You're right about that. I do currently have the flu, so I'll let that be my excuse. Obviously I'm not drinking enough Gatorade.
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Hammerfast, population 12,000! what?
- Thread starter Reaper Steve
- Start date
You're right about that. I do currently have the flu, so I'll let that be my excuse. Obviously I'm not drinking enough Gatorade.
Cor_Malek
First Post
Fun fact: three biggest castles in Poland are (from biggest to smallest): Malbork castle, Wawel castle and Książ.
Fun fact no2: less than two decades ago it was: Malbork Castle, Książ and then Wawel.
About 3 decades ago it was: Książ, Malbork, Wawel.
While the castles themselves didn't change - the way they've been measured was. When it was total acreage that was counted - Ksiaż seemed biggest, because it has huge stables and extensive pastures. It also has gardens and a zoo, so that still boosted it's "size" when only the area within walls was counted, and it's finally placed as third today, when raw cubature is being considered.
Similar might be true for Hammerfast - it might seem smaller than Fallcrest, it might even have smaller surface. But it's more tightly packed, and has more multi-condignation houses, hence bigger cubature.
"12'000 citizens" does seem like a misplaced dot and redundant zero ;-)
Of course that's only my justification of it, and it's probably just lack of attention on side of writers/retcon due to popularity.
Fun fact no2: less than two decades ago it was: Malbork Castle, Książ and then Wawel.
About 3 decades ago it was: Książ, Malbork, Wawel.
While the castles themselves didn't change - the way they've been measured was. When it was total acreage that was counted - Ksiaż seemed biggest, because it has huge stables and extensive pastures. It also has gardens and a zoo, so that still boosted it's "size" when only the area within walls was counted, and it's finally placed as third today, when raw cubature is being considered.
Similar might be true for Hammerfast - it might seem smaller than Fallcrest, it might even have smaller surface. But it's more tightly packed, and has more multi-condignation houses, hence bigger cubature.
"12'000 citizens" does seem like a misplaced dot and redundant zero ;-)
Of course that's only my justification of it, and it's probably just lack of attention on side of writers/retcon due to popularity.
Dice4Hire
First Post
In Hammerfast, there is apparently no one living underground.
Well in a points of light setting you can't expect the scribes to be very accurate
They probably feel its too dangerous and are taking population counts from when Nerath was at its height.
21 people per square mile, back in those days 21 people could constitue a single family or at most 2 families. I suspect that the average village would have between 60 and a 100 people, since that would provide a reasonable number of adults for defense and the 4 or five surrounding square miles was mostly empty pasture land with the tilled ground being immediately adjacent to the village. Of course that would put the villages within roughly half a mile of each other and not allow for cities or towns.
Hmm... so a village between 5 to 10 miles apart and a town between 20 to 30 miles?
They probably feel its too dangerous and are taking population counts from when Nerath was at its height.21 people per square mile, back in those days 21 people could constitue a single family or at most 2 families. I suspect that the average village would have between 60 and a 100 people, since that would provide a reasonable number of adults for defense and the 4 or five surrounding square miles was mostly empty pasture land with the tilled ground being immediately adjacent to the village. Of course that would put the villages within roughly half a mile of each other and not allow for cities or towns.
Hmm... so a village between 5 to 10 miles apart and a town between 20 to 30 miles?
Dr_Ruminahui
First Post
While I admire the importation of historical information into this thread (as it adds context), I would recommend being careful about implying people/mile (or km or whatever) to figure out the area or population of a town.
That's like taking the population density of the Canada (3.41 per square km) to find that Toronto, with a population of 2.5 million, takes up 730,000 square km, when in fact takes up 630 km squared.
Remember that such figures account for the empty spaces too... and cities/towns, by definition, have less empty spaces than the average of the entire area.
That's like taking the population density of the Canada (3.41 per square km) to find that Toronto, with a population of 2.5 million, takes up 730,000 square km, when in fact takes up 630 km squared.
Remember that such figures account for the empty spaces too... and cities/towns, by definition, have less empty spaces than the average of the entire area.
Dice4Hire
First Post
Well, especially modern measurements. We can support a lot higher population density now. And comparatively now, we have no one living in the sticks.
Actually, the 21/sq. mi. figure Korgoth provides is for the 11th century.
14th century France had about 100/sq. mi.
Modern France has a pop. density of close to 300/sq. mi.
I often wish that WoTC designers would read this awesome, very useful article by S. John Ross
Medieval Demographics Made Easy
from Pyramid magazine (currently on the author's own website).
It's helped a bunch with my own world building.
Reaper Steve
Explorer
The Hammerfast poster map shows less than 100 buildings, 20' wide avenues (plus 10' recess from the street) and personal space around every building.
Honestly, I like the idea of a tightly packed city housing 12,000 both above and below ground. It just would mean not using the Hammerfast map and coming up with a new layout.
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AngryMojo
First Post
Alright, so after looking at the map and counting the number of "houses", I came up with about 70 tombs in the main part of Hammerfast that can house people. The book says that usually several families call a tomb home, so let's assume 15 dwarves per tomb. That gives us 1050 people. Throw in some people to represent the clergy of Moradin and Gruumsh, and you'll have roughly 1100 people.
