Not sure what the plural for chlorapleth is (nice word! thanks for the education!)

Ximax: even if you doubled the population, traditionally you can only count on 5 to 10% of the population to fight (another 20% maybe in untrained militia - i.e., every abled bodied male of age), so you have only added 2000 soldiers tops, which is a drop in the bucket so far as controlling the province goes.  Great empires usually have something else holding them together other than brute force - e.g., the Holy Roman Empire had a common heritage and church, while others had roads and mercantile infrastructure. Yet others have had cultural sway. Anyhow, most of the soldiers are likely from the country in any case, since there is where most of the population can be found.

My guess is that the combination of awe inspiring pyrotechnical illusions combined with a fair amount of genuine magical power for the hordes who remain unimpressed coupled with a really first rate diplomatic corp that keeps the various factions balanced against each other... most the last really!  A natural reason for Ximax having the leadership role in the province can be summed up in "who else could do it?"  I can well imagine the South Coast (probably the most powerful region) and the North Lake districts never accepting the other as sovereign over them. Add the nomadic central tribes with as a third, and there is no way they would be willing to bow to one of the other.  But a little scholarly town out on the peninsula, with just enough force and power to be impressive, and quite defensible itself as history showed, but of a culture and kind quite different, one who was also not bent on micromanaging the different peoples, but primarily interested in preventing large scale war and maintaining general order throughout the province... All the different peoples of the province might very willingly bow to them as a first amongst equals.

Sometimes it is the small and the passive that can have the most authority and control.  Just my two silver pennies.

May the ever evolving dream shower love, riches and joy upon you this Xmas.
Ringan

Hi Mina,

Well, I will write here too since the thread is not yet moved (I hope these messages are not too heavy for the moderator to move...)

Population:  I will look, but somewhere one of the aged sages here made the strong claim and with some authority that Ciaso to Marcogg is 600 strals.  This is an important number since 2x distance --> 4x area --> 4x population.

Yes, I like the 5,000,000 number more too. 

The problem is not so much generally with sufficient cities as with enough mid-sized towns.  But I am inclined to agree that better would be to omit small villages from the map unless they are part of an adventure, and note anything bigger than 800 or so with a cottage, about 1 cottage per 1000.  If it is a walled town, use houses starting at 2000-8000 (avg. 5000 and represented by 1 house). Then another house is maybe the 8000 to 22000 range (avg 15000). A thirdhouse gets you into the large city range of 22000 to 34000 (avg 28000).  After than use an entirely image for the big cities.  Just an idea... but something like this, then set it as a universal convention for everyone accross continents and provinces.

I like the way you distributed population.  If maybe half the pop is in the south, a quarter is at the lakes, an eighth on the Ximax peninsula and an eighth spread through the other regions.  Something like that is my guess.  I imagine pop density on the peninsula to be an average between the south high and middle empty regions.  As for Ximax, I wouldnt think too big - Oxford and Cambridge are both much smaller than London and suits their atmosphere.  Also, it is not on a coast and not in an extremely agriculturally rich area:  how about 20000?

Yes, Zhuangzi, though of course it might be that I am neither... just a dream?  Maybe your dream? If so, I promise to try to be a nice dream! Oh and thank you for dreaming 

Bestest
Ringan

Hi Mina,

Yes, I see - sorry to post that stuff here.  Maybe a moderator can move those bits to the population thread.

I hope it was helpful for perspective! 

I have done some further work along these lines and more reading and will post some ideas later (but elsewhere).

Best
Ring'a'ling

I had a dream I was a gnomish accountant, and then awoke a human philosopher; now I am not sure whether I am in fact a gnomish accountant dreaming I am a human philosopher!

Hi Mina,

I am loving what you have done.  I like the flavours and style, attention to detail, the breath of life if you will.

I am just going to comment briefly here on population, and that only in a rough way (a more exact study is needed to do this right).

First, I think there is an inconsistency in legends on the map.  Based on the accuracy of the Manthria map (this is the arbiter of all legends), the distance between Cioso and Marcogg is the same as that between Ximax and Horth, about 600 strals.  If I did my calculations right on your map, it is 450 strals.  Anyhow, these sorts of numbers need to be made accurate, because the difference becomes pretty significant working out populations.

The total area of the entire province is about 1,000,000 square strals (based on the standards noted above).

Assuming most of this land is not agrarian, in fact, it is not even rich hunting lands (e.g., the steps) it would at best qualify as what I called Very Low Yield land supporting about 1 person (or dwarf or orc or whatever) per square stral.  In addition, we can ask how much land where is of a higher status, the Low Yield kind.  Looking at your map, I am throwing darts in the dark, but I would guess 1/4, and most of it on the peninsula, south coast and lake region (in roughly equal propoprtions).  At 6 persons / stral square, we get another 1.25 million in habitants (noting that we already counted the same land as Very Low Yield, so we are adding 5 persons /sq.s.).
To this we can add some proper mixed agrarian land, including around Ximex, the lake region again and parts of the southern coast.  How much of its is really developed is an important part of the equation, but let us suppose 10% of the Low Yield land is developed, or in other words 10% of 1/4 = 2.5%.  To this, we might find another .5% of land in the Very Low Yield regions for a subtotal of 3% of 1000000sq.s. = 30,000sq.s. which supports 30 persons per sq.s., but which we count as 24 since we already counted 6, so upwards 7.2 millions.  Actually, this probably is about right given the likely HIGHLY fertile regions of the south coast (making the city of Cael a good candidate for mega city).  If you want to push it higher, there is room - this is a province between 7 and 8 times the size of England or more than 50% larger than France.  Anyhow, this quick and dirty calculation finds about 1+1.25+7.2 millions or call it 9.5 millions, better, let's call it 10 million!  France may have had as many as 20 million in the 14th century prior to the plagues, so this would be low, but then France was much richer than Xaramon, which reminds one a little on eastern Russia with those huge steps.  Still, there is room to increase the population a few more million at the top end if you want it big.  You could also half the agrarian land and force it to have a population of 5,000,000, and this might work a little better given your cities listed.  In any case, see the calcualtions below assuming 10,000,000 pop.

