D&D 5E Crash-Course On The Forgotten Realms

[Beleriphon]

The ancient city of rome is bigger than waterdeep at about 14km (8.6miles) across

Spoiler: Roma

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It also had running water, public baths, public latrines, & more thanks to the Aquaduct... Waterdeep has wells.. More importantly Rome was the center of an organized empire that managed trade, conducted war, expaded itself, built roads, maintained roads etc. Waterdeep not so much. The Roman Empire had better roads than FR & the city of Rome could not have existed at the timewith out those roads. I may have overlooked it, but nobody in Faerun is building or maintaining roads llike the romans did. Rome had that population because it did all those things. Other huge trade hub cities at the time were things like (Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Ephesus, Salona etc.) had populations of about a few hundred thousand & waterdeep should be similar at best. Faerun being isolated nations little more than manorial towns leaning so heavily on the bones of past empires really hurts it when it comes to plausibly supporting cities like waterdeep.

That's all true, but Waterdeep is also has magic, its not quite Eberron level magic, but its not exactly uncommon by and large. Despite the veneer of faux medival setting, Waterdeep is much more like a late renaissance city than medieval.

Its also ignoring the Lord's Alliance and other institutions that more or less act as nation state federations.

Your target choice of the 1900ish population explosion of those cities ignore what happened with high density construction capabilities between 1885 & 1908. The tallest skyscraper between 1785 & 1885 was 52 feet tall. From 1885 to 1889 it was nearly 3 times that at 138 feet tall. Then again 1889-1908 it was 550feet tall... They just kept growing in height from there. Population density exploded because people started building up rather than out & more importantly things like freight trains& soon after cars/trucks became ubiquitous for bringing produce, raw materials, & finished products into, out of, & across those booming cities.... faerun doesn't have any of that.

Again, true but you're ignoring that in 1801 the UK was a largely agrarian society and the Industrial Revolution was just barely getting started. So between 1700 and 1801 the population had nearly doubled to 1 million people.

Having a plausible population in Waterdeep does not hurt Waterdeep or FR, in a lot of ways it actually helps it by removing some of the "don't look over here" handwaiving the OP touched on.

A population of over 1 million people isn't unreasonable for Waterdeep, it just requires understanding 1) magic suffuses the city to some degree and 2) the Golden Fields outside the city are permanently blessed by Chauntea (so they alwasys produce bumper crops, and crops grow faster).

 

[Zardnaar]

2 million population is very silly outside China and Waterdeep isn't big enough anyway.

130k is a good number.

Sharn should really be extraplanar or have some way of magically feeding itself.

Million plus cities were rare outside China. You're looking at large rich imperial capitals. Rome, Alexandria, Baghdad, Constantinople, Cairo.

There's no real life equivalent of Waterdeep in the Middle Ages or Renaissance. It's an upscaled Lubeck or Hamburg, it's smaller than Venice, bigger than Paris, London, etc. Italian city state is probably the best comparison.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's all true, but Waterdeep is also has magic, its not quite Eberron level magic, but its not exactly uncommon by and large. Despite the veneer of faux medival setting, Waterdeep is much more like a late renaissance city than medieval.

Its also ignoring the Lord's Alliance and other institutions that more or less act as nation state federations.



Again, true but you're ignoring that in 1801 the UK was a largely agrarian society and the Industrial Revolution was just barely getting started. So between 1700 and 1801 the population had nearly doubled to 1 million people.



A population of over 1 million people isn't unreasonable for Waterdeep, it just requires understanding 1) magic suffuses the city to some degree and 2) the Golden Fields outside the city are permanently blessed by Chauntea (so they alwasys produce bumper crops, and crops grow faster).

Cities in the time period were generally 10% of the population of the surrounding area.

Waterdeep could feed more people but not fit in enough people without apartments which the Romans had. People in Waterdeep aren't living in extradimensional spaces enmasse.

Goldenfields probably exports from Waterdeep. It's similar to the Baltic grain trade and cities in the Hanseatic League. Agree with it being more Renaissance than medieval.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

The Majority of Waterdeeps 2 Mill population still does not live within the walls of the city. I would estimate that at more like 200 to 300 K. Which makes perfect sense for the advantages Waterdeep has over historical large cities.

Feel like you guys are being a bit harsh on Waterdeep and it's capabilities.

 

[Salthorae]

Waterdeep could feed more people but not fit in enough people without apartments

Waterdeep has apartments

Class C Buildings: The great majority of buildings in Waterdeep are Class C - the tall row houses that line the streets to heights up to five stories. Row houses usually have shops on the ground floor, with offices.or apartments above that. While not always multi-story row houses, this class includes many of the better-kept taverns and rooming houses in the city as well.

 

[Zardnaar]

Waterdeep has apartments

Sure but but Rome had a lot and was a lot bigger. Waterdeep is a lot smaller. Rome also had suburbs like it's port. Rome was also notorious for being crowded.

Romans had concrete.

 

[Salthorae]

Sure but but Rome had a lot and was a lot bigger. Waterdeep is a lot smaller. Rome also had suburbs like it's port. Rome was also notorious for being crowded.

Romans had concrete.

Waterdeep has magic, and skyscrapers.

 

[Zardnaar]

Waterdeep has magic, and skyscrapers.

Living statues aren't that big, they've down sized them. Magic only goes so far since there's no indication of en masse extradimensional living.

Or at goldenfields even if plant growth can boost yields the chokepoint will be labour unless they have magic tractors and labour.

Goldenfields is also fairly small. Even if it's twice as productive as RL it will still be a drop in the bucket compared to RL France.

Yes I have worked on a farm harvesting vegetables.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sharn should really be extraplanar or have some way of magically feeding itself.

Those towers go up a mile because that little manhattan sized island is a manifest zone linked to Syrania, not "Because magic". It's the only city like that in eberron because they literally can not build another. It also has a gigantic cove (along with another city extending there), a river delta, & a lightning rail line to bring things in & sky coaches (mini flying airships that only work in sharn basically) to transport people & goods around the city itself. Waterdeep has a port, a river and none of that.

@Salthorae Those 5 story apartments are on par with the tallest buildings of the 16th century & probably earlier just not recorded on that wikipedia page. those apartments housing 2 million people in an area 3.8x1.5 miles in size who are fed by horse drawn wagon & boat imports just doesn't add up... especially considering they poop in a bucket or a hole in the ground

@Beleriphon "That's all true, but Waterdeep is also has magic, " Hold on there sparky, this is Forgotten realms not khorvaire or blue age Athas. The only settings worse at applying the use of magic to every day problems are the ones that don't even have it & maybe greyhawk. "Because magic" doesn't solve these kinds of problems without turning FR & waterdeep into something extremely different from what it is due to the fact that it's never applied by anyone but a tiny few. There's still the fact that waterdeep isn't managing any empire like ancient rome was & basically has no industry to speak of that doesn't also exist in almost any town big enough to have a map PoI making the need for all of those people to exist so close rather dubious.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Waterdeep has a ton of industry what are you talking about.