An exercise in NPCs...

[The Shaman]

Ya know, I was thinking this too. 80-90% might be more realistic...but how about we split the different and go "2/3rds"? 1,000 "farmers" to 500 "townsfolk" seems to work...

A goodly portion of those townsfolk can actually be farmers as well, working the fields in the area immediately surrounding Welford, so while they live in the town proper, they can still make their living at the plow.

I didn't see the post immediately before mine in the queue until after I hit submit, so I missed the part about rough terrain on two sides and the lake on a third. A substantial portion of the townsfolk are likely to be fishermen and the community of craftsmen which service them: boatwrights, sail makers, net menders, coopers, merchants selling salt, and so on. (And if you have merchants selling salt, Welford will likely have a salt warehouse or two - might be time to homebrew a salt golem, or an salt-crystal earth elemental variant.)

So Welford has one hinterland which is the lake, the domain of fishermen and traders, and another which is intensively farmed. The rough terrain can be handled a number of ways; a mature community may terrace the hillsides for additional farmland, but perhaps more likely is pasturage for goats and sheep, orchards - olives, apples, citrus, walnuts, et cetera - or vineyards, or forestry - Welford uses a lot of wood, for charcoal, boats, barrels for storing salted fish, et cetera. This population will be even smaller and more decentralized than the farmers and fishermen in Welford proper or the farming hinterland of the town. If they are prosperous enough to produce a surplus for trade, you could have a tannery for leather hides, storage tanks for olive oil or wine, and so on in Welford proper.

I always take into consideration that, regardless of the split, people will eventually, more and more, gravitate towards "the town" and the ammenities/convenience thereof...

Penniless and starving in an alley isn't an amenity, nor is it particularly convenient.

People move to town if there's work to be had there, and in most cases that requires a thriving class of craftspeople and merchants producing a tradeable surplus of goods and a trading hinterland in which those goods are in demand. Absent that, farming or itinerant laboring must provide, and the latter will likely move around a lot - they're going to be Welford's underclass.

DANG that's a lot of work! lol. I hadn't really thought of it like this, but yes.

"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred."

Your spread of the community is legitimate and one I would happily use/how I see it. I was just thinking in terms of "the whole valley/community is Welford." But yes, at the very least "Welfordtown" versus the surrounding farmlands seems appropriate.

This has long been a pet peeve of mine with many published fantasy settings - a town, or worse, a city, with a little ring of farms around it and a day's journey to the next settlement. The gorge of the economic geographer in me rises . . .

It is more work, but you can also have some fun with it. In Lower Welford is a notable brewer, producer of the most popular ales in Welford; one of the Welford merchants actually trades the brewer's surplus to the other towns on the lake, and they're doing well enough that a barrel of the brewer's best is sent each year to an important lord or magnate in Brightmoon to further burnish their reputations. In Welford-on-Welstream there's a shrine devoted to an important local deity, and each year the merchants of Welford make a pilgrimmage to the site, leading a long procession of merchants, craftspeople, musicians, clerics, and so on, bearing some sort of relic, waving banners and showing off their wealth and status at a great feast following the procession. In Eastford, an apple tree is said to have grown from the seeds of a core tossed off by a local hero before he went on to his glory (or doom) - knights may be found under the tree, holding a vigil before beginning a quest. And strangers are warned to stay away from Welford-by-the-Wood - druids control the village and are rumored to seek sacrifices from among passers-by.

Well, there's a thing. This is a community, kinda "out and away" from other, more structured, lands. There really aren't "wealthy townsfolk." A few well-to-do (for the area) local merchants perhaps. But basically, the community sustains itself with craftsmen and farmers, maybe a "bit" of trading with the other lake towns...but noone is really "wealthy."

A handful of merchants, a moneylender, a couple of properous farmers, the rich mercer, a boatwright, the head priest of a most important temple in town (likely the deity of lakes and waters) - there's the core of your watch, them and their servants or journeymen. It's a source of considerable prestige.

Btw, did you know that's what is portrayed in Rembrandt's De Nachtwacht?

I don't know if any of this is helpful or not, but I hope you can get some use out of it.

 

[S'mon]

)This has long been a pet peeve of mine with many published fantasy settings - a town, or worse, a city, with a little ring of farms around it and a day's journey to the next settlement. The gorge of the economic geographer in me rises . . .
.

The area of my parents' house in the Scottish Highlands on the edge of the Grampian Mountains is a lot like that, but it's very marginal terrain. Obviously on a flat fertile plain people will cover the whole plain, like we learned in Geography class.

The medieval rural norm was village - fields - waste - fields - village, with the Wasteland between the villages being important as it provided wood for burning, rough ground for grazing, and so on. But the villages wouldn't be much over 4 miles apart, not D&D style 20 miles+. In extreme marginal areas like the Scottish Highlands you do get areas where habitations can be up to about 10 miles apart, nestled in the the most sheltered valley, sited on a rare good water source in a dry badlands area, etc. Beyond that point sedentary life becomes impossible and if there are any inhabitants they'll be nomadic or semi-nomadic. An isolated point of light 30+ miles from any neighbours will either wink out, or expand to fill the desolate areas.

 

[S'mon]

As for 10% of the population being militia, that's based on DMG (AD&D) indeed, but it was meant as a max, not a norm, I believe.

If this settlement of 1500 is self-ruling and has to look to its own defence then I think every able-bodied adult male will need to be a warrior, and I'd stat them as such as per 3e DMG, which AIR says that "in harsh lands where conflict is common" the bulk of able-bodied adult males will be Warrior-1s not Commoner-1s. My model here would be the smaller city states of Classical Greece. Middle-class citizens who can provide heavy arms & armour will serve as infantry. The wealthiest who can afford horses will serve as a small cavalry detachment. The poor will have slings, darts etc and serve as skirmishers - as they're free men defending their own land they'll be a lot more reliable than feudal peasantry or serfs forced to serve as disposable spear infantry. I'd suggest maybe:

10% wealthy - Light cavalry.
50% middle class - Heavy infantry.
40% poor - Skirmishers.

This model was quite widespread, and could combine with feudalism (peasants support a heavy cavalry warrior class) in a mixed society, as opposed to the purer feudalism of medieval France. In Ireland the Skirmishers were called Kerns. In Germanic tribal societies the middle class were Landsmenn, the Thrall serfs sometimes fought as spear-carriers along feudal lines. In feudal England some middle class free men survived as the Yeomen, noted for their command of the Bill as well as eventually the Longbow.

 

[The Shaman]

The medieval rural norm was village - fields - waste - fields - village, with the Wasteland between the villages being important as it provided wood for burning, rough ground for grazing, and so on. But the villages wouldn't be much over 4 miles apart, not D&D style 20 miles+.

Yup, and often quite a bit less as the Middle Ages shaded into the Renaissance.

In extreme marginal areas like the Scottish Highlands you do get areas where habitations can be up to about 10 miles apart, nestled in the the most sheltered valley, sited on a rare good water source in a dry badlands area, etc.

Same thing in the Himalayas, same thing in coastal Alaska or Greenland, same thing in the Great Basin.

The key being, these settlements must be relatively small. Sizeable towns and cities - not so much. These small settlements are also strongly affected by changes in their environment - a couple of years of drought in an arid land, and they could be abandoned in no time.

Beyond that point sedentary life becomes impossible and if there are any inhabitants they'll be nomadic or semi-nomadic. An isolated point of light 30+ miles from any neighbours will either wink out, or expand to fill the desolate areas.

Yup again.

 

[S'mon]

Yup, and often quite a bit less as the Middle Ages shaded into the Renaissance.

I had a look at parts of rural England where the medieval settlement patterns have survived. Distance between villages varies from about 4 miles in east-Anglia where the land was marshy and villages sat on high ground, to about 2 miles in fertile rolling farmland like Kent. On rich alluvial plains they can be closer still, perhaps a mile or so, or the villages can grow much larger without becoming true 'towns' - wood for burning can then be a big problem, with people resorting to dung fires instead. Conversely in lower-fertility areas villages are smaller and market towns could have less than a thousand people.