If we go with roughtly 10,000,000, and we work with somewhat ahistoric 67% are agrarian and able to support the other 33%, this leaves you with a whopping 3,3 million urbanites in the towns and cities.  Half will populate the large village/small town category between 500 and 2500 or so persons. A quarter will take care of the rest of the towns to 8000 pop or so.  The last quarter then fills the cities.  So, in this (again quick and dirty on a napkin kind of calculation), we have:

50% x 3.3mil./1500 = 11,000 market village/towns with average 1500 persons (yep! A lot to fit on the map!!)

25% x 3.3mil./5000 = 167 towns avg. pop. 5000 (yep, still a really large number to fit on the map!!)

25% x 3.3mil. = 833,000 for the cities greater than 8000.  With the first 130,000 for Cael, that leaves 700,000.  If the cities average 35,000, this means there should be another 20 full fledged cities.  Yes! Even this is a lot to fit on the map, but this can probably be done.  Anyhow, it is more than you have at the moment, but here is a rough guide to get the numbers about right:

Not counting Cael, assume 2/3 of the 20 (=14) are less than 35,000 but of course greater than 8,000.  Then the other 6 large cities, if they increase gradually at a bit more than 35,000 towards a biggest one that is less than 65,000, the numbers should work out.

So.... does that help?  Please do not hesitate to ask if I you would like to do something more exact.  Also, getting this system to work in Manthria has proven very difficult, not least because there is such a paucity of the first category of large village/small towns to accomdate the relatively small cities there.  Also, I have not checked my work super carefully here...

True, no physical body, no physical location needed 

However, given that while there is a physical body there is ALSO some light (soul, spirit, consciousness, dreaming...), it follows there is a relationship between... let us call them the realms of light and those of the material.  In a way, there are only two possibilities:
 
1. We think of the material as packed full of dimensions, allowing an explanation for some of what those wacky magician types do... such as invisibility being a slight step to the right (or was that left?) into one of many infinite dimensions, leaving essentially everything as it was, except the world sort of forgets you. Of course, if two people become invisible, do they perhaps see each other?  In any case, gods and goddesses no doubt become quite adapt at moving around this sort of thing, and so they may be living in any one of their favorite temples, only, just to the right (or was that left?) where perhaps they cannot be seen or felt directly, and perhaps they can also sort of forget about the folks praying to them sometimes!

2. There are no material things whatsoever, it is dreams stacked upon dreams all the way down, like the proverbial turtles...  Of course, it is not really clear what the difference between 1 and 2 would be exactly, except perhaps it might be easier for some travellers to learn to traverse dreams if they think of them as dimensions (but then others will do better just dreaming!).

A note on LoR and the Valar.  When Belariand was sunk into the sea, part of the deal was some kind of "bending of the world" that made the Western lands unreachable without essentially magical aid (no more Numenorians coming and leaving their beer cans on the beach!).  It may be that the world that WAS flat was thus made round, since at some points Tolken did regard middle earth as our earth, just a long time ago (I think 6000 years was his thinking - so I suppose a Christian God's dreaming before this dream or something of the sort).

Just my two cents on gods, goddesses and THE God(dess) in the dream...  Keeping in mind there is a category difference between the first two and the last -
gods and light elves are super developed spirits that probably spend considerable time not dreaming, but kind of resting, just aware of the dreams of others. Of course some probably go to a lot of rock concerts and crazy parties -  I would think the god of lust and desire probably just cannot get enough...  Anyhow, when moved they manifest into the dream pretty much where and how they want to, about as naturally as humans take a walk and dwarves dig a tunnel.

But here is the really big question... Can they also manifest WHEN they want to?  Meaning, can they choose the year they manifest?  My hunch is a sort of weird yes, since TIME is what dreams are made from, and if you step outside of time, you have a lot of freedom in how you step back in.  You could step RIGHT or LEFT...

Okay, I hope my excessive metaphysical dreaming doesn't bore anyone.  BTW - I used to call doing the above sort of thing my day job 

Hi Artimidor,

All my assumptions were thankfully noted in pencil... 

I figured I would make lots of wrong assumptions here, but thought to start working it out to figure where it worked and where it didn't.  Thanks for pointing these things out.

So, a couple of questions and then I will outline the basic problem.

If huts are villages and houses are towns, what exactly is the difference?  For example, Kolbruk is houses, but only has a population of 200 to 400 varying by seasons.  Setting a policy, like one house means 600 pop and one hut means 1-200 pop would be helpful (just an idea)

If Nepris really is 200 persons, does that mean about 40 men, 40 women and 120 children?  Does that mean to count ONLY those who live within eyeshot of the main road?  In otherwords, if you walk a stral down the road and see a cottage where a farmer and her family live, are they already included in that population?

Now, a really big question is whether every city that exists is noted on the map.  In other words, are there any cities larger than 10,000 not currently identified and named on the map?  My assumption is no...

What about towns between 1000 and 5000 - can we assume they are all marked on the map?  I wanted to assume that yes, any town of this size has been included on the map (hence why I was thinking some of the villages might turn out to be towns...)

What about villages between 100 and 1000 - can we assume they are NOT all marked on the map?  I assumed not, since this would tend to fill the map and take away some of its utility and beauty.

These are some of the basic questions that need to be addressed.  And by way, perhaps we can finalize a map using all the best cartographic principles 

Other assumptions include finding the right number to represent the rural/urban split.  I originally used optimistic but historically accurate numbers, that 80% to 90% of the overall population lived and worked farms.  Bard Judy piped in some good points, so I stretched it down to 67% so that for every 2 persons working the field, you would have 1 person living in a town or city hammering away on an anvil or making copious notes in a spell book. 

