How many people in a 250 year old Graveyard?

[Lonely Tylenol]

500 could be an ok number. It depends on a few things though.

How old are people when they start having children. The later it is the lower the number.

How many children does an average family have. The more children per family the higher the number.

Not necessarily, if the infant mortality rate is high.

 

[kenobi65]

D&D has two advantages over the real world in terms of growth rate: first, it's modeled after the dark ages where birth control doesn't really exist

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on your campaign.

I know that in the Forgotten Realms, for one example, there are fairly-easy-to-obtain herbs that can suppress fertility, for both males and females (detailed in the FRCS, which I don't have in front of me at the moment).

If we assume that many of the things that modern medicine can accomplish (i.e., healing injuries, curing diseases) are provided in the D&D world by divine magic and / or alchemy, it's fair to assume that birth control, too, can be provided in a similar fashion.

 

[JustKim]

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on your campaign.

I know that in the Forgotten Realms, for one example, there are fairly-easy-to-obtain herbs that can suppress fertility, for both males and females (detailed in the FRCS, which I don't have in front of me at the moment).

If we assume that many of the things that modern medicine can accomplish (i.e., healing injuries, curing diseases) are provided in the D&D world by divine magic and / or alchemy, it's fair to assume that birth control, too, can be provided in a similar fashion.

It would take a lot of limiting factors to even bring a D&D population's growth rate down to the real world's 1.5%. If a community was actively trying to euthanize itself through birth control, that exponential growth of a 250 year old village might drop from New York City levels to 1 million people. No level of birth control would ever result in a 500 person graveyard for a village of 150 people, though. It would take some great catastrophe to achieve that, greater than the bubonic plague, and this calls into question why there would even be a graveyard or a village afterward. It would require, at some point in history, every capable adult burying 10 or more dead bodies.

 

[Slife]

Here's an explanation pulled out of thin air for the 500 people mark

It's the town's tradition that all children but the first son and daughter must leave the town forever. There's some level of immigration, but it's a very small amount compared to the number of people leaving.

 

[JustKim]

The problem there is that while the population growth rate is affected by both death and emigration, the graveyard is only affected by death. If someone leaves town forever, they wouldn't be in the graveyard.

A mass exodus that did result in a negative population growth would probably not result in a graveyard that exceeds the population for a simple reason: while growth is exponential, loss is not. As more people leave, fewer people are still around to leave.

 

[Rabelais]

I say 500 graves.

Split them evenly between skeletons, zombies, ghouls, ghasts, bodaks, and devourers.

Add 3 to 6 adventurers, shake vigorously, and serve.

You just read my mind... /grins evilly at Drowbane.

 

[adwyn]

Any number more than a few dozen will do. If the players think there is too few just have the nearest NPC shuffle his feet, kick the dirt, stare at his shoes and mumble something about "them being really lean years, and then there was that pied piper chap and ....".

If the PCs think there are too many the NPC does the same thing but says "them refugees were all dead when we found 'em, 'cept the ones that died later cause those were lean years and what all."

 

[Storyteller01]

To the OP,

Does the town have any other means of dealing with the dead? The sick are burned, important figures are buried at sea, left outside for the bird to eat, etc?

 

[BryonD]

How many necromancers are there?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

OP,

You want Rolling the Bones: A Graveyard Supplement by Donna K. Fitch. Available for justa few dollars in PDF. It has all you need for designing a cemetary based on size and age and use.

Stormborn, I'm not sure if you're joking or if this product actually exists. If it does exist, let me just say that I think it is hilarious the ground that small press PDF's can cover now. It almost seems like no matter what the topic you can find a product on it!

Olaf the Stout