Eberron`s internal consistency.

[derelictjay]

I don't know where you thought the population of Sharn was too low, I saw 200,000 and said that big. So I did a quick check over other cities pops. and most of them fell in line with what I thought should be a pseudo-medival population. The problem with a city of that size is how you gonna feed them. I mean, the setting doesn't really make allowances for agricultural development, and from reading the setting it appears to be the old ox and plow system (except they can get a certain house to call in some rain). I mean you would need at least as many people as the city itself to farm enough food for it, let alone feeding the farm hands gathering the fields.

The population of the entire contenent seems good though, just out of a long war, trade routes being distrupted and all. Yeah, it seems about right, you might actually see a baby boom period coming in the following years.

 

[Ottergame]

Remember, Its just a fantasy book, lets not take it too seriously. Population demographics are no that important.

Ah, but the lower the population is, the fewer people you get to kill!

 

[Staffan]

This is a problem with the DMG demographics - you get too many high-level NPCs in smallish cities and 'metropolises' of 25,000; when historical large cities had pops in the 100,000s. Still, what I'm objecting to is not city sizes vs NPC levels, but the absence of rural populations in published worlds. Per the DMG, rural populations in farms & small villages never generate high level NPCs anyway, so you certainly could have more rural population and a realistic urban/rural population ratio (90/10 or so) without getting Realmsian numbers of high level NPCs.

Note that the DMG numbers reflect adult and able population. Children will probably at least double that number.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I have just begun my reading of the campaign setting book and so I'm not fully versed on the numbers, but here are a few things I've been considering while reading this thread.

1.) This is only counting "standard" playing races (humans, half-elves, half-orcs, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, changelings, shifters, warforged, and Khanistar [sp?]). Add in millions of Goblins in the land of their former empire, and at least as many orcs as dwarves (a couple million perhaps) and then throw in a few million other million for "races with a culture" and I'd say 25-30 million is not a hard number to reach (still less than the generally accepted number for medieval europe, however. [38.5 million in 1000 AD]). Also, are warforged even counted? They are living, yes, but since they cannot reproduce, per se, their number is static.

2.) The technology is made for war and so war is more horrible and deadly than can be imagined in any other simlar "medieval" setting. The ability to move troops by lightning rails and airship means a much higher troop movement and rallying. Xerxes 600,000 took a year or more to travel the same distance a like troop number would by lightning rail in a day! I'd daresay that the slaughter was wholesale and that over the course of the conflict, I daresay it easilly reached and exceeded the 1/5th casualty (deaths) rate similar to World War I. That's millions upon millions of people that were not there to have one or more children, etc. etc. The numbers lost to the war would have to be unlike anything we could have considered. 12 million died in WWI (a conflict which lasted for only 4 years...considering that only 1/10th of the troops that participated in WWI were mobilized every 4 years (65 mil in WWI so 6.5 million ever 4 years) and that the casualties were on equal ground that's 30+ million deaths over the course of the conflict simply due to the conflict itself and not the disease, plague, destitution, and other maladies that followed. I could easilly see the deaths for the entire conflict reacing 50 or 60 million! That's more than the population of Europe in 1200 A.D.! (Europe's population was growing at about 10 million every 100 years before that).

3.) The total inhabited land area is most likely not equal to the inhabited land area of Europe. Every square inch of Europe was owned by someone by the start of the middle ages. Khorvairre (sp?) sounds like it has the same inhabited landmass of Brittain and France combined?

Anyway, just some observations to throw into the mix.

 

[Hand of Evil]

So what seems to be a ratio of urban to rural population in Eberron?

Hard to say, not all cities/towns on the map is detailed in the book and from what I see only about 50% of population for an area is in the listed cities.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I have just begun my reading of the campaign setting book and so I'm not fully versed on the numbers, but here are a few things I've been considering while reading this thread.

1.) This is only counting "standard" playing races (humans, half-elves, half-orcs, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, changelings, shifters, warforged, and Khanistar [sp?]). Add in millions of Goblins in the land of their former empire, and at least as many orcs as dwarves (a couple million perhaps) and then throw in a few million other million for "races with a culture" and I'd say 25-30 million is not a hard number to reach (still less than the generally accepted number for medieval europe, however. [38.5 million in 1000 AD]). Also, are warforged even counted? They are living, yes, but since they cannot reproduce, per se, their number is static.

Goblins and hobgoblins are listing in the population of the country, same for Warforged.

 

[TwoSix]

3.) The total inhabited land area is most likely not equal to the inhabited land area of Europe. Every square inch of Europe was owned by someone by the start of the middle ages. Khorvairre (sp?) sounds like it has the same inhabited landmass of Brittain and France combined?

