Populations of World Cultures throughout history

Hey all!

Okay, (for the purposes of determining the power of all Earth's pantheons at their height of power) I'm looking to find out the populations of their respective cultures at those times.

Approx. 1250 BC
Canaanite
Chinese
Egyptian
Mesopotamian

Approx. 250 BC (Alexander the Great)
African
Greek
Hindu
Persian

Approx. 400 AD (Just before the Fall of the Roman Empire)
Celtic
Finnish
Slavic
Roman (even though its primarily the same Pantheon as the Greeks)

Approx. 1100 AD (Height of Mongol power)
Aztec
Japanese
Mongolian
Norse

Others to be included (somewhere):

Incan
Native American

I know some of the above dates are sketchy, I don't have much time tonight but I'll post more tomorrow (including replying to other posts in this forum - just wanted to get the ball rolling with this one tonight). Any help/advice on the matter would naturally be appreciated, I have only started investigating the subject.

Okay, so my initial investigations suggest:

NB. Figures rounded down to 300,000; 1 million; 3 million; 10 million; 30 million and 100 million.

Bronze Age
Canaan: approx. 1 million
China: approx. 30 million
Egypt: approx. 3 million
Mesopotamia: approx. 10 million (slight stretch)

250 BC
Africa: approx. 3 million (guess)
Greece: approx. 1 million
India: approx. 10 million
Persia: approx. 30 million

450 AD
Celts: approx. 1 million
Finland: approx. 300,000
Huns/Slavic: approx. 10 million
Oceania: approx. 3 million (guess)
Roman: approx. 100 million

1250 AD
Aztec: approx. 30 million (slight stretch)
Incan: approx. 10 million
Native American: approx. 3 million
Mongolian Empire: approx. 100 million
Norse: approx. 10 million (guess)
Japan: approx. 3 million (guess)

At the moment thats the best I can determine.

Meant to add a few footnotes to the above posts.

The basic Pantheon construction seems to suggest you would have an Earthly Skyfather range from about Level 32 Solo (Ukko of the Finnish Pantheon) to about Level 37 Solo (Jupiter of the Roman Pantheon). With Odin (for reference) at Level 35 Solo.

I am unsure if this should be the overall format for any Immortal's Index series of books. On the one hand I like the idea that not all of the Pantheons would be equal - I think that certainly makes the stats a lot more interesting.

However, on the other hand it sort of makes the majority of deities a tad weaker than I would have liked. For instance both Thor and Set would be Level 32 Solo encounters. The latter is relevant because he's the BBEG in the first 4E adventure I am writing for Levels 31-33.

So again theres a case for just making all the Earthly Pantheons have a 10 billion worshipper base, with Skyfathers Solo encounters Level 37-41.

Of course theres no reason why I couldn't just say that (for the purposes of the adventure) Set gained a large influx of worshippers (masquerading as a 5-level power-up) because of his shenanigans. But I would rather have the whole thing balanced before putting together a load of stat blocks.

Then again I suppose what I could do is use the Level 50 base but then add a page which lists the revised Levels of the Pantheon based upon their Earthly numbers of worshippers at the height of their power. Perhaps thats the way to go.

So Set would be a Level 37 Solo encounter with 100+ million worshippers, but derived solely from Earth's history he would have been a Level 32 Solo encounter with less than a million worshippers.

Any thoughts?

Perhaps you can weight populations based on different factors, such as total population of the world? Assume that each worshiper is devoting a piece of the world's soul to the deity in question?

Alternatively, you could offset the difference between worshipers and the power of the pantheon by adding in some other quintessence sources. Give them some Power and Resonance, and consider the worshipers to be a nice supplement--- a hefty proportion, but not the entirety of their abilities.

Hi Fieari mate !

Fieari said:

Perhaps you can weight populations based on different factors, such as total population of the world? Assume that each worshiper is devoting a piece of the world's soul to the deity in question?

Click to expand...

Then there would be no reason a Galactic Pantheon would be more powerful than a Planetary Pantheon.

Fieari said:

Alternatively, you could offset the difference between worshipers and the power of the pantheon by adding in some other quintessence sources. Give them some Power and Resonance, and consider the worshipers to be a nice supplement--- a hefty proportion, but not the entirety of their abilities.

Click to expand...

Well I think the majority of an immortal's power will probably be from worshippers, whereas the majority of a Primordial's power will be from 'power' rather than 'glory'.

Artifact resonance then? The PARTICULAR pantheon you're up against in the module you're working with just so happens to be cheating, in that they've inherited some nice artifacts from antediluvian times...

I mean, Naamah is said to have carried such things with her.