D&D (2024) Sword Coast population data from 2024 D&D Pocket Expert

[Hussar]

Oh, boy, talking about the weeds again:

Waterdeep is very roughly ~800 miles from the Anauroch (measuring woth my thumb and pointer finger on the SCAG map, might be off), and not remotely coincidentally, Waterdeep is directly in line with the Northern border of the High Moor. Thwt means that anything in the square between the Anaouroch and the High Moor and accompanying mountains (an area which is absolutely enormous and resource rich) has only one natural outlet to bring raw materials to the outside world that will pay top dollar: even going further North om the Sword Coast has to go through Waterdeep to supply. So, yeah, everything from the "Savage Frontier" gers traded overland through Waterdeep. Ed Greenwood cares about that particular sort of thing a lot.

He might care, but, wow is he absolutely bad at it. It's 1100 miles from Waterdeep to the closest town in the Dalelands as the crow flies. It would be much closer to almost 2000 miles overland, most of which is not by any sort of water route meaning that any realistic trade is impossible. It's not like they're shipping spices or silks out of Waterdeep. Metals? Overland? For those kinds of distances? Not happening.

Not when you can leave from Baldur's Gate, put it on a ferry nearly the entire distance and have actual roads the rest of the way. Eastern trade most certainly is not leaving from Waterdeep.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Honestly, the only one of these that surprises me is that Baldur's Gate is so small. I'd have pegged it about 2x-4x as big as the listed population.

 

[Zardnaar]

Honestly, the only one of these that surprises me is that Baldur's Gate is so small. I'd have pegged it about 2x-4x as big as the listed population.

Bigger than older figures.

38k or so iirc.

 

[Parmandur]

He might care, but, wow is he absolutely bad at it. It's 1100 miles from Waterdeep to the closest town in the Dalelands as the crow flies. It would be much closer to almost 2000 miles overland, most of which is not by any sort of water route meaning that any realistic trade is impossible. It's not like they're shipping spices or silks out of Waterdeep. Metals? Overland? For those kinds of distances? Not happening.

Not when you can leave from Baldur's Gate, put it on a ferry nearly the entire distance and have actual roads the rest of the way. Eastern trade most certainly is not leaving from Waterdeep.

I think you misunderstood, nobody is talking about the Dalelands, they are outside the Sword Coast teade network: they are beyond the hard barrier of the Great desert. The overland trade in question is from the "Savage Frontier" going South: Watetdeep is a hard bottleneck for that. The area to the West of the desert and North of the High Moor is honest to God a million square miles, and it is filled eith mining and trapping operations flowing Zouthwest, through Waterdeep into the rest of the world. There is no other path to follow. There is an entire evil organization whose entire plan for world domination is cutting out Waterdeep and finding a way to get that trade East over the desert, though (Zhentatim).

 

[Parmandur]

He might care, but, wow is he absolutely bad at it. It's 1100 miles from Waterdeep to the closest town in the Dalelands as the crow flies. It would be much closer to almost 2000 miles overland, most of which is not by any sort of water route meaning that any realistic trade is impossible. It's not like they're shipping spices or silks out of Waterdeep. Metals? Overland? For those kinds of distances? Not happening.

Not when you can leave from Baldur's Gate, put it on a ferry nearly the entire distance and have actual roads the rest of the way. Eastern trade most certainly is not leaving from Waterdeep.

Here is an economic map from FR5 of the area between the Sea of Swords, the Spine of the World, Anauroch, and the High Moor, which shows how all trade in the region filters out through Waterdeep, mainly overland:

Of course, this book has the far more probable 122,000 population fir Waterdeep, which is way smaller than a lot of cities in .lte developed areas.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

• Fewer diseases exist
• diseases are less contagious and lethal
• there are usually enough magic-users to contain the spread of a lethal contagion
• either way, when a hefty percentage of the city's population succumbs to disease, it's a plot point, not the norm
• there are enough healers willing and able to prevent those staggering numbers of child mortality
• under normal circumstances, magic and/or society is advanced enough to prevent large-scale famine and malnutrition, and to provide passable sanitation
• we're handwaving all of it because we're not making an elaborate well-thought "what if" scenario, we're only making a setting as background for a party of adventurers who kill things and take their stuff; all we really need is vibes

Pretty sure D&D 2024 doesn't really have diseases anymore, so, obviously, less mortality due to disease. Just 2 million people walking around with the "poisoned" condition.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Pretty sure D&D 2024 doesn't really have diseases anymore, so, obviously, less mortality due to disease. Just 2 million people walking around with the "poisoned" condition.

It does, but they're riders on the "Poisoned" condition.

Food poisoning is now the correct terminology!

 

[Hussar]

Here is an economic map from FR5 of the area between the Sea of Swords, the Spine of the World, Anauroch, and the High Moor, which shows how all trade in the region filters out through Waterdeep, mainly overland:

View attachment 384069

Of course, this book has the far more probable 122,000 population fir Waterdeep, which is way smaller than a lot of cities in .lte developed areas.

Ok, sure, it goes to Waterdeep. I can understand that. Fair enough.

But, we're talking about trade east FROM Waterdeep. There's just no way that any major trade goes eastward from Waterdeep when you've got a major waterway not that far to the south in Baldur's Gate. So, all that stuff goes to Waterdeep, gets put on a boat and sent onwards to Baldur's Gate. Which means that Watrdeep isn't actually the hub. The hub is actually Baldur's Gate - at least for any trade going Eastward.

Now, to the West, it's the Moonshae islands and then, really, a whole lot of nothing. So, no trade is going west. Nothing particularly is going North because there's no people. How much can they actually buy? So, virtually all trade leaving Waterdeep goes south. And where does it go first? Baldur's Gate.

You can't be the "hub of trade" when you're on the far end of the trade route. The "hub of trade" has to be the choke point for multiple directions. That's why Constantinople, Florence, and various other hub of trade cities exist.

Nothing on this map is worth shipping any long distances.

 

[Selas]

Pretty sure D&D 2024 doesn't really have diseases anymore, so, obviously, less mortality due to disease. Just 2 million people walking around with the "poisoned" condition.

It does, but they're riders on the "Poisoned" condition.

Food poisoning is now the correct terminology!

Mundane diseases are no longer a thing, but magical diseases are still around. The DMG24 has an entry for them

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Mundane diseases are no longer a thing, but magical diseases are still around. The DMG24 has an entry for them

I mean, I would say that that just means they aren't relevant to PCs, rather than that they are absolutely not at all a thing ever. But perhaps that is too gamist for some folks.