Khorvaire:Two Problems

[Lonely Tylenol]

Good lord

Someone should be writing anthropology papers on the topic of threads like these ones... The things people think are important to argue about... jeebus.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

And the folks of Khorvaire don't have the technolgy Alaskans have. Not even a telegraph.

No, that's because they have whispering wind, animal messenger, dream, and sending and the Speakers Guild of House Sivis that controls and offers services in instantaneous long range communication. Khorvaire's Western Union?


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[mythusmage]

No, that's because they have whispering wind, animal messenger, dream, and sending and the Speakers Guild of House Sivis that controls and offers services in instantaneous long range communication. Khorvaire's Western Union?


Regards,
Eric Anondson

And the price of these services?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

The English level of Population isn't necessary.

Large countries with low density are only possible with trucking, refrigeration, and highways.

Food need to get from farm to market, and goods need to be dispersed.

I don't know the population of Khorvaire, but if it gets too far below 40 per square mile it will break aparrt - the means of keeping a food supply going are not there.

I think this argument puts the cart before the horse and does little to recognize people who don't ride horses let alone carts.

First off, remember that large portions of Eberron do not seem to be dominated by any system that resembles classical Feudal rural and urban patterns.

Even one large dinosaur nomad nation is going to drop your overall density way the heck down.

So yeah, it's one tradition that you have dense settlement. It's not the only one.

Second, population density is the result not the cause.

Food goes from the ground to your belly.

Goods need to be used not dispersed.

Granted. Markets are a nice step in that system. But looking at human behavior from the top down is the wrong step to take.

When the population goes below 40 per square mile, and the right sorts of people are still around, mass starvation and poverty is not the result.

Instead you get better diets, simpler but more robust social structures, and, often, more stuff.

Post-black plague people eat better and are richer.

Mongols had way more stuff per person than Englishmen and were far fitter.

Traditional pattern has always been dense populations, even going back to primordial prehuman days - humans lived in tight bands close together for security, food, and reproduction.

It's true. People live in tight groups. But living thick to the ground is not an imperative.

The traditional pattern. The around 2 million year pattern is to disperse your population pretty widely. You want to live in a group, but you don't want to jostle with the next group over.

It's pretty hard to argue for the desirability of population density from primordial days.

Mind you, it's only tangential to the argument, but cavemen are badasses and I want them to get their widely dispersed props.

Also true of Eskimos, who have an amazingly high level of technology. I wear a lot of Eskimo garb over the course of my year. They did more than allright for people with an exceedingly low population density.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

And the price of these services?

And now we descend into the truly absurd nitpicks. Is it just possible that the prices are appropriate for the economy of Khorvaire? Maybe you wouldn't pay for it... but the designers of the setting say that there are enough people who will pay the prices with little complaint.

I dunno, I'm a geography major. (It is far more than knowing state and national capitals, ). I've done enough reading on populations and urban centers, and how they can work and how they have worked throughout history and across various cultures that I'm NOT bothered by the population figures.

They certainly COULD work just fine, IMO. Rather than demand a fix to the numbers so that is fits how YOU think everything has to work on Khorvaire, try to consider just what might make the numbers work as they are listed. There just might be some innovative thinking going on here that could make this different from other settings (or reality) that you keep trying to draw comparisons to.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Put it another way...

...it seems to me that this argument is really, could you have something like Eberron with a population density around the size of turn of the millenium England rather than 14th century England.

I would say yes. You could have it. Not saying that's the way it would happen, or that it's the way it should happen, but it is possible.

Observe.

Khorvaire is the size of Asia, but a lot and a lot of it is not really running on anything like an English model.

There's an entire blasted area to make the Saharra cry, some good sized plains nomad regions, lots of difficult to inhabit mountains, large uninhabitable forests, and lots and lots of places that could only be described as irregular in organization.

Plus, it does not seem to have anything like the miracle for human populations that is Southern China and Southeast Asia.

As a result, I would say England is as good a barometer as any.

Now: Eberron has a population of around a third to a quarter of 14th century Europe.

14th century England had between 3-4 million people.

But they were also at the limit. Every historian I have talked to about the period has discussed it's tremendous overpopulation troubles. The number of people around were stressing out everything.

People couldn't eat as well, heating was expensive, and society became hopelessly complicated trying to account for everybody. Alongside more complex it was also a lot less fluid. There's loads of restrictions on travel and while classes might jockey for position your group priveleges are spelled out. Peasants are not going to be knighted on the field. All the religious orders that are gonna make it have already been founded. Internal unrest abounded.

14th Century does have tech, something like a feudal system, international trade, international orders, and nations.

Eberron does have a feudal system, tech, international trade, and international orders, and nations.

Now Eberron obviously has a lot in common with 14th century England. And there is a big disparity in population.

But it reflects that disparity.