No, Khorvaire is quite a bit bigger than that. Europe (excluding Russia) has a land area of 1.94 million sq. miles. Khorvaire is very roughly 4000 miles by 2500 miles, which is about 10 million sq. miles, and it doesn't have a lot of inland water. For comparison, North America is about 8.2 million sq. miles, not counting inland water. Considering its size, temperate climate, and technological advances, only supporting a population of 25 million is a little ridiculous. There was a big war, true, but before that there was 850 years of peace and prosperity. The population would have exploded in that time. In the 14th century, temperate farmland such as France could support a population density of almost 100 people per sq. mi. Harsher areas typically supported much less (The British Isles only supported 42 people/sq. mi.), but that's counting all the land area, not merely the arable land. A typical sq. mi. of farmland, at medieval technology, will support 180 people. So, Khorvaire has a lot of rough areas, mountainous areas, etc. Non-humans are probably not as prolific as humanity, and the goblinoids probably don't farm very well. So, let's assume Galifarian Khorvaire only supported 40 people per sq. mi, a number less than 14th century England. That means the population of pre-war Khorvaire should have numbered 400 million people. So, the Last War must have wiped out about 370 million people, or 92% of the entire population. Maybe it's just me, but I believe the designers didn't factor in a whole lot of real demographics. Not surprising, because I'm one of like 7 people who really get a kick out of analyzing population patterns. As for me, I'm just going to increase the population about 10-fold, the cities by about 4-5 fold, and feel happy.

All data from Nation Master and Medieval Demographics made Easy.

 

[Express]

No, Khorvaire is quite a bit bigger than that. Europe (excluding Russia) has a land area of 1.94 million sq. miles. Khorvaire is very roughly 4000 miles by 2500 miles, which is about 10 million sq. miles, and it doesn't have a lot of inland water. For comparison, North America is about 8.2 million sq. miles, not counting inland water. Considering its size, temperate climate, and technological advances, only supporting a population of 25 million is a little ridiculous. There was a big war, true, but before that there was 850 years of peace and prosperity. The population would have exploded in that time. In the 14th century, temperate farmland such as France could support a population density of almost 100 people per sq. mi. Harsher areas typically supported much less (The British Isles only supported 42 people/sq. mi.), but that's counting all the land area, not merely the arable land. A typical sq. mi. of farmland, at medieval technology, will support 180 people. So, Khorvaire has a lot of rough areas, mountainous areas, etc. Non-humans are probably not as prolific as humanity, and the goblinoids probably don't farm very well. So, let's assume Galifarian Khorvaire only supported 40 people per sq. mi, a number less than 14th century England. That means the population of pre-war Khorvaire should have numbered 400 million people. So, the Last War must have wiped out about 370 million people, or 92% of the entire population. Maybe it's just me, but I believe the designers didn't factor in a whole lot of real demographics. Not surprising, because I'm one of like 7 people who really get a kick out of analyzing population patterns. As for me, I'm just going to increase the population about 10-fold, the cities by about 4-5 fold, and feel happy.

All data from Nation Master and Medieval Demographics made Easy.

Interesting anlysis, but I just cant make the leap in applying real life methodology to a fantasy world. I mean you can make alot of excuses why the population is low, or just right or whatever. I dont think the designers necessarily ignored population numbers, I think theyre probably low for a reason- so PCs are the stars /shrug.

As for their being 850 years of peace before the war, while Galifar did claim rule of all of the continent, it actual rule didnt extend over it in actuality accirding to the ECS. And there was conflict with Lhazar and Im sure with the monsters in the west especially.

In the end you can do whatever you wish with the numbers, which is the beauty of rpgs.

On a side note- what is the population of Faerun (the western continent of Toril) and Flaeness , just as a comparison?

 

[d4]

...I think theyre probably low for a reason- so PCs are the stars

how does increasing the number of 1st-level commoners take the focus off the PCs?

On a side note- what is the population of Faerun (the western continent of Toril) and Flaeness , just as a comparison?

IIRC, Faerun is a bit closer to "real world" numbers, whereas the Flanaess is as sparsely populated as Eberron, or perhaps even more sparse.

 

[S'mon]

Note that the DMG numbers reflect adult and able population. Children will probably at least double that number.

It doesn't say that anywhere in my 3.0 DMG - are you assuming this because of the "everyone else is a 1st level Commoner" bit?

For Eberron it sounds like increasing the state populations by x10 while leaving the city populations unchanged would give ok results.