 

[The Shaman]

I had a look at parts of rural England where the medieval settlement patterns have survived. Distance between villages varies from about 4 miles in east-Anglia where the land was marshy and villages sat on high ground, to about 2 miles in fertile rolling farmland like Kent. On rich alluvial plains they can be closer still, perhaps a mile or so, or the villages can grow much larger without becoming true 'towns' - wood for burning can then be a big problem, with people resorting to dung fires instead. Conversely in lower-fertility areas villages are smaller and market towns could have less than a thousand people.

I was thinking of France along the Loire River - very densely settled, by agrarian community standards, by the sixteenth century, once the English were sent packing and Plague outbreaks became less frequent.

Auvergne, on the other hand, is closer to the Scottish Highlands - small villages nestled in valleys.

But I think we're drifting away from the original poster's question.

 

[steeldragons]

But I think we're drifting away from the original poster's question.

Just a scooch. hahaha. S'all good though.

But I like all of the demographics type stuff...and enjoy a degree of "realism" in my world/game...I just don't go too crazy with it for simplicity's sake.

I'm just showing my usual (and I think reasonable and generally consistent) amount of NPCs for the characters to come across in a given area. For that, I need a tot. population for the region...even if I don't go into breakdowns of town- v. countryfolk, merchants v. farmers v. craftsmen.

That's all interesting topics, and stuff to delve into for a given area that a party will be spending a bunch of time in, but for my own DMing sanity, find a basic framework of local "economy" is generally sufficient to sate inquisitive PCs...if adventure/exploration takes them into deeper detail/specifics, those will get worked out as needed.

I do keep certain guidelines in mind, as you bring up Shaman, an "urban" population requires a number of "food producers" larger than the population "in town" to keep it going...even taking into account some level of magical aid (which I don't believe I have ever incorporated to explain food production...warrants thought)

I do think a 1/3 to 2/3rds breakdown sounds reasonable...though I have no doubt your 80-90% statistic is historically/realistically accurate.

But, bottom line, for the generating of NPCs for a particular populated area, I really just need the number of the population and a simple mental picture of how things work in that region to generate some relatively simple/reasonable background for those NPCs.

Eg. Not make a Miller in a countryside with no mill...or no grain. Having an NPC of a certain race in a realm where they've never been seen/thought of as legend. Making a prominent silversmith...when the only mines in the region have iron and gold. A priest of the sky goddess in a mountain mining village. Whatever it is.

So I guess, more specifically, I need a tot. population, an understanding of the resources of the community (mining, farming, crafts,...arms? magic? etc.) and the local economic and status spread (is the village affluent, comfortable, sustaining, scraping by? Is town X making hay or getting screwed by the merchants from city Y -or local lord?)

Also, Shaman, I really like your ideas for the various "burgs" that make up "Welford" and their interaction. I will definitely be breaking up my regions on a more "local" level as you suggest.

--SD

 

[steeldragons]

The leveled PC's seem heavy on fighters and clerics. That makes sense to be the primary classes, but it seemed like a lot of clerics unless this is a pilgramage site or something. I'd mix up the classes a bit more, and have some classed characters whose role is not "community priest" or "community security" force -- a few more folks like the witch who have their own motivations unrelated to official town business. That will give you more adventure hooks and "character" for the NPC's.

I just want to address this briefly if I might. Yes, it does seem they are all fighters and clerics...but, that's what fits/makes sense for this area.

As stated, there is next to no crime, so I nixed the idea of a low level thief or two. They wouldn't have anything to do...and in a town where pretty much everyone knows everyone (or thinks they know), they'd be easily caught and expunged.

Similarly, while the game world of Orea is "magic heavy" as a whole, in that arcane magic is a known fact of life, it is not universally "common" from place to place. Welford is not a particularly "magic heavy" community. 1) because they are fairly secluded and 2)because they are not so far removed from a couple of very highly magical areas...those interested in the sorcerous arts have places they can (and want to) go someplace "better" than Welford to engage in their studies.

So, even adding the single low-level mage in the apothecary was a bit of a stretch (I reasoned he was a "dabbler", who after some limited adventuring decided it wasn't for him and was happy to resettle into quiet -read as "safe/monster-free"- hometown life).

What are important to a simple primarily farming/fishing community?

