Silvercat Moonpaw
Adventurer
Include "food production and transportation" as yet another sign that Forgotten Realms was designed by modern Americans with little other knowledge of history.
D&D General Need wheat. Too dangerous. (worldbuilding)
Faolyn
(she/her)
For what it's worth, waaay back when they published Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, Aurora said that she transported things around the world via teleportation. The Realms are so high-magic that Greenfields may actually have a permanent teleportation circle that links to their main buyer in Waterdeep.
If you really play that high level it would work. Although you still need to get all the grain to the place with the circle (the area is huge on maps). But when you already have teleportation circles, why not also have airships for collecting it...
Of course when everything is linked it would also allow PCs to easily and cheaply teleport around the FR.
Faolyn
(she/her)
I would imagine that a major town in the center of Greenfields would have the circle, and it would only take at most a couple of days for outlying villages and farms to get their grain to that town. And I would also imagine that whoever controls the circle would charge quite a bit of money for adventurers to use it.
If, of course, it uses teleportation circles at all.
Goldenfields is the one that pays a big role in Storm King's Thunder. And it is a >20 square mile large farm-temple of Chauntea located close to the rivers closest to Waterdeep. It is a safe bet that the area is as fertile as the goddess of farming and fertility can make it.
Unfortunately there is a statement in the adventure that the food is brought to Waterdeep by caravan...
I do not think that is fair to say that they knew no history. I suspect that they knew quite a bit but that it was mostly the history of politics and battles. That is the way history has been taught. Not enough attention to the underlying stuff that drives the politics and battles.
Silvercat Moonpaw
Adventurer
My bad: I couldn't figure out how to express what they didn't know.
According to medieval census data one square mile could feed 180 to 200 people (that includes the farmers). So even with a lot of blessings 20 square miles are awfully small to supply even the core city of Waterdeep (200k) let alone the region with its ludicrous 2 million.
No problem, it is just the habit of reducing the teaching of history to a simple narrative and collection of dry fact that can be passed be regurgitated out in an exam with out any consideration of why this outcome occurred over the possible alternatives is a bit of a thing with me.
LordEntrails
Hero
The Forgotten Realms was created by an 8 year old American boy. At least that is when Ed wrote his first stories of it. He created the D&D setting at age 16 in 1975.
I think perhaps you give anyone too much credit for being able to produce a viable world that accounted for agriculture, commerce, etc at that age and in those years prior to the internet and the mass availability of knowledge that would allow such today. I know its fun to poke at Americans, but really, I don't think what you want could have been done by any child the world over in those years.
(And no, I'm not a fan of the Realms, but I do often run games set there because it is readily available and good enough setting for the feel that interests me.)
