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

[Coroc]

Waterdeep has an extensive sewage system

...

The thing with the extensive sewage system is so overused in fantasy that it is a trope meme.

Most reknown fantasy towns with official maps of the sewer system would provide almost drinking water quality down there due to the sheer amount of water diluting the excrements

 

[tetrasodium]

The thing with the extensive sewage system is so overused in fantasy that it is a trope meme.

Most reknown fantasy towns with official maps of the sewer system would provide almost drinking water quality down there due to the sheer amount of water diluting the excrements

Two of them actually & it even mentions topical stuff in one
Absurdly Spacious Sewer

"In fantasy or historical fiction, this trope becomes anachronistic. While the Romans did have a sophisticated sewage system for the city of Rome and other major cities across the Empire note , the system was too technologically complex for either contemporary civilizations or successor civilizations to replicate. From the Fall of Rome until the Industrial Revolution, the preferred method of waste removal was pouring it into ditches in the street where the rain would wash it away (sooner or later). However, this could be justified by fantasy societies (such as dwarves) that are more industrialized than their medieval human counterparts. "
Dungeon Town The rabit hole of underground stuff tropes go pretty deep from there.

 

[Beleriphon]

that literally has zero relevance to any of what I said, nor does it address any of those problems you selectively quoted. The Tippyverse has widespread create food boxes & permanent teleport circles everywhere not FR.

I have address what you said, I'm agreeing that it makes no sense from a purely logical standpoint, but the authors have picked some things to try and explain it. It is entirely arbitrary based on what the designs and authors want Waterdeep to be used for in the setting, and that's some akin to mid-19th Century London, just look at the art for the city it doesn't look like William Shakespeare's London, it looks like Charles Dickens' London. As such the authors have picked population numbers that make what we see in Dickensian novels, which is entirely arbitrary and doesn't make any sense give the available land area as you point out and I happen to agree with. However, that's the number so we're left with three options: 1) rationalize it, 2) change it, or 3) realize most people will never look at it closely enough to ever care.

As for my other points, I'm working from the rationalize perspective, while you're working from the change it perspective. In a game, I would very much operate from the point of option 3. Waterdeep is a huge, heavily populated city that acts as one of the world's largest trade hubs acting as a trade point between Evermeet, north and south along the Sword Coast, east into the Heartlands, as well as north into The North (so Silverymoon and the dwarf citadels). It is supposed to be urban, metropolitan, and advanced for the setting with a population that supports those notions. What that population is going to be is entirely arbitrary. Maybe the 2 million people is how many people are in the city at any given time rather than the permanent residents.

 

[tetrasodium]

mil figure comes from

I have address what you said, I'm agreeing that it makes no sense from a purely logical standpoint, but the authors have picked some things to try and explain it. It is entirely arbitrary based on what the designs and authors want Waterdeep to be used for in the setting, and that's some akin to mid-19th Century London, just look at the art for the city it doesn't look like William Shakespeare's London, it looks like Charles Dickens' London. As such the authors have picked population numbers that make what we see in Dickensian novels, which is entirely arbitrary and doesn't make any sense give the available land area as you point out and I happen to agree with. However, that's the number so we're left with three options: 1) rationalize it, 2) change it, or 3) realize most people will never look at it closely enough to ever care.

As for my other points, I'm working from the rationalize perspective, while you're working from the change it perspective. In a game, I would very much operate from the point of option 3. Waterdeep is a huge, heavily populated city that acts as one of the world's largest trade hubs acting as a trade point between Evermeet, north and south along the Sword Coast, east into the Heartlands, as well as north into The North (so Silverymoon and the dwarf citadels). It is supposed to be urban, metropolitan, and advanced for the setting with a population that supports those notions. What that population is going to be is entirely arbitrary. Maybe the 2 million people is how many people are in the city at any given time rather than the permanent residents.

The rationalize perspective is good & all, but it goes back to the kind of "because reasons" & "$organization could do x but don't" type stuff the OP & others mentioned. You can't justify all the ubiquitous superfriends organizations & power brokers that seemingly exist in every gas station sized or larger town yet do nothing to solve the problems of waterdeep without changing them to actually do things. That might be great if the emerald enclave* took it upon themselves to manage sanitation everywhere & the harpers* took it upon themselves to provide Expanse type basic in many places... but nobody is doing those things & there's no reason to because the economy is not advanced enough & still pretty much a manorial economy.

Also keep in mind that Waterdeep is ~5.25 square miles in size while the greater london area & inner/outer london where that 1.9 mil figure comes from is something like 115 times that size at 607 square miles. If you put population densities 10x todays mumbai/manilla in that 5.25 square mile block you don't get Charles Dickens' London... you get the worst overpopulated dystopian nightmare ever imagined. Waterdeep only needs a few tens of thousands to get that kind of density because the city is not as large & making the wards that size turns it into something else even more nonsensical because many of the wards don't make sense as disparate borough sized cities.