Especially in a land as HUGE as Santharia (to say nothing of the whole continent, never mind the world!) it probably is a good idea to set down some policies that creators and dreamers can use to ensure their conceptions all end up consistent.  One of the most important numbers is this RURAL/URBAN split above.

Another super important number is the support the land can offer, which is where the High Yield, Middle Yield, Low Yield, Very Low Yield, and No Yield numbers come from, that High Yield produce enough for 60 pop/ square stral, then 30/ss, then 6/ss, then 1/ss, then 0.1/ss.  These are pretty accurate so far as history goes, and there didn't seem cause to increase or decrease them, but what do you think?  What IS important, however, is to decide on some system like this so that when someone starts developing a region, they have some guidelines to keep numbers managable.

Finally, as Bard J. pointed out, a big city can import a lot of its food, but it has to import that food from SOMEWHERE... so ultimately, all of these numbers need to be roughly consistent.

I did the Mithral coast analysis hoping to find a way to interpret the map and infos already provided to show the region as a NET basic goods and food Producer, because someone has to make the food for Ciaso and other big cities.  The only way I could see to work this was to assume there were a few towns in the area that would be funnelling produce upto to the Marduran with its 10,000 population.

Something like the following is needed:

For every inhabited region that is Fief to Dutchy sized (say 10,000 to 100,000 square strals or so), begin by deciding whether it is condusive to agriculture or not. If it is, assume most of it is automatically semi-wilderness that automatically supports 1 pop/ss.  If it is not, assume most of iti s wilderness that automatically supports 0.1 pop/ss.  Or some mix between these two (like 50/50). 

To this, some % of the land has been actively cultivated to become production land that supports 6, 30 or 60 pop/ss.  This % is going to be based on history more than anything else.  If the area is the center of an ancient kingdom, assume this is maximized.  What are the maximums?  Again, these should be set...  But if the land was rich, it could be 20%,40%, 40%.  If it wasn't, perhaps 0%, 5%, 20% with remainder remaining semiwilderness.  A simple table could set this out.

If an area has a lot cities and towns, that is a good sign that is rich...

Anyhow, the key then is to see that the total population supported will allow a certain amount of Urban population.  And the % urban (the 33% I came to after discussion being a sort of high medieval/rennaissance on magical steroids) then needs to be distributed.  But this number won't only be subsumed in the big city, but at least half of it will the population of the midsized towns... and these are in short supply in most parts of the kingdom (at least from looking at the map).  I suppose it is always more fun to mark down and work on super cities than it is on the rather boring small towns without anything too special to be said about them 

I applied the above sort of logic and thinking to the Mithral Coast as a case study.  I figured the land itself was not especially hospitable to agriculture, but of course it has fisheries.  Nevertheless, with some development (notably around Kolbruk), it would find a way to become a net producer.  But with Marduran at 10,000, we would expect about five towns in the region with avg. populations of 2000 or so... 

Again, we can change this fundamental sort of number, that half of the Urban population live in towns and the other half live in cities, but it does make the life on the local farmers and merchants very difficult... Trucking your harvests several hundred stral is impossible economically speaking, that is why there are usually the midsized towns to sell your goods in and trade (from which larger operations may then move foods to yet larger cities...)

Looking at the Mithral Coast this way, there seem to be two primary food depot towns that feed Marduran, the one Starmiran, the other Kolbruk (which is quite far, but using ships makes this less problematic).  Given the abundance of fisheries, I would have guessed Nepris would be larger, but fishermen can also live in the city itself and sail out on fishing expeditions, so this is not big thing.  Holt is also not just a farming village but an important center for dye production - this in itself suggests it would become a town.

Anyhow, trying to figure out where the missing several thousand towns people live was difficult... Even if the Towns to Cities population ratio was less than 1 to 1, but say even 1 to 3 (very unhistorical), there would still need to be a couple of towns with almost 2000 pop each...

BTW - as an historical example, medieval England 13th century had between 3 and 5 millions population by the end of the century, and then it counted something like 30 cities of several thousands to several tens of thousands of people.  It also had around 500 larger market villages and small towns that ranged in size from 500 to 2500 or so.  With an average city size of 8,000, then 240,000 lived in proper cities (the biggest of course being London with between 30 and 80,000), while 500 x avg towns of 1500 = 750,000 pop.  Meaning an historically accurate ratio finds town to city population around 1 to 3 (instead of 1 to 1 or the above proposed 3 to 1 !).

Okay, I have gone on...  What do you think?  The choices seem either to introduce a lot more towns and large villages (as well as a lot more assumed population living in the countryside unmarked on the maps) or assume there are magicians who can create food from thin air in the cities...

BTW -  in trying to work these things out in Santharia, I am always trying to see how to make things work but changing as little as possible.  I am not sure how to proceed on this one though... 


I note in consistent population estimates in some cases, such as Ciaso - a population of 15,000 or 65,000? Damn it is going to be hard to find enough potatoes for those 65,000....   

Dwarves, Dwarves, Here and There!
Dwarves, Dwarves, Everywhere!
Dwarves, Dwarves, Y'a betta b'ware!

                                                 ~~ Orcish children's rhyme

Mmmmm...

I don't know Nybelmar so well, and the dwarves might well be a very different sort than the more Tolkenesque dwarves of the west (at least from what I have been learning as I am a NEWBY...  )

But... staying strictly to the facts....

I would imagine that dwarves CAN live like humans with similar numbers so far as resources go.  What limits dwarves in traditional mythology more than anything else is their lack of... lust.  Yep.  They are somehow modelled after the slower going element of the Earth.  No doubt they care for and love their children beyond measure, but they are not "breeders" like humans and orcs.  Others should pipe in on this so that we all move towards consensus; this is just my sense.

Having said that, I will note that I created a world once where in the far east the dwarves were all very Chinese with long beards finally cut like old Confucian sages.  They were highly integrated into the human empire (along with a few dragons), and I adapted their culture to reflect higher birthrates, though still not on the human scale.  It worked there. 

So, if the Trumarim can produce the children, and tending to farms is not above them  then normal grazing lands/farm lands probably support 30 pop/ss (km squared) just as surely for dwarves as humans...  In fact, probably the dwarves could make great use of their engineering to create wonderful irrigation that would turn even so so land into high yield farmland and so support 60 pop/ss!

Does that help?

Hi Miraran!

For underground, I was using the 1pop/ss (square stral or square km) in MOUNTAINS only.  But this would normally also be augmented by above ground forages and hunts, mostly in the foothills (no one wants to eat only mushroom burgers...)

If the foothills are rich, and the dwarves wanted to start keeping some flocks of sheep and such (or goats better), they could achieve 6pop/ss in the FOOTHILLS.

If they had access and desire to use large plains, I suppose the real question is whether they would want to spend their time living like human farmers... I would think they would not be as good as humans at grazing, if no other reason than they do not ride horses... BUT if they did, they could probably find a way to get the kinds of numbers humans do, that is 30pop/ss.  But personally, I would think they would find such a lifestyle beneath them...  Or perhaps the correct expression is "above them..."

And anyway consider... a dwarf mines gold for a day or makes a sword, either of which he could trade for between a month's and a year's grain for bread and beer...  Or he could work the whole year toiling above ground far from his mountainous home...  Hmmmm.  Or?

Does that help?

errrrrr... I think I misread "local time" as "birthday"   


Actually, it is better than 1,000,000...  That would be in the Santharian kingdom only... The lands to the north are... massive!  I would guess several millions of orcs up there!  Perhaps 10 million even!

I hope they stay there!

.... i spent a lifetime trying to answer these questions.  And in a way still try, though with a different tact now, an illogical one.

.... because logic didnt work, though i took it almost as far as it could go.
Finally, like the tip of a blade made too fine, it became like dust.

.... but this much I know by faith, you exist and you can feel both joy and suffer, and I surely would rather that you felt the former.

.... also this much I would add by logic - no word can reach to the level of the truly divine.  But that does not mean there is no God.

Without arrogance or presumption, we can still honour all that IS, and all that COULD be. 

Thank you all of you for your thoughts on this thread...

Given my last post, is this how others see the  world?  What % of the whole population are elvish, dwarvish, hobbitish, gnomish, Browni-ish, orcish?

My assumptions about the elves from Tolken prejudiced, but with 12 tribes... But as they are essentially immortal, FAPP, they put things out of balance if there are too many.

Dwarves... I counted FIVE dwarvish kingdoms, and I have never read anywhere of a dwarvish kingdom exceding 10,000.  THoughts?

I counted THREE shires with hobbits... and such rarely exceed 6 or 7,000

I know of only one VALE of Brownies...

I know of FEW gnome communities in human populations...

Orcs and goblins always seem plentiful though...

What do you think?

Lady Bard,
 
Yes, your musings bear an aura of sagacity...

Santharia has a total land area of around 10 million square strals.  This is... enormous (about 80 times the size of England in fact... and several times the size of the Roman empire at its height of power! About the size of Europe extending all the way to the Ural mnt. in fact!) 

If we regard the land as follows, we get overall population estimates as:

50% no yield wilderness                         (a million or so orcs mostly)
30% very low yield semiwilderness                  3,000,000
15% low yield land                                       9,000,000
4%   middle yield land                                  12,000,000
1%   high yield farmland                                6,000,000
                                                            -----------------------
Total                                                         30,000,000

Probably a good working number!  Mostly humanf by the way, with

Dwarves < 50,000
Elves      < 50,000
Hobbits   < 20,000
Gnomes  < 10,000
Brownies < 10,000

Orcs treat no yield wilderness as very low yield wilderness, so if they inhabit 1/5 of that, they number 1,000,000 and are still (thankfully?) outnumbered by humans inside the kingdom.

So, with 30,000,000 odd humans, we have 10,000,000 living in urban contexts. 

Half of this number = 5,000,000 about should be in large villages ranging in size from 500 to 2,500 pop. for a total of about 3333 of them in number (between 200 and 600 in each Province!  And between 40 and 200 in each dutchy!  And so between 10 and 100 in every fief!  The maps do not reflect this at present, which is where all kinds of problems start...  ).   

If the next quarter (or 2,500,000 pop) live in towns between 3000 and 12000, we can count off 333 of them... (rather high, I might add... part of the reason I set out to try and make sense of population over the land... because there are just not that many mentioned on the map, not even close!  We expect provinces to have between 20 and 60; dutchies between 4 and 20, and every fief between 1 and 10, which is... well simply not so... a problem  )

If we let the next 1/8 (1,125,000 pop) account for the cities between 12000 and 40,000, like Marcogg and others, we get the 40 odd "One House Cities" represented on the map of Santharian Provinces.  Of course, Marcogg is a "three house city" and again me wants it to make sense 

If we then give the last 1/8 (1,125,000 pop) to the 16 mega cities represented by two or more houses on the Santharian map, we find they have an average population of 70,000 with a low end of 41,000 and a basic high end around 100,000.  The possibility that 3 of these cities is greater than 100,000 is eminently reasonable... I wouldn't count on too many more than three though.

Do these numbers make sense to others?  Do they jive with everyone's larger sense of the whole continent?   

BTW Varcopos is a "one house city" on the Santharian Province map, and my references in the other posts were to "one house settlements" on the Manthrian map, which is of course very much more focussed.  According to the above calculations, Varcopos should have a population between 12,000 and 40,000, and looking it up.... I find no reference... Does this work?   