Eberron's population has:

Lot of room to expand in Eberron. People eat very well. Society is pretty simple. You have lower class and you have high class, but it doesn't seem like you villiens, peasants, crofters, serfs, slaves, and yeomen all working with very clear definitions of themselves in the small scale farming level. There's crime, but things seem to be fairly orderly as feudal systems go.

Adventurers can move around and people can get knighted or save the king.

And those are all features of 11th century England.

As are Feudal systems, international orders - churches and trade families and guilds and legal codes and empires - , and international trade.

Hell, in Pre-Carolingian Europe Byzantines ran the trade in France.

The tech is the issue and if you think that magic would advance society at a faster than normal rate, which I do particularly when it's organized as it is in Eberron, than you got where you're at already.

I mean a lot of 14th century tech is pretty population independent. Metal working and art and academics don't tend to relly on cheap labour like a lot of modern industrial stuff does.

And magic makes labour more effecient, if expensive, so population is probably something of a draw. You don't need as many peasants if you got druids, but you need more druids if you've got more peasants.

When contraceptives are available, magic is expensive, and property security is fairly low as a result of Medusa incursions?

Sure, everyone's gonna have huge families.

 

[Caliban]

And, as I will keep pointing out until it penetrates, population density affects what is possible in an area.

It has absolutely no effect. I'm the DM, if I want it to happen, it happens.

You need a certain population density to sustain certain types of society. If San Diego County had an overall population density of 1.7 people per square mile it would not have the urban culture it does now, even if everybody was concentrated along one mile of the San Diego River.

Unless the PC's are playing census takers, it's really not going to have any impact on the campaign.

Population density affects things. It affects culture and society. It affects settlement patterns. It affects what a people can support in the way of infrastructure and knowledge without outside assistance. In a monster filled world such as Eberron it impacts personal and societal security. When the ankhegs out number you farming becomes a useless activity.

It's a game. I'm the DM. The population density has exactly as much effect as I want it to have. If I think there needs to be more people for something to work, guess what? There are more people there.

Eberron doesn't need to mirror the real world. It just has to provide a place for the PC's to adventure in.

Besides, if you really think the population is too low, then set it at a level you find appropriate. Your the DM, you can do that. You don't even have to ask Keith's permission, or explain to him how foolish he was for not researching 14th century european populaton densities before designign a gaming world that is nothing like 14th century Europe.

 

[Derulbaskul]

This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers. Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.

Yep, have to agree there. Actually, "rouge" should be included in the list of words that are automatically replaced with other characters like certain well-known profanities.

Anyway, I think it's far more important that we improve our writing skills than worry about population densities....

 

[mythusmage]

And now we descend into the truly absurd nitpicks...

And the price of these services? A simple question. One easily answered I would think. Do you have an answer?

Whispering Wind: 2nd level spell . Minimum caster level 3rd. At a cost of 60 gold a casting at the minimum (10 gold per spell level times caster level according to NPC Spellcasting, p149 of the 3e Dungeon Master's Guide®). That's with a range of 2 miles, and a maximum of 25 words. For greater range you pay more. But, there's no assurance that there will be anybody at the target location who will hear the message. Or any assurance that if there is anybody there, it will be the intended recipient.

The other spells you listed using the same formula:

Animal Messenger:2nd level spell, minimum 60 gold to cast. Oh, and at third level it has a maximum range of 35 feet. Great method of long range communication.

Dream: 5th level. Minimum cost 450 gold. Unlimited range. Effectively unlimited message length. If it weren't for the price.

Sending:4th for Clerics, 5th for Wizards and Sorcerors. Minimum price; 280 gold (cleric) or 350 gold (Sorcerors and Wizards).

Each has additional limitations, but the big one here is price. Sixty gold for a message in a world where the typical peasant would be lucky to see 60 gold in a year. In 19th century America telegraph messages were pricey, but they were not expensive. For the average American of the time a telegraph message was affordable. for the average resident of Aundaire Whispering Wind is not.

How often would you use the Internet if you made minimum wage and the cost was $10.00 per hour online? With a baud rate of 9600? What if it was $100.00 an hour for Internet access? Starting to see the problem here?

As for house Sivis, nowhere did I see any indication that the gnomes charge less for their services than a caster would. So a Whispering Wind message sent by House Sivis will cost a minimum of 60 gold. With the same limitations, restrictions, and drawbacks as found in one activated by a trained caster.

Nitpicking? Hardly. This is a matter that impacts the very nature of the setting. Consider how cheap Internet access opened up the Web. Consider how many people would use Whispering Wind on a monthly basis if the price were to drop to 60 copper pieces a casting. We're talking the end of feudal society in the Five Kingdoms. Remember, the Soviet Union fell in large part because of cheap, reliable communications.

The bigger the chunk an item takes of a person's bankroll, the less a person is apt to use it. In D&D® spells take a huge chunk of a person's bankroll.

 

[glass]

This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers.

Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.

My personal pet hate is PC's instead of PCs.

Or any possessive in place of a plural really, but that one seems to crop up a lot arround here.


glass.