Planar Census Takers

[Thistleknot]

Surely someone out here on these boards knows enough D&D trivia to answer this question.

I was looking around at some old books and it got me thinking about a possible plot for one of my games, which would generally involve all the Gods of Death seeing which is the hardest working.

But for my plot, I needed to know ballpark figures for how many intelligent beings(humanoids, dragons, illithid, ect., ect., ect.) live on Oerth, Toril, and Krynn.

I came up with the general guess of 20,000,000 beings on Oerth, just from doing a quick addition of the estimated populations of the countries on the Flaness of Oerth and a guess of the populations of other continents and the Underdark. I could not find any information for Krynn or Toril to even begin

I have scoured the net, and the few campaign setting books that I have, and I cannot seem to find a satisfying answer.

Just to reiterate, does anyone have an idea for the populations of Toril, Oerth, and Krynn?

Thank you for your time, and I eagerly await your answer.

 

[Avatar]

Well for Toril you can do something similar as you did for Oerth (Toril is the name of the FR world right?) The FRCS gives the estimated populations for all the kingdoms in the realms.


slightly OT - I see you live in eugene. i graduated U of O in 2001.

eugene rocks. you ever go to the game store there?

alan

 

[Piratecat]

In the middle ages, Earth had about 400,000,000 people.

http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/conted/onlinecourses/geog_210/210_3_4.html

Thus, 20 million for Oerth seems to be extremely low. Monsters notwithstanding, most worlds with clerics and healing magics should be significantly higher than this.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

In the middle ages, Earth had about 500,000,000 people.

http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/conted/onlinecourses/geog_210/210_3_4.html

Thus, 20 million for Oerth seems to be extremely low.

Yeah, but Earth did not have to worry about Vecna, dragons, armies of undead, plague, and each other- they just had to deal with the latter two.

FD

 

[Piratecat]

Yeah, but Earth did not have to worry about Vecna, dragons, armies of undead, plague, and each other- they just had to deal with the latter two.

I think you're badly underestimating the effect of clerics and druids. With divine magic, infant mortality and adult inuries would drop to a fraction of what they were... and druidic magic would almost eliminate starvation and dramatically increase crop yields. As a result, I think a realistic fantasy world (not counting the monsters) would have *many* more people than earth did.

Of course, monsters get hungry. But you see my point.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

I think you're badly underestimating the effect of clerics and druids.

Not at all, I just don't overestimate its availability to the everyman. Clerics are a finite resource.

And I have trouble picturing druids using their magic to regularly impact agriculture, but I may be applying my view of druids over what is in the PH.

FD

edit: Change a sentence to make my point better

 

[bwgwl]

Not at all, I just don't overestimate its availability to the everyman. Clerics are a finite resource.

yes, but so are monsters, dragons, armies of undead, and rampaging evil demigods.

no depiction of GH or FR that i've ever seen leads me to believe the mortality rate is significantly higher than Earth's simply because of the existence of monsters. slightly higher perhaps, but not enough to drop their world population to 5% that of Earth's Middle Ages.

from perusing GH's and FR's histories, it seems that massive hordes of monsters and other fantasy elements that would kill large numbers of people seem to happen only with the same frequency as massive hordes of barbarians or nomads or other such things happened in our own history.

 

[Vanye]

I think you're badly underestimating the effect of clerics and druids. With divine magic, infant mortality and adult inuries would

I don't think infant mortality would be affected much. Most children don't die of hit point damage, or fatal injuries. Lots of infants just seem to not wake up.

Not a lot most clerics are going to be able to do about that. I can't see your typical priest casting raise dead on a 2 day old infant....

 

[bwgwl]

i once made up a Fertility domain where the granted powers included:

1) any birth the cleric midwifes will be automatically successful and safe for both the baby and the mother.

2) ability to guarantee successful conception during intercourse. range: personal or touch.

 

[Grazzt]

In the middle ages, Earth had about 400,000,000 people.

http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/conted/onlinecourses/geog_210/210_3_4.html

Thus, 20 million for Oerth seems to be extremely low. Monsters notwithstanding, most worlds with clerics and healing magics should be significantly higher than this.

I agree with PC on this one. For example, had priests, clerics, healers (whatever you want to call them) been able to cast spells during the Black Plague it wouldn't have wiped out 1/2 the population of Europe.

I believe the population of Oerth, Toril, or whichever world you are using would be higher (providing the globe is about the size of earth and the land to water ratios are about the same...blah blah blah).