Personal defense/security...which we've established is not so huge a concern for Welford...and meeting the "spiritual -which often translate to temporal- needs" of its inhabitants. The leader of the clergy is a priest of the goddess of nature, the harvest and weather...the most important things to the majority of the local community.

The other deities with clerics are for healing, knowledge/the mind (relevant to/for the Green Witch), and the god of music.

Though no technically "classed" clerics exist for them, reverence is also paid through the seasons to the deities of: water (i.e. lakes), guardianship, the sun, the patron god of smiths & craftsmen (including brewing/wine-making/distilling) and the goddess of love and spring (twin sister of the god of music/gambling/autumn).

So, at least for the region of the Laklans, and the hamlet of Welford specifically, fighters and clerics (possibly a smattering of rangers and druids) are what are going to be found significantly more than other classes...they are/that's what "makes sense" for that community.

Now, a similarly sized town in the magocratic realms of R'Hath, out of the 15 classed NPCs, you can bet there would be several more mages than clerics or fighters.

It's a matter, to my mind, of the internal logic of the world...even if it doesn't provide the widest possible options for the PCs to encounter.

Obviously, a larger town or city, with many more types of people, businesses and organizations to be found, the classes would be much more diverse.

Just how I look at it.
--Steel Dragons

 

[The Shaman]

But I like all of the demographics type stuff...

I like to think through the demographics because it suggests ideas to me when I get down to the level of creating npcs for an area. If a town is surrounded by steep slopes covered with olive orchards and grazed by goats, then that tells me that the most influential merchants are olive oil exporters or wheat importers. It tells me that cheese and mutton are common foods and bread is expensive, so that bakers are few but important in the community, and that cheap leather goods are plentiful, so leather workers are common and probably not particularly skilled. It tells me that there's a small luxury business producing soap, so the soap maker is likely to be a wealthy, perhaps cultured fellow.

Once I know what the important industries are, I have a sense of who the town leaders are likely to be - they come from what passes for the local aristocracy - which deities are venerated - and therefore which temples and priests are significant in local politics - and so on.

It also helps with the physical descriptions of the town itself; olive oil is stored in large underground tanks before it is shipped, so that gives me a number of buildings in town housing presses and tanks, which makes for an interesting place to sneak about or stage a fight. Soap is made in large vats and poured into bricks for shipping - another interesting place for a fight to break out. That means I might have one of the olive oil merchants or the soap maker be involved in something nefarious, or at least scheming in local affairs, so that adventurers may decide to seek them out at some point.

Then I fantasy it up. Perhaps the soap maker is an alchemist with some low-level magical ability, for example, or maybe the soap makers are an order of monks who support their chapter house with their trade - Shaolin Soap, anyone?

It's my personal way of processing information when I think about places in my campaign world.

 

[Stormonu]

Hmm. That gets me thinking about my "adventuring town" of Edgeridge that I used back in my 2E days.

Edgeridge started out as a trading depot near the edge of the Thunder Mountains run by the Tabalt family. Over the years, as a supporting community grew up around the depot, a manor/fortress/barracks was built nearby (by the Prentiss family) to protect the residents and provide guards for caravans using the mountain pass. After a particularly vicious war with goblins from the mountains, the town was resettled some miles to the west, away from the foot of the mountain. The town name of Edgeridge stuck.

The town is a kick-off point for those who look for treasures among the old ruins to the west or in the goblin and troll-infested mountain. There's also work for those willing to act as caravan guards and there is an ancient tale of a dungeon called "Hellsgate" in the wilderness nearby, said to be a backdoor to the treasure vault of the god of the underworld - but protected by some right nasty creatures.

The population is maybe 150-200 citizens and perhaps a score of transients looking for adventure-type work. Main structures in the town are Blue Masey's Inn, The Temple of Harp (god of song and creation), The Prentiss Mansion, The Tabalt Trading House and an open (tent) market.

Prominent members include:

Blue Massey (F5) - a former adventurer turned barkeep with a jagged scar over his left eye. He gets his nickname from the blue color of his blind left eye. Claims he lost it to "the biggest bear in the nearby wilds", and claims its still out in the wilderness somewhere. Blue Massey is also the town's blacksmith, and he is very skilled at making swords, many which he displays (behind the bar and out of the reach of brawlers) in his inn.

