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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 1649331" data-attributes="member: 6533">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.</blockquote>

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