How big are your cities?

[Kilmore]

If there's one way that homebrewers differ, it is in the size of their cities. Some are comfortable in sparsely settled frontiers or primitive unsettled times, and other prefer to run games in vast cities that encompass worlds and planes. Which one are you?

After voting, let us know how your society supports itself. What does the citizens of your ubercity eat and how does it get to them? How do the people of Sagebrushville get specialized items that cannot be manufactured in small villages?

 

[Melan]

This has been true for all of my homebrew worlds thus far.

I prefer frontier worlds with a few large cities and many small, independent settlements. With the alarming frequency of wandering monster attacks in your average D&D world, it is a small miracle countries could exist! Of course, there are massive ruins and lost civilizations to explore.

Communities, or at least the small ones, are self sufficient. This also means that they are fairly ill equipped and all grownups must be able to fight in case someone or something decides to take your humble belongings and your life.

Large cities always have access to resources, including food (otherwise, they would be short-lived) and equipment.

 

[Dragongirl]

I am sorry, but it must be done . . . It is not the size that counts.


Personally in home brew I like to have a couple very large cities in the world and a very large number of small towns and villages. The big cities are usually the capitals of large empires since it takes a great deal of work to such a city going in the generally low tech worlds I deal with.

 

[Severion]

In my current Omega World campaign the small town/domed city raises livestock and grows mutated "hemp". There are no large cities as yet, but the Cryptic Alliances may be sources of more specialized items.

 

[seasong]

Varies wildly by setting. The d20 campaign I'm running right now puts the biggest city at about 200,000, with everything else scaling down from there.

I almsot always try to obey the rule of second largest city being half the size of the largest, third largest city being 1/3 the size of the largest, etc.

Thus, in my current campaign, you can expect to see cities of 200K, 100K, 66K, 50K, 40K, 33K, 28K, 25K, etc.

 

[Chimera]

Depends heavily on what Time Frame IMHCW, but at the later periods, one can expect to find heavily settled regions with populations in the low millions and cities of anywhere from 30,000 to 200,000, with those over 100k being infrequent at best.

In the earlier periods, a city of 25,000 is a huge metropolis. Many "nations" don't have that many people in total!

In the "frontier" (ie, dangerous and/or less settled) regions, a city of 5,000 or more would be a defacto regional capital.

I don't like "sparse" worlds like one I played in years ago where the "capital" of one nation was a town of 1,000 and there was only one other settlement, a village of 300 located @200 miles inland. Nor do I see the logic in small hamlets surviving in remote and dangerous places. One Dragon or a couple of Trolls and they're all just the latest meal. No no no...in remote places, there are fewer, larger settlements, if only for mutual defense.

 

[Paradigm]

Here is something you guys may want to read:

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

This site explains the historical model. Like on the frontier, there would be fewer settlements, larger for protection. Also, this is the European model. Places like Greece, the Persian Gulf, India and China would be larger because the ancient civilizations basically continued and have better infrastructure.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

If there's one way that homebrewers differ, it is in the size of their cities. Some are comfortable in sparsely settled frontiers or primitive unsettled times, and other prefer to run games in vast cities that encompass worlds and planes. Which one are you?

Did someone call my name?

Urbis, the setting I've been developing ever since it was rejected by the WotC Setting Search features many cities with populations in the millions - the biggest known city, Atalus, has about 5,600,000 people within the city proper.

In fact, justifing cities this large within the D&D framework of rules was one of the main design goals of Urbis. Fortunately, this was rather easy.

It started when I took a look at all the magic within D&D and asked myself: "With all this stuff out there, why do most of the D&D setting still have feudal power structures and settlement patterns?"

Then I had to come up with a reason why rulers would want to build such large cities. Thus, I came up with the concept of Nexus Towers - enchanted towers that can draw upon the life force of all who live near them and convert it into magical energies.

Now we have a nice, magical arms race. If you have a city with Nexus Towers, you can produce lots of magical items or cast really big spells. If you don't, your neighbor who does have them will wipe you out.

If both of you have Nexus Towers, the one with the bigger city tends to win, as he has more people to draw life energy from...

After voting, let us know how your society supports itself. What does the citizens of your ubercity eat and how does it get to them?

The usual - meat for the well-off, gravy for the unwashed masses (though the wealthy can afford some amazing delicacies...).

What's different in Urbis is that the food isn't grown on some mom-and-pop farms, but huge plantations with whole armies of seasonal workers. The growth of the plants is frequently supported by the magic of Nexus Towers as well - there's a spell that effectively casts Plant Growth on a 14-mile radius...

The food goes to the cities either by ship (on canals, rivers, or the ocean) or railways pulled by stone golems (you didn't think these had only uses for combat, did you? ).

How do the people of Sagebrushville get specialized items that cannot be manufactured in small villages?

Same way the people in the city get their food - just in the opposite direction.

Oh, and you can be sure that the city-based mechant cartels make certain that only their wares are sold in even the smallest village...

 

[LostSoul]

Bigger than yours.

 

[scadgrad]

depends...

Depends on which part of Braxus that the campaign is playing in. We are currently adventuring in Brinnismor, in the lands of the feudal kingdom of Abingdon. The cities here are a bit smallish by current FRPG standards with few of the cities having more than 20K-40K inhabitants. The exception is Devonshire, the Jewel of the isles. A major city for international trade, it sports close to 100K in populace. The common Devonite exists on a very simple stable of fish, the occasional chicken, cheese & rich barley bread. Rabbits, pheasants and other small game are often found on the tables of the merchant class. As would be expected, the wealthy members of Devonshire's noble familes have a more robust diet enhanced by delicacies from all around the world.

Throughout the island, the people of Abingdon subsist on a feudal agricultural economic model fueled by the export of wool, lumber and an exceptional variety of barley. Another noteworthy commodity is the fine iron ore of Bantry, which is smelted into steel and is greatly valued by weaponsmiths throughout Braxus.