*I just picked two factions at random

 

[Beleriphon]

mil figure comes from
The rationalize perspective is good & all, but it goes back to the kind of "because reasons" & "$organization could do x but don't" type stuff the OP & others mentioned. You can't justify all the ubiquitous superfriends organizations & power brokers that seemingly exist in every gas station sized or larger town yet do nothing to solve the problems of waterdeep without changing them to actually do things. That might be great if the emerald enclave* took it upon themselves to manage sanitation everywhere & the harpers* took it upon themselves to provide Expanse type basic in many places... but nobody is doing those things & there's no reason to because the economy is not advanced enough & still pretty much a manorial economy.

Also keep in mind that Waterdeep is ~5.25 square miles in size while the greater london area & inner/outer london where that 1.9 mil figure comes from is something like 115 times that size at 607 square miles. If you put population densities 10x todays mumbai/manilla in that 5.25 square mile block you don't get Charles Dickens' London... you get the worst overpopulated dystopian nightmare ever imagined. Waterdeep only needs a few tens of thousands to get that kind of density because the city is not as large & making the wards that size turns it into something else even more nonsensical because many of the wards don't make sense as disparate borough sized cities.

*I just picked two factions at random

I full understand that. Waterdeep with super high poluation density looks the Kowloon Walled City without some sembelance of sensibility. I can see Waterdeep and its attached farming communities being that high. It is the leading city in the Lord's Alliance.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Are we really arguing about this still? Time to pull out the big guns - actual population figures from printed sources:

"More than 100,000" (1e, 1987, Cyclopedia of the Realms from the Gray Box Set, p. 87)
"Rarely falls below 122,000 beings" (1e, 1987, Waterdeep and the North, p. 12)
"122,000 sentients" (2e, 1994, Adventurers' Guide to the City from the City of Splendors box set, p. 4)
"132,661" for the city and "1,347,840" for the entire region controlled by Waterdeep (3e, 2001, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, p 178)
"132,661" (3e, 2005, City of Spendors: Waterdeep, p. 6)

There is no population given in the 4e FRCS, or in the 5e SCAG or Dragon Heist.

So, where is this 2,000,000 coming from? As far as I can tell, only from Realms - Waterdeep | Dungeons & Dragons. So, what does that "up to two million" actually entail? Given the descriptions of the city in both 4e and 5e products, the size and architecture of the city hasn't changed all that much, certainly not so much to entail over fifteen times the population repeatedly reported in previous editions. Granted, the Field Ward is new, and crowded, but, again, no description of it could possibly be interpreted that it could house 1.5 million extra people in a few acres; at best it likely adds around 10 to 20k more to the population. So, again, the 2,000,000? The 3e FRCS answers this - it's the population of the region as a whole. In the century since that population figure, the area north to Amphail and east to the Dessarin River has added a few 100k, which isn't an unreasonable increase for a century, even with multiple magical catastrophes (Waterdeep, being at least minimally more stable compared to just about everywhere else, probably drew its fair share of refugees, above and beyond natural population growth).

tl;dr: The city housed 120 - 130k previously; there isn't any sign of new, Sharn-like, towers; the population of the region as whole previously was 1.4 - 1.5 million; so the 2 million must refer to the current population of the region as a whole as well.

 

[Beleriphon]

tl;dr: The city housed 120 - 130k previously; there isn't any sign of new, Sharn-like, towers; the population of the region as whole previously was 1.4 - 1.5 million; so the 2 million must refer to the current population of the region as a whole as well.

As many seem to have originally suspected. So the city proper might be pushing upwards of 250K, with the rest of the population somewhere outside the walls but within the control of Waterdeep, while not being another town or city.

On that note, I really wish more stuff differentiated between region and city.

 

[Zardnaar]

As many seem to have originally suspected. So the city proper might be pushing upwards of 250K, with the rest of the population somewhere outside the walls but within the control of Waterdeep, while not being another town or city.

On that note, I really wish more stuff differentiated between region and city.

Population is literally half that in most sources.

I live in a city of 120k. Population density was more of course in older time but not that much more.

 

[Beleriphon]

Population is literally half that in most sources.

I live in a city of 120k. Population density was more of course in older time but not that much more.

Half that 100 to 150 years prior the current year in most sources. It was also before the Field Ward was populated, so there's that as well.

I think the number from the FCRS is hilariously accurate though: 132,661. Somebody in Waterdeep counted everybody right down to the last dwarf. The idea of a team of adventurers carrying clip boards and surveys while capturing census data amuses me.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Half that 100 to 150 years prior the current year in most sources. It was also before the Field Ward was populated, so there's that as well.

I think the number from the FCRS is hilariously accurate though: 132,661. Somebody in Waterdeep counted everybody right down to the last dwarf. The idea of a team of adventurers carrying clip boards and surveys while capturing census data amuses me.

Probably some sort of divination magic known only to a few bureaucrats that allowed them to come up with so precise a figure!

As for the population now, I'd say maybe pushing 200k. Even adding the Field Ward only would seem to add some tens of thousands, We'd have to see some major expansion outside the current walls for the city proper population to get much bigger...