Ahhh, I see that the first post in this thread you mentioned Varcopos... 130,000.   Sure!  But it would be nice if had some kind of policy with respect to the houses on the map.

Just a note on mega cities... They are almost always on the sea... At least in Euope... but it is interesting how and why. Arabic and Asian cities could be much bigger... but then you need a very well organized absolutist sort of government and tax system.  See this article for more info: http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/1282

I. First, the Gnome sleeps....

I now noted that Marduran has a pop of 10,000... so corrected and revised populations are:

Region                          Total          Farmers/fishers      Urban

Marduran                      10,000              1,700            8,300
Holt                               1,500                 700               800     
Holt region                      6,000             6,000
Starmiron                        2,000                 700            1,300
Starmiron region              8,000              8,000
Northern Coast fishermen  1,000              1,000
Thersim/Chalbern area       3,000              2,900
                                 --------------            ----------           --------
Subtotal (Capstan Coast)  31,400            21,000           10,400
Food surplus/deficit            +100           +10,500          -10,400


Nepris                             1,000                 700                300
Southern coast fishermen  1,100               1,100
Kolbruk                           2,000                  700              1300
Kolbruk area                    6,500                6,500
                                 --------------              --------             --------
Subtotal Fief Tyrsan         10,600               9,000             1,600   
Food surplus/deficit          +2,900             +4,500            -1,600   

Grand total Mithral Coast   42,000              30,000           12,000
Total Food surplus/deficit  +3,000            +15,000          -12,000

Export to Dwarves             2000
Export to Ciosa                  1000




II. I will further look at dwarves and orcs in another message (thanks Tharoc and Bard Judith! All points well taken!)  However, we can assume Starmiran and Kolbruk have each around 100 Dwarves living amongst the humans, and perhaps a couple hundreds in Marduran.  If there are orc tribes, then they certainly would be living in the southern area around the Ruins of Karthmor and the Bayth Swamps, and the area could support several thousands (though if they got too numerous, I imagine the Dwarves and human settlements would go put an end to them...) Personally, I like to think there are about 100 gnomes in Holt - they lead the dying industry there  . Marduran probably has a smattering of most of the races represented, just a few hundreds total all counted. A few hundred hobbits may live around Svanfrill Hill, especially if there turns out to be a graven's keep there.

III. an alternative way to count the village populations given is to assume these numbers are ONLY the inner nonagricultural core, and doubling the numbers for children.  So a village of 300 means:

300 adults in villlage (at least 12 years old) with craft shops and the
       rest, also a local lord (see below for a typical breakdown).
200 children (under 12 years old) of the above adults.
600 farmers (and/or fishermen) and 400 more children in surrounding area (roughly extending 2 to 4 strals in each direction).  The numbers work at pretty much the same per the previous post.

IV. a village with 300 adults, like Holt (by example), means about 100 homes (most will be married couples and assume teens live with parents), not counting the farming (and fishing elsewhere) homesteads surrounding the village.  In a wild region like the Mithral Coast, with pirates, bandits, orcs, and God knows what else, the villages probably are centered around a keep with a lord with a knight captain, 2 squires, a seargent at arms and 15 permanent menatarms, all with horse and armor.  There is surely a blacksmith who is also a resident armorer, tanners (assuming local graying), a cobbler and assorted other leather workerss, a spinner, a tailor and several dyers (unique to Holt, not mormal for a village - all are gnomes    ), a tinker (also a gnome), masons, a barreller, a boyer, carpenters, potters, rope makers and candle makers, a miller, a baker, at least one tavern keeper (probably 3) and one a brewer, a horse keeper, a money lender (gnome?) who doubles with a general shop (not realistic to medieval, but appropriate to fantasy), etc..  Probably 30 craftsmen with shops in all and 60 families employed by the first but also working as wood cutters, candle makers and of course dyers ingredients gatherers, and so on.

V. FIEF TYRSAN
Given that the southern region is a "Fief" we may assume there is a  Graven (probably Moundgraven originally, but perhaps now a landgraven or even a markgraven) of the region (who perhaps choose to live in Marcogg with blue bloods playing Tarot in salons, telling bad jokes and being semi-witty)  The primary town is Kolbruk which has an extensive manor and tower keep, so the likely center of his/her lands.  But it is owned by the Altnaus trading family... who once almost acquired the dutchy of Marcogg itself it seems!  Since there is not much happening elsewhere in the fief, but is nevertheless part of the dutchy of Marcogg, it must be that either the local graven has been paid off by the Altnaus family to let them have free reign or is an Altnaus.  So, this is my guess - and in fact, it is probably the doings of the Altnaus family that the fief is in Marcogg and not part of the Capstan Coast, perhaps for tax reasons....?  So my thinking is that a deal was struck with the Dutchy of Marcogg at some point, perhaps recently in the past two hundred years, that the area would be given to them, either indirectly through a chosen family who would leave administration to the Altnaus family, and in return would receive a yearly endowment of funds to live luxuriously in Marcogg, or to the Altnaus directly.  An importrant advantage in either case is to stop other trading houses from muscling in as they have in the past, because now if they try, they are assaulting one of the dutchy's estates, which would have very severe repercussions to their operations in Marcogg...  The fiefdom's keep confirms the  land as part of the dutchy and the Althaus's probably paid for it, even if they do not "own" it (or the gravendom...)  However, if the land is not Althaus's formally, perhaps not every generation of graven is satisfied to sit idly by and let the Althaus's do the work and get the big profits...

In any case, there should be a Graven's keep somewhere in the area where he or she maintains at least a nominal presence.  I would suggest the Hills of Sanfrill, overlooking where the road splits south and west. Since most of the revinue of the area is from trading and the area around Kolbruk, there is unlikely to be an extensive need for more.  The taxes on the fisherman would not be enough to make it worth it.  Since the Althaus family has a stranglehold on all the trade in the fief, there is no need for taxes - their earnings are reflected in their profits and rents in Kolbruk.   

