How big is your campaign world? How many people? What type of terrain?

[shadowthorn]

I'm developing a home-grown campaign setting, and I'm curious to what the stats are for other folks' campaign worlds. If you don't mind, would you answer the following questions about your campaign setting?

How big is your campaign setting in terms of the square miles of land masses?

How many people live in the entire campaign world?

How does your campaign world break down into terrain types? That is, what percentage of plains/forest/mountains/desert/jungle/hills exist in your campaign setting?

If there is any other campaign info that you'd like to share that might help in my world-planning, feel free to share.

 

[shadowthorn]

So, is this info top secret, am I in the wrong forum, or does nobody plan at this level? Oh, I get it - all the DMs who spend this much time devising a detailed campaign world have no time left to surf the boards - they're all working on campaign stats!!

 

[Chimera]

My world is a bit larger than earth. Can't recall the size/sq. mi/etc offhand. Probably wrote it down 20+ years ago...

Population depends heavily on the Time. My current campaign is set some 4500-5000 years previous to my last 4 campaigns on this world. Consequently, the Human population is about 30,000 "free" (in the Wild Lands, or neutral zone) and about 1.5 million "slave" (controlled by the Calaseans, or bad guy race #1). This in a region about 600 miles by 2000 miles.

Fast forward 5000 years and the human population is just about the same, but in a free and very prosperous nation. But the Calaseans and the other slave races are gone, resulting in a slightly lower 'general' population.

The thing to remember when designing population centers and nations is that people cluster together, and spread along roads and rivers. Don't have your 'nation' be one "capital" town at point A, and one farming village 300 miles away, as I've seen far too many times. If there is a village 300 miles from the nearest town, it'd better have a darned good reason to exist out there!

The other side of this is that it leaves large amounts of sparsely settled and/or wilderness areas between those population centers. Breeding grounds for your monsters, places to hide and build for the bad guys, land for potential development by your players.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

How big is your campaign setting in terms of the square miles of land masses?

How many people live in the entire campaign world?

How does your campaign world break down into terrain types? That is, what percentage of plains/forest/mountains/desert/jungle/hills exist in your campaign setting?

1) The action happens in an area that's about a thousand square miles. However, my world is not static. Country A can not be at war with Country B without affecting Country C. So I cover an area that's a couple thousand square miles large.

2) My main country, Launhym, has roughly 75,000 people. There's an article out there on mideval demographics by S John Ross (I think). I strongly suggest reading it and then adjusting for the level of magic your game world has.

3) Eh. Mostly mountians and forests. The map was designed by a PhD in geophysics who works for the US Geological Survey, so it is very "realistic". Which is to say, it could potentially exist in the universe.

The link to my site is in the "www" button there. Feel free to check it out.

 

[Hand of Evil]

At this time I work in square grids 800 X 1000 miles and then add to the map as the players move out in a direction. Only have seven cities (of 50,000+) most are along one river. I have based it on my home state of South Carolina with some mods, mountains are higher for one.

I can do this because this is a new land that is just been settled, the old land fell to evil about two hundred years ago.

 

[Psion]

I don't have exact stats here (I can grab them when I get home if you are interested), but the main continent I am currently running the game on is about the size of South America. The southern reaches are covered in jungle, and gulf a little futher to the north is thick with forests like Washington state in the US. More inland, there are two great-plains like regions and a Utah/New Mexico like region. There are a total of 5 major mountian ranges... two ring a desert just north of the jungles, one is very high near the badlands, one is very extensive like the rockies, and the remaining two are a little older/subdued.

A second major continent on the world is more Eurasia sized, and there are some major islands about half the size of Australia.

 

[Bob Aberton]

More or ;ess a large island (Avalon) about 3 week's journey across and maybe a months journey lengthwise. It is mostly empty wasteland and howling moors, with high mountains (the Pillars of the Sky) to the North, and beyond that, fairly large forest, Bheac Mawr Cwden, and to the extreme south, deserts and jungle. Plus a another set of mountains created by centuries of dwarves dumping mining debris there.

 

[dkoz]

If you are trying to plan out some demographics for your world try going to www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm. It is a pretty nice guide for creating semi-realistic demographics for fantasy settings.

This was mentioned above by BiggusGeekus

Good luck and good gaming,
dkoz

 

[Rashak Mani]

>How big is your campaign setting in terms of the square miles of >land masses?

Never bothered... currently the area "finished and detailed" would take on horseback roughly 1 month to cross straight... but overall semi-prepared areas would double the area...

Overall its a big continent with a big Ocean entrance ... I only plan the parts I will use. Basically 5-6 "countries"/areas


>How many people live in the entire campaign world?

Dont worry to much... I determined more population density and especially feasibility of city sizes. You cant have Waterdeep in a small island country. Different terrains have different numbers... population economics... overall medium density in mine.

>How does your campaign world break down into terrain types? >That is, what percentage of >plains/forest/mountains/desert/jungle/hills exist in your >campaign setting?

Three main areas are a rolling grasslands that down south becomes a arid savannah... to the east hill country separated by a strong river. Northwards a mountain group. Overall I think geopgrapical barriers tend to become political boundaries too... in my world to clashing civilizations have the strong river in between. Natural frontier. Orc nations to the north have mountains and forest isolating them.

>If there is any other campaign info that you'd like to share that >might help in my world-planning, feel free to share.

If you want a world with all kinds of terrain and culture ... full of details and impossibly crazy economics just buy Forgotten Realms... otherwise make a broad determination of the limits of the "known world"... then concentrate on a few key areas. Sometimes when designing an adventure its more practical to change some details... so dont bother putting too much detail. Key geographic features and Cities are a must thou... they more or less determine the "freedom of movement" of PCs and Cities where they will "make base"... and rivers run from mountains to the sea too is a good reminder... Big Mountains tend to create a wet area one side and dry on the other... some things like that.

Culture wise... grasslands wide and open make for nomadic people... hills tend to have more settled people... coastland have maritime style and so forth. Commerce is what creates cities... so if you dont have a good road or sea lane that very hard. Centralized or Decentralized govts might change that....

Its a lot of work... hehe

 

[Kichwas]

The globe of my world is probably similar to the earth in size.

The nation of Lomyr where the 'action' takes place is 124260 square miles. Which is just a tiny bit larger than Italy.

The population is 11,059,140. Or 89 people per square mile. More than Italy in the 1300's, but less than France at the same time period. 884,731 of those people live in cities or towns. The rest in the villages that dot the land between them (roughly one every miles in the settled regions, though 51% of the land is wilderness, similar to medieval europe).

The terrains on the world as a whole is as varied as it would be on earth. The nation of Lomyr has a mediterranian climate for a penensular nation with an exceedingly tall mountain range to the north and juts out into a vast archepeligo.
Beyond those mountains are lands about the size of europe or so filled with 'humanoid' nations that have no contact with Lomyr. In fact the average Lomyrian as well as the average northern humanoid are both not even aware of each other's existance. The history of the wars some 4000+ years ago that pushed man off to the edges of the continent are long forgotten as is the knowledge of what really lies on the other side of the mountains. A situation helped by dwarves in between who do not take kindly to people passing through their domain who are not slaves they are selling...

There is a chain of kingdoms to Lomyr's west but the east runs into a desert of rocky broken land. Lomyr trades regularly with one nation from a southern continent and has some minor yet unpredictable contact with lands far to the west and east.

http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/



I strongly suggest this site on demographics:
http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm