Khorvaire:Two Problems

[Jasemonkey]

Yes Keith, please change the setting because a minority of people on a messageboard are whining about it.

 

[Anabstercorian]

So multiply all the numbers by five and add that many children as well. Bam. Cohesion successfully achieved. I mean, YES, you've found a legitimate error in the logic of the setting. Don't spend so much time gloating about it, offer more suggestions on how to fix.

 

[Snoweel]

First off, who peed in your cereal today?

I'm Australian. Thus:

I seem to recall that the population per square mile numbers for Eberron were about the same as Australia in the present day so it definitely can make sense.

Let us assume that before the war, Khorvaire was slightly less populated than England

Why?

As I see it, Khorvaire and 14th century England have little in common. Especially given how much more dangerous Khorvaire is to 1st level commoners than 14th century England was.

By the way, I'd say the last time any major continent on Earth was that sparsely populated, we were inventing agriculture and cities, certainly not creating liiving machines and printing newspapers.

Or... erm, taming dinosaurs, right?

Khorvaire has the resources Australia does not.

Khorvaire also has the entire population of the Monster Manual threatening civilisation as opposed to a couple of snakes, spiders and jellyfish.

I think I've made my point.

With that level of population the civilized folks should be living along rivers in city states, with the interior inhabited by roving bands of nomads.

I agree with you 100% here.

Eberron presumes a 14th century level of technology. Twenty-six million people in a fantasy Asia is not enough to maintain that technology and the infrastructure needed to support it.

Who's to say that they couldn't with Eberron magic levels?

Furthermore, even if Khorvair had about 150 million people, the peoples of Khorvair don't have the infrastructure necessary for nations of the size presented on the maps. Going by the write-ups the Five Kingdoms are more like the Five Counties. The feel is small nation, not large.

As I said before, I'm with you here.

However, historically, nations often claimed uncontrolled wilderness as part of their official domain even thought those wildernesses were effectively anybody's.

As for the Last War, even with a pre-war population twice the size it is now there wouldn't have been enough people to sustain the fighting over the distances involved.

Good point. It appears I may have been wrong to criticise you peoples' population complaints.

It would've been far better to place the current nations of Khorvair in the east, leaving the bulk of the continent to be developed later.

As for the war. Any event that dropped the population of a land mass the size of Asia to less than 30 million would not leave countries behind.

Well I'm feeling better about my lightly populated city-states-only homebrew.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Hmmm, I have to side with the population conservatives here.

I mean I just haven't seen enough to make me believe that 14th century population levels are necessary for 14th century levels of population.

Might also be good to keep in mind that this continent was pretty recently settled. Hasn't had nearly the timeline that Asia did for distributing and building up the sentient species.

And that numbers of nations are generally fairly arbitrarily arrived at, and certainly have nothing to do with levels of technology.

Plus, I would guess that a pretty direct effect of having labor saving but human capital intensive magic is that your population growth and levels drop below what they would be in the real world.

But, if you want to up the population go ahead.

Though do keep in mind that though Khorvaire may, and I'd submit that that's a huge assumption, have more resources than Australia, almost no place has as the resources of California.

The only strong game effect I can see is that the world might become less interesting by dint of less cultural diversity and general wilderness to wreck your mind upon.

 

[ironmani]

Ok lets take into account that a good chunk of people died during the War. Also remember, and entire country was wiped out in a flash. Try and imagine the state of New York wiped out to every last man, woman and child. Thats a lot of people. If that still doesnt work for you then think of it like this....you want more people in your Eberron ** claps hands ** Done. Put a one in front of all the population numbers. Its really that simple. First it was Warforged are too powerful, now its there arent enough people. Cant you find something not to complain about?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Intriguingly, I can't find anything that indicates the population of 14th century Asia was anywhere close to 195,000,000.

Europe, nearly always the second most populous continent and always most populous per square mile, was around 73 million, but that's after a major population boom and before the plague reduces it to around 40-50 million.

Mind you Asia has some nice population advantages, such glorious river valleys.

 

[Caliban]

Too few people. Too few countries. Multiplying both by five would help a lot.

Discuss.

No.

 

[Snoweel]

Go on... everyone else is doing it...

 

[Destil]

I've never understood this arguemnt at all. Unless you're basing your game around the PCs as a bunch of census takers, what does it matter? It's all about how the DM presents the world, the actual numbers just shouldn't come up in most games...

 

[Snoweel]

DM: The wizened old man squints at you through his one good eye and speaks: "To cross this bridge you must answer these questions, three... What is your name?"

Player: Jeiki of Turnike

DM: What is your favourite colour?

Player: Blue.

DM: What is the population density of southern Khorvaire?

Player: Err... umm... I, ah... I don't kn-aaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!