With a population of just over 10,000 or so, now that the farming communities around Kolbruk have expanded extensively, we should expect the graven maintains a retinue of a knight captain, knight errant leutenant, each with squires (3), 2 seargents at arms, and 12 men at arms for a total of 20. half would live in the keep and half would follow the graven as their entourage, perhaps residing in Marcogg in a nicer townhouse there. 

If this seems a nice idea to others, I will write up some NPCs for this and background story fitting into the other stories.  Important though is whether the graven is Althaus or not.

I would guess that the population of Kolbruk can only grow to become a proper town.  I would recommend doubling the population at least, perhaps raising it to a full fledged small town of 2500 or so.


VI. CAPSTAN COAST
 the northern region has a sizable population of 31,400.  This is a very large and rich Graven...  Close to a Marquis in their own right!  Perhaps even carries this additional title:  Marquis of Marduran...  In addition, both Holt and Starmiran are likely baronies, each with a respective keep in the area.

VII. Dwarves of the Mountains
The dwarves could number greater than 20,000 based on the size of the mountain range (more than 20,000ss.) and 1/ss. limit.  Normally, I would guess that they do not tend to grow this large, but this is an old dwarven kingdom!  And with one major, one minor newer and one small ambassadorial settlement, this is really a kind of old Moria dwarven paradise.  So, I am going to suggest two things:

1. The population is high for dwarves, around 9500 in fact.  7000 live in the main hidden city, 2000 in the new gold mines and 500 in the ambassadorial settlement.  PLEASE would the dwarven sages pipe in here with strongly given opinions 

2. The area is a kind of "Graven" in its own rights.  Does this sound right?  IF they allow themselves to be regarded as part of the dutchy of Marcogg, then they must have active representation in Marcogg, and they must really like the Duke!  For surely, an army of 100,000 men could not siege and capture their kingdom....  I would think an army of 100,000 goblins lead by a chosen one would be needed, and nothing less would suffice to conquer this dwarven gem. The only way to get them to become part of the dutchy is with such delicious trade relations, they just cannot resist 

Thoughts?

So...

The Mithral Coast is formed from Fief Tyrsan and the Capstan Coast, each respectively part of two distinct dutchies, but nevertheless forming a single economic and population region.  They produce all their own basic foods and export some of that food to the Dwarves.  The Dwarves of the Mithral mountains I will deal with the next message, but assuming they number less than 10,000 for now (let us suppose 4000 for the moment), and though they can be self sufficient for food if they want to be, they choose to import enough food for 2000 as a luxury (which they can afford), mostly fish, grain, vegetables, honey, jams as well as exotics from over the sea like olive oil and so on.  To this, they provide half their own food in underground  caverns and hunting in the foothills.  They probably export a few speciality basic foods like rare mushrooms, but for the purposes of our calculations here, their numbers are likely negligable.

So, we have the following Urban Centers that need to be fed:

Dwarves (2000 pop worth of food)

Marduran (9000? As the primary port on the coast, it is likely of some size
              though probably smaller than Ciaso with its 15,000.  See
              below for why... a little analysis of trade in the region)

Holt ("over 300" means over 300 * 5 = 1500, so a small town of, say,
       1500, many of whom live sort of in the immediate area)

Starmiran (a "three house" town like Holt, assume similar numbers:
              around 2000 pop. or 400 families)

Nepris (pop 200 meaning 200 * 5 =1000, fishing village)

Kolbruk (pop "200 to 400" meaning, 1000 to 2000, this is a small town
           with good farming lands and fishing - the main economic center
           for the southern region)


Sunf and the other towns are part of the inland region, foods from there would end up in Marcogg. 

Okay, so what is our "URBAN" population?

Dwarves 2000
Maduran 7000 (1000 are fed by local farms and 1000 by town fisheries)
Add       2000 for all small towns together
            ____
Total    11,000

Kolbruk, Starmiran, Nepris, Holt  All together have perhaps 2500 urbanized people (remember each has 670 farmers feeding the first 1000), with Nepris thus self sufficient for basic foods and the others nearly so (though remember that selfsufficiency doesnt mean they dont trade, just that they produce enough overall foods to feed their population, but Nepris fisherfolk probably get tired of fish once in a while...).  Kolbruk with its local farms provides most ofthe grain to the region, but it thus has a considerably larger farming population in numerous small clustered farming homesteads and tiny dorfs.

Since 10,000 persons of foods requires 20,000 persons to produce it, we can assume we have atleast another 20,000 people scattered around the towns and villages noted on the map.  This may seem like a lot, but it is very low, and the area could support far more... (probably another 60,000 or so more in fact, without difficulty - the whole region below the mountains is more than 30,000 ss, which even it were all Low Yield, would support  a total of 180,000 people!!  In the following calculations, I arrive at 42,000 pop total, meaning the areas is overall hardly over the 1/ss Very Low Yield threshold!  But it is kind of wild looking country...

Overall populations are estimated as follows:

Marduran and immediate area          9000 pop
Holt and surroundings                    9500 pop
Starmiran and surroundings           12,000 pop
border regions (Thersim)                6000 pop
North coast fisherman                    1000 pop
Nepris                                          1000 pop
South coast fishermen                    1100 pop
Kolbruk and local farming area          8400 pop
                                                _________
Total Mithral Coast Population           48,000 pop
(not counting Mithral Mnt Dwarf pop)

Detailed Analysis:

KOLBRUK
Assuming each "field" represented on the map is about 80ss of actual farmland with 20ss of unfarmed bits for a total of 100ss = 10 X 10 strals, each produces grains and foods enough for 80 x 60 = 4800 persons, but 2/3 of said persons work the fields themselves, so 3200 persons.  This means each such field with have around 740 families living and perhaps half that number of homesteads (around 250) which peper the land between the fields.  Since there are two such fields on the map, we can double this, and we find 500 homesteads around Kolbruk and 6400 people totally living in the area (not counting th 1000 to 2000 that live in the town itself).  Enough food is produced for everyone in the region plus 3200, or since sometimes Kolbruk is bristling with 1000 extra merchants and so on, it may only export 2200 people worth of grain to Maduran.  On average, we can easily see 2500 per year however.  Furthermore, although not itself on the sea, there is lots of coast near by that is surely peppered with small fishing communities, and all that fish will come through Kolbruk to be traded.  However, I will count fish later.