Goodlund (C5) - A rotund, cheerful priest who is often having to apologize for his friend Phroper's over-enthusiasm in promoting the faith of Harp in Edgeridge

Phroper [Fro-fur] (C3) - A devout priest of Harp who is also the town crier - except on Worship Day, when he makes the rounds about town, announcing the start of worship services

Sir Milestone Prentiss (P5) - Leader of the Prentiss household and supplier of mercenary troops (F1's to F3) for caravans and responsible for the town's defenses. He also has been given authority to act as judge for local crimes. Prentiss holds his staff to high standards and deals with Tabalt in a very professional, if cool, manner.

Herbert Tabalt (Ro7) - Leader of the Tabalt Trading House. He has an intense dislike of the Prentiss household and hires his own non-Prentiss guards for caravan duty. He encourages his staff to harass the members of the Prentiss household whenever they can get away with it.

Rictor (W7) - A member of the Klinnian Mapping Guild, Rictor sells minor magical trinkets to caravan guards and adventurers. He also has an extensive collection of maps of the area, which he copies and sells to interested parties, as well as buys original maps brought to him. There are rumours that Rictor is seeking a map and a group with which to raid Hellsgate, if it can ever be found.

Percival Dezonright (F3) - Sheriff for Edgeridge and eldest son of the mayor, he tends to defer to the Prentiss family in legal matters, which Herbert despises. He has five deputies (F2) to assist him, but usually only two are on duty at any given time. When real trouble breaks out, he has been known to draw Phroper into helping and has in several times in the past deputized adventurers to help him with goblin raids or other dangers in town.

Mayor Albert Dezonright (Noble 5) - The Dezonrights have held mayorship over Edgeridge for over three generations thanks to a charter drafted up by the Prentiss and Tabalt families shortly after the town's relocation away from the mountain (neither family wanted the other to take power, and the Dezonrights proved to be fine and acceptable mediators). Albert, like his father, is very adept at playing the two powerhouses - Prentiss and Tabalt - against each other to when he needs to get his way. Albert's time is generally filled with keeping peace between the two families and fishing. Though he does handle dealings with the larger government away from Edgeridge, this is generally a task that takes a day or two out of his month.

Ezren d'Dezonright (Ro 3) - Albert's assistant, Ezren is secretly taking bribes from Tabalt in return for slanting policy in Tabalt's favor as well keeping a throng of hoodlums (Ro 1) from which he takes a cut of their purse from thefts in the tent market. He thinks Albert is a slothful fool and has managed to keep his activities secret and avoid Milestone's or Percival's wary eye.

Rozzizi K'Evels (Ro 5) - A successful merchant transplanted from far Simera, Rozzizi has become the respected leader of the Free Merchants in the tent market. He is one of the few non-aligned merchants bold enough to stand firm against Tabalt's attempts to control the town's trade. Still, after a near-successful attempt at his life, Rozzizi sleeps with his jambaya in his hand, or with his hand on it in his belt. He employs two imposing mamaluke guards as his personal bodyguards.

Sutan [Soo-tan] (Ba 3) - Standing an imposing seven feet tall, covered in swirling tattoos and completely hairless, many whisper that this mamaluke bodyguard of Rozzizi has stone giant blood in his veins. The mamaluke does not speak, having had his tongue cut out for unknown crimes while he was a prisoner in Simera, before Rozzizi freed him. He favors a pair of ivory khopeshes as his weapon of choice.

Juma [Joo-maa] (Ba 2/Mnk 1) - As Sutan is tall, Juma is small, though lithe. Rozzizi often calls him "little brother", despite the fact it is obvious they are not related. This tatooed mamaluke has been trained in the martial arts of far Spi Dak Su as well as the mamaluke styles of fighting and is deceptively deadly with his bare hands as well as with the pair of kukri daggers he keeps sheathed on his back.

As you can probably see, I approach things a little differently than Steel - I'm more interested in colorful characters than hard numbers of specific individuals and levels. I tend to fill in the populace with whatever interests me (and sounds cool) rather that trying to set up a formula for the levels and numbers of NPCs in a given area. (Nothing wrong with the former, I just don't like limiting myself, though I've got nothing against trying to establish a baseline to work from).