In the gate ward, we have the barracks for the city guard, as well as the Swiftriver clan and some other civilians. If we assume the guard is roughly equivalent to 10% of the dwarven population that gives us 110 people, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were no fewer than 30 swiftriver halflings. The book mentions about 10 other civillians in the gate ward, so we can reasonably triple that to 30. This equals 180 permanent residents of the gate ward.
Our total is 1,230
The wild card in this equation involves the ghosts. Do the ghosts count as population? If so, there could be millions of people in Hammerfast, but I'm inclined to believe that the only ghosts here are those with undisturbed tombs, so I'll just say those cover my initially generous inhabited tomb estimate.
I'm going to say that the population of Hammerfast is approximately 1,200 people. Very little information is given about the population of the surrounding area, all we know is there are bandits, goliaths, a mining operation, some orcs, some goblins, some trolls, and a garrison at the intersection of Two Roads. Here's some rough, wildly innacurate estimations for those.
Bandits: There are "A Number" of marauding gags live in the area. Both the gangs detailed in the book have seven members, so we'll use that as an estimation. Let's say "a number" means "10". That gives us 70 bandits.
Goliaths: There are "Several bands" of goliaths in the mountains. Let's say there are four bands, each with 10 people. That gives us 40 goliaths.
EditI've been informed that a band is a larger group of people, between 30 and 50. We'll average them at 40 and say there's about 160 goliaths.
Miners: According to the entry for Highpeak, there is a heavily guarded small fortress with "a number" of mines active. Assuming 50 guards, which would be heavy for a fortress that size, and 10 miners each in 5 shafts, we have 100 dwarves.
Orcs: There is a full tribe of orcs living in the mountains. This tribe isn't big enough to be mentioned in the DMG, or anywhere else in the book. Let's assume 50 orcs and be done with it.
Goblins: The book states that these goblin clans occupy small outposts throughout the mountains. Multiple clans, and there are always more goblins than orcs, so I invoke the rule of three. 150 goblins.
Trolls: Between the hag Stravalla and her troll and werewolf minions, and the fact that this is an area devoted to heroic tier play, I'm going to assume there are only 30. Any more would be too great a threat for the PC's.
Garrison: The small garrison relies on ballistas and crossbows, and is small compared to Hammerfast. I'm going to estimate 25 dwarves.
Assuming a scattered population of 35 hermits, solo monsters, and other inhabitants, this gives us 620 people living in the area around the mountain.
So that is my final population estimate.
1,200 living in the city
620 living in the area around the city
In the gate ward, we have the barracks for the city guard, as well as the Swiftriver clan and some other civilians. If we assume the guard is roughly equivalent to 10% of the dwarven population that gives us 110 people, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were no fewer than 30 swiftriver halflings. The book mentions about 10 other civillians in the gate ward, so we can reasonably triple that to 30. This equals 180 permanent residents of the gate ward.
Our total is 1,230
The wild card in this equation involves the ghosts. Do the ghosts count as population? If so, there could be millions of people in Hammerfast, but I'm inclined to believe that the only ghosts here are those with undisturbed tombs, so I'll just say those cover my initially generous inhabited tomb estimate.
I'm going to say that the population of Hammerfast is approximately 1,200 people. Very little information is given about the population of the surrounding area, all we know is there are bandits, goliaths, a mining operation, some orcs, some goblins, some trolls, and a garrison at the intersection of Two Roads. Here's some rough, wildly innacurate estimations for those.
Bandits: There are "A Number" of marauding gags live in the area. Both the gangs detailed in the book have seven members, so we'll use that as an estimation. Let's say "a number" means "10". That gives us 70 bandits.
Goliaths: There are "Several bands" of goliaths in the mountains. Let's say there are four bands, each with 10 people. That gives us 40 goliaths.
EditI've been informed that a band is a larger group of people, between 30 and 50. We'll average them at 40 and say there's about 160 goliaths.
Miners: According to the entry for Highpeak, there is a heavily guarded small fortress with "a number" of mines active. Assuming 50 guards, which would be heavy for a fortress that size, and 10 miners each in 5 shafts, we have 100 dwarves.
Orcs: There is a full tribe of orcs living in the mountains. This tribe isn't big enough to be mentioned in the DMG, or anywhere else in the book. Let's assume 50 orcs and be done with it.
Goblins: The book states that these goblin clans occupy small outposts throughout the mountains. Multiple clans, and there are always more goblins than orcs, so I invoke the rule of three. 150 goblins.
Trolls: Between the hag Stravalla and her troll and werewolf minions, and the fact that this is an area devoted to heroic tier play, I'm going to assume there are only 30. Any more would be too great a threat for the PC's.
Garrison: The small garrison relies on ballistas and crossbows, and is small compared to Hammerfast. I'm going to estimate 25 dwarves.
Assuming a scattered population of 35 hermits, solo monsters, and other inhabitants, this gives us 620 people living in the area around the mountain.
So that is my final population estimate.
1,200 living in the city
620 living in the area around the city
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