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Published: 2003-07-20 Updated: 2008-06-01 |
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Gerald Harris Okay, so you want to design a fantasy world, but you don't want it to have some grounding in "reality" or at least have some rational, logical reasoning behind it. Fortunately, there are a lot of sources in the various published House Rules games, as well as on the internet to help you do just that. Region type The first thing you need to determine is the region type you'll be dealing with. All territories can be divided into three types: civilized, frontier, and wild. Civilized regions are those that are fairly well settled by one or more of the relatively benign sentient races, such as humans or elves. The region is patrolled and incursions by marauding monsters are nipped in the bud by the local military. Frontier regions are a bit more lawless. They will be settled by sentients of any stripe, but will not be as patrolled as civilized regions. Marauding monsters will be more common as a result. Wild regions will be sparsely settled and monsters will be common. Tech Level Fantasy settings are usually around TL 1-2 (Medieval). However, the genre could be set at any tech level. For our purposes, the tech level of a fantasy campaign will range between 0 (stone age) and 2M (Late Renaissance/Early Enlightenment). For all practical purposes, this means some fantasy campaigns will have black powder weaponry and clockwork power sources available. Population Using World Tamer's Handbook, the number of people who can be supported, per square kilometer of land devoted to agriculture, ranges between 16 and 40 for TL 0-3 with a Standard of Nutrition of 1. Up to twice this can be supported, though there will be political ramifications from a hungry population. Figure about 5-30 (1D6 × 5) people on average per square kilometer devoted to agriculture. Also, figure only about half the total area will be devoted to agriculture, which makes the population density of a region about 15 sentients per square kilometer. This is for a civilized region. For frontier regions, divide this by four. For the wilds, divide this by 10. For example, County Morgan (overseen by Count Morgan) is a civilized region roughly about 160 kilometers across, which gives it an area of about 20,100 square kilometers. It's a civilized region, so its population would theoretically number upwards of 603,000, but averages 351,750. Territory As pointed out above, only half a civilized region will be devoted to agriculture. A quarter will be undeveloped (wilds, complete with whatever monsters can eke out a living there). Another quarter will be towns, cities, seaports, or other built up areas. In frontier regions only an eighth of the region will be devoted to agriculture. A sixteenth will be built up areas, and the rest will be wilds. The wilds will have only five percent of its territory devoted to agriculture, and 2.5 percent devoted to built up areas. Castles and Castle Ruins S. John Ross has an excellent website, Medieval Demographics Made Easy. The following information is lifted wholesale from that site. To determine the number of ruined fortresses and castles, divide the region's population by 5 million and multiply the result by the square root of the number of years the region has been settled. Three quarters of these ruins will be in settled areas of the region and the other 25 percent will be in the "wilderness" areas. There is one active castle or fortress for every 50,000 sentients in the region. How many monsters? Monsters in most fantasy worlds are as common as dirt. However, the typical monster is a carnivore or omnivore, so there has to be a large number of prey animals available for the monster to subsist upon. To determine the number of monsters then, we need to determine the number of prey animals. The foraging chart from Twilight: 2000, pg. 148 (reproduced below), gives us some clues as to the amount of animal mass that can be supported per square kilometer.
However, this is only food fit for human consumption, and it covers what is available per month. