to 150,000 people, and hemorrhaged people until it got down to a low of 20,000 in the medieval period. Now we're looking more like Cheliax, in terms of cities, at least. In 530, due to war and lack of infrastructure, Metropolitan France had collapsed to around 6 million people, with Paris sitting at 80,000 people in 120 AD, and 30,000 in 530. By 1328 or so (right before the population crashes of the Black Plague), Paris has 250,000 inhabitants, and Metro France sat at 20 million.
France was, and is, more heavily urbanized than a lot of Europe at similar times, but a population of 3 million for Cheliax seems to be really low-balling unless Cheliax has significantly less area than France. For reference sake, Metro France has an area of 545,630 sq km (or 210,669 sq mi).
James, perhaps this is something for the GameMastery Guide instead of a future revision to the Campaign Setting?
I've seen a few good generic examples of numbers and descriptions in this thread that would lend themselves well to fill in the blanks on any fantasy setting, Golarion included.
Total population numbers aren't too useful, since what people are really after is information to create locales for exploration or open world game play.
For example if you take three types of country; Low, medium and highly urban (5%, 10% and 20% respectively), then follow it with a collection of descriptions that are appropriate for various sizes of total population but actually give you the information you can use.
Sizes of the capital city, number of cities, villages and towns, their sizes, farming and hunting structure, amounts of guards, physical defenses, etc.
And ofcourse the most important detail: Can the party find an arcane or divine caster of sufficient level to cast that one spell which they are looking for in a given place!
Oh! It occurs to me - is that 3 million humans, or 3 million inhabitants? My objections are altered by this clarification. :)
The global assumptions were made based on the numbers provided in the setting book.
Unless there are significantly more cities in each region than are listed in the setting book (and it would take a ton to seriously push the numbers up much higher, especially to medieval Europe levels), you would need urban percentages in the 2-3% range to produce Taldor or Cheliax populations that neared 10 million.
Plus many people on the forum seemed inclined to lower population numbers.
You can justify these totals in a variety of ways:
1. Avistan is not that large of a continent. I am terrble at spatial relationships, but if you look at the scale on the map and consider that 240 miles is not that far across, it doesn't look like Avistan is that large.
2. There are significant monstrous populations that are a drag on food resources, restricting the size of "citizen" populations.
3. Fantasy worlds typically don't have huge populations. I can only point towards Eberron and Faerun here as examples.
Again, though, nothing is set in stone. But I've yet to really have anyone think the numbers were significantly too low.
Actually I see them as rather low myself as well, just didn't think I had anything to base such a thought on. High levels of technology (which there are in several places) and high levels of urban life are very hard to run at such low population totals. Beyond this Medieval Europe had much higher populations and that's is without all the advantages that Golarion has going for it.
Even beyond game applications, this is kind of the territory where I'd almost rather not have hard numbers. At some point in time, someone, once there are hard numbers, will cite some measure that says there is no way a given continent can support X number of people on top of dragons and other large monsters, and even if someone else can cite another source that might make supporting all of said lifeforms probable, in the end, if one person reads the "naysaying" argument, and it strikes the right tone, even if they like the setting, that argument might be enough to bug them so that they just can't get into the setting the way they did before.
I understand that there is obviously a desire to see some formal numbers, and not everyone thinks the way I do, but at the same time, I do have a hard time conceiving of a situation where, as a GM, I have a harder time running a campaign because I don't know the population of Taldor or Cheliax.
I can see where it might be useful for a campaign that has to do with large scale war and such, perhaps, but then you are already getting into some major canon-altering campaign material anyway, so I'm not sure official numbers matter much at that point.
I'm not trying to be overly negative, but I would almost be willing to bet in a few months, if someone here at Paizo says that some of the numbers from this thread are "semi-official," some message board will have posts citing those semi-official numbers and applying some kind of population/surface area ratio that "proves" that Golarion doesn't work, and those same numbers, even if refuted, will pop up years from now when people want to make anti Golarion arguments.
My only issue and worry about population is the direct affect it has on the GP limit of towns and what I can get my hands on. Beyond that I'm not too worried about it.
The general NPC limit of 9 though is a bit odd to me. It works up until PC's actually get to higher levels and then you got to start wondering "Where did these high level magic items come from anyways?" especially with scrolls and other such items. The new pathfinder crafting rules help with some of this however.
|
Creative Director
|
James, perhaps this is something for the GameMastery Guide instead of a future revision to the Campaign Setting?
The GameMastery Guide will indeed talk about populations... at least, I'm pretty sure it will. But it won't talk at all about GOLARION'S numbers. It'll treat the subject relatively generically so you can use it in any setting.
AndorenFinal Population: 2.1 million
Setting Information: 170,000 in 6 cities; 11 cities shown on detailed map
Where is this detailed map of Andoran that shows 11 cities? What product did you get this map from?
I was recently just looking for an Andoran map with more detail.
THanks!
JScott991:
I'm curious, if you did use the Campaign Setting map, what criteria you used to rule out settlements indicated as being too small to count as cities?
I count 18 settlements marked in the dead tree version on the page 61 map, and although if Perin's Bluff is a typo of Piren's Bluff from the LB1 series it is clearly not a city from information in that module (population listed there 210) and information on Falcon's Hollow will I assume be available in the Kobold King series, what information did you use to rule five other settlements out of the city bracket?
This is merely an error.
I still can count only 17 settlements, but the only excuse I have for the 11 is that I must have originally tried to subtract the 6 listed cities from this total, though I did not do that for Cheliax.
Assuming Charles is right and there are 18 Andoran cities, that would produce 170,000 + 6,000 *12 = 242,000 urban citizens.
At at 10% urban ratio, you would get a population of around 2.4 million. But Andoran is probably more urbanized than the average kingdom, and that makes 2.1 million still reasonable, if we decide to stick with a 3.4 million Cheliax to 2.1 million Andoran range.
Edit: And I did not mean to dismiss the criticism of the population figures as being too low. I only meant that being too low had not been something raised before.
And if you decide to increase the population, then we are assuming either:
a. There are tons of cities that simply aren't shown on the map, meaning that cities are very densely clumped together, something that was not true in medieval Europe outside of a few select regions; or
b. Golarion is significantly less urbanized than medieval Europe, something that does not seem reasonable.
I think it's just preferable to assume that, based on the numbers provided, there simply aren't as many people in Avistan as in medieval Europe. As I said, this is not an uncommon fantasy assumption. I can't think of any single fantasy nation in a setting that I've played in that had 10 million or more citizens.
|
Creative Director
|
On population generally, what impact do dragons have on how many people any particlar country can support? For example Andoran is known to be home to one of the biggest meanest red dragons active described so far in the Golarion setting, Daralathyxl, a male great wyrm. (See Dragons revisited, page 50.)
Even on occasions when a dragon is not out hunting, actively living off the land, I imagine the simple knowledge that there is a dragon somewhere in an area is sufficient to keep all but the bravest or most foolhardy from attempting to farm or exploit other natural resources in the vicinity.
Why stop at dragons? What about derros coming up from below to kidnap people? What about undead that can make lots of spawn. What about resurrections? What about the Tarrasque? What about things like barghests and nabasus that come to this world to eat folks?
It's a complicated process, and one that can quickly turn into a bottomless hole if you're not careful...