HOLT
There are around 4000ss or more of foothills around Holt, mostly for grazing.  Assuming even low yield, that is a max production in the area of already over 24,000 persons (though 16,000 would have to be doing the work of sheherding the sheep, etc.)  Since the town is 1500 or more, we could assume this, but let us assume it is at half capacity, so there are 8000 living in the region with their flocks and they are producing enough food for 4000 more than themselves (500 or so of which live in Holt). So a net export then of 3500 persons food to Maduran, mostly cheese, lamb and such goods as wool, much of which all eventually end up north in Carmala.

STARMIRAN
Similar both in land size and kind to Holt (it is another grazing/herding town), its location on the main trade route to both the Dwarves and Marcogg suggest it is bigger, probably having a population around 2000 (meaning 400 families).  Assuming slightly more local shepherds and farmers around the area (all of it more accessable), if we go with 10,000, enough food is produced for 15,000 or 5,000 surplus, and 1000 of that is used up in Starmiran itself, yielding a net total of 4000 persons worth of food and wool for export.  Assume other products like hemp and rope are also produced here for the ships of Maduran. Also, though Maduran has forests around it that are cut for timber for ships, the higher elevation of Starmiran means more coniferous growth, which is far better for straight masts, so there may also be some wood trade down to the city.  In any case, 4000 persons worth of basic goods and foods are produced here, at least a quarter and perhaps closer to a third of which is traded to the Dwarves.

NEPRIS and NORTH COAST and SOUTHCOAST fisheries
With a population of around 1000 (200 families) it is itself still a small village (see below for some thoughts on incorporating these numbers into the Nepris module), and overall neither contirbuting nor drawing from the Rural/Urban balance.  However, the entire coast line is surely peppered with fishing homesteads of 3 or so families with a fishing boat.  The coast line is close to 700 strals long, and even if we suppose that only half of that is suitable for people to live on next to the sea, and even if suppose only half of that is actually settled by such small fishing homesteads, we have over 150 strals after we subtract the Nepris and Maduran fishing centers.  Even if we keep to the rather low 1 homestead per stral (each with 3 families or 15 persons), we have another 2250 persons producing suplus food for a little more than 1000 persons, some of which will go to Kolbruk (the southern fishman), while those further north will drop their cargos off in Maduran and trade for other foods and goods.  It could sustain 10 times these numbers easily...

Finally there is a very large region north of Chalbern creek that is huge, even if we suppose the plentiful lands south of it are no longer viable due to some unfortunate history around the ruins (i.e., that area is now dessert where only orcs could live).  Still the norther expanse is twice the size or more of what lies around Starmiran, and it could be plowed for fields like Kolbruk and made home to a lovely town.  At the very least, we should probably expect a village at the river crossing at both the Chalbern creek and the Thersim crossing.  And though either or both might be small villages of 200 families (1000 persons), we should expect to find 30,000 or more farmers and shepherds in the area given its large size!  If we find less than 10,000 (supposing the land quality to be inferior) then there has to be a reason (like a serious orc menace to the south, but then this begs the question of why the dwarves and dutchies havent done something about it already!!)  So, I will assume it is populated by an extremely modest 6,000 who thus produce another 3000 persons worth of food surplus, most of which will be traded in Starmiran and then to the dwarves and Maduran.

Thus, we have surplus funneled through the small towns totalling:

Holt                      3500 persons foods surplus
Starmiran               4000 persons foods surplus
Kolbruk                  2500 persons foods surplus
Nepris &
Southern Coast        500 persons foods surplus
Norhtern Coast         500 persons foods surplus
Thersim borderlands 3000 persons foods surplus
                        ----------------
Total Surplus foods 14000 persons surplus foods of which...

feed 11,000 Urban folk, so there is 3000 more than than the region needs, so we can expect some of the finer goods (jams, honey, sausage, cheese) and some of the grain are likely exported overseas to cities, mostly probably Ciosa, which will need to import a lot of their food.

************************

A note on looking at the "small villages" as being larger... In particular, if Nepris has a real pop of 1000 (but 200 families), how many buildings would we expect to see?  First, not everyone lives in a seperate building, and many fishing and farmsteads will house 2 or 3 families (e.g., like the one around the garden in the modules as goes east), so right off we  have reduced and need to find 60 or so homes.  Second, half of these will be off the beaten track, up and down coast a bit from Nepris itself. Finally, whoever runs the tavern will also themselves live in tavern with their family and possibly a second support family. Ditto with any other shops.  So all in all, a few more children and people strolling around or wokring in the fields or out on fishing boats and the Nepris modules should work fine so far as the numbers go.  THis is just my suggestions here... 

Thoughts, reactions, ideas,... flames anyone? 

Hi Artimidor!

Okay, will try to make a go of this here...  Going to start in Manthria and work the dutchies one by one.  Actually, I am going to work the regions one by one, because in several cases, they are unnaturally seperated.  What I mean by this is, for example, that the Mithral Coast is spread controlled by two adjacent dutchies (Marcogg and Huicen - though I recognize the historical reasons for it)  However, for working out populations and economy (related of course!), it is better to look at viable regions than political regions (and anyway the friction between the two oftens tells a lot of history in its own right - or in other words, there are some good political reasons that the southern Mithral coast was never subsumed into the far more populous northern part... with whom most of their trade will be conducted (because with the exception of very valuable luxury goods, it does not make sense to try to move fish and foods across the mountains to Marcogg, but rather north to Marduran...)  Okay, so beginning... First some working assumptions (and these I will try to keep consistent everywhere, so if something should be tweeked, it is these numbers!):

Basic population density:

High yield agricultural land and land 
near rivers and accessable coast line:   supports  60 pop/ss. (sq.stral)
(note: near means within a stral)        requires   40 pop to work it

Average yield land including planes for grazing
and sheep rich hills, lightly wooded regions:    supports 30 pop/ss.
(also use as average across whole countries)   requires 20 pop/ss.

Low yield semi wilderness with gardens,
some grazing, hunting and foraging
as primary foods sources:                              supports 6 pop/ss.
(e.g. foothills, nomads in their element,          requires 4 pop/ss.
 elves and brownies in forests, etc.)

Very Low Yield wilderness, including jungle,
thick forests, very cold/hot places, etc.            supports 1 pop/ss.
Also, dwarves and goblins in Mountains,           (requires 1 pop/ss.)
And orcs in otherwise no yield lands
(see below -  they are hardy creatures).

No yield wilderness and lands, including desserts     (support 0.1/ss.)
for all but dessert nomads and mountains for all      (require 0.1/ss.)
except dwarves and goblins, deep and heavy
forests for all except brownies, elves, orcs; swamps
for all except mugs, etc. In short, unless a race or
tribe have special adaptations, no production happens.
If they do have special adaptations, treat as low yield,
and remember some kind of orc has adapted to every
possible climate and context.

Note - France in 1300 had averaged 65 pop/sq.m.  = 25 pop/ss.
while England in 1200 was closer to 30 pop/sq.m.   = 12 pop/ss.
but note these averages included wilderness and
no yield lands, like the high Alps and English swamps.

Note that I am working with simplified average that 2/3 (67%) of the population must work the land that is producing - this is *very low* by medieval standards, which more realistically ranged from 80% to 95%, with few exceptions (e.g., Flanders in early rennaissance) and these numbers were not improved upon until the industrial revolution...

URBAN concentration accounts for the difference (1/3), and I define urban as any concentration of people starting at  1000pop (irrespective of race).  See below for why this high number, but in short, wherever there is a market, crafts people,... a tavern  )

Note: I am going to assume the populations of "VILLAGES" already on the maps as counting the number of family heads, not actual people.  So, if a "small village" has 200 pop, this actually means 200 families of 5 - btw. this follows a tradition going back to the medieval notion of "Hundreds" (English shires were made of several "Hundreds" and each represented "100 men and their weapons" -  in other words, less the wives and kids, who make up... 80% of the population on average!)  Of course, in some places, they ONLY count the women and not the stay home dads 

However, I am going to assume CITY populations are accurate... where a CITY is defined as over 1000pop (all races),  and moreover, I assume these numbers also count the resident farmers whose fields extend out a stral (or more in non high yield land, meaning grazing lands out to 2 or more stral or hunting lands upto 5 stral, say in the case of elves or orcs) from the city walls - or to put it another way, the immediate area around a city of 10,000 or less (about 9ss. or 9sq.km.) produces enough food for 900 pop (and also provides "jobs" for 600 pop as farmers!).  This number does not vary so much based on city size, since 10,000 pop fills one urban ss. (square stral), and even a mega city with 90,000 pop filling an area of 9 ss. would only have around 16ss surrounding it and so probably assorted local villages.  So simplifying a little, we can safely assume the following average for ALL CITIES and TOWNS:

           Around 660 of every town or city pop are employed
           as farmers and enough foods are produced to
          feed 1000 of the locals.

          This means TOWNS of 1000pop are self-sufficient and
          have around 30 shops, crafts people, as well as around
          38 lords, knights, guards, priests, etc.
          (remembering that 30 + 38 = 68 and 68 means 68
           families of 5 = 340, the difference of 1000 - 660 :-) )
          Really, towns of 1000 are glorified villages.

          TOWNS and CITIES greater than 1000 require imports,
          but everyone over 1000 is employed in a more urban way.

          Smaller VILLAGES export basic goods to towns and cities
          and trade for more refined goods produced there (like
          iron tools and wagons and clothing)           

Note that for Dwarves and Elves, I would use the Very Low Yield lower numbers (1pop./ss. in all terrain) irrespective of terrain. They COULD have much higher numbers (using 6pop/ss. in foothills or forests) as they are, if anything, way more efficient in every respect, except for one way: having children       If they import, it is only for luxury goods and foods, not from necessity for basic provisions.
Note that Goblins and Dwarves can achieve 1pop/ss in mountains, I would not think higher - even though they can layer caves on top of caves.  I cannot imagine acres and acres of fields under mountains...  However, also remember that 1pop/ss is 10x more than any other race in the mountains, and it means the Mithral mountains, by example, with 20,000ss can support upwards 20,000 Dwarves as a maximum, and this is probably much higher than it actually is.
Hobbits to a lesser extent and Orcs more so, I would count with human numbers, because they tend to breed to max capacity.  However, orcs (and goblins) do not farm much and do not do well when naturally concentrated, so they should treat high and middle yield land types as semiwilderness,  but their strength lies in treating No Yield wilderness as Very Low Yield; they do not cultivate tomatoes but they can find a few fish in the dessert, and moles in the mountains, and they hunt rather well... and are willing to eat anything of course.
Brownies... probably use the same 6 brownies/ss. in appropriate land, even if it is Very Low Yield for humans (e.g., deep forests, jungles).

*******************************************
So, I will split messages now - these are working assumptions (please suggest changes!  And I will elsewhere provide some links for research)

I will turn to the Mithral Marches and Coast next based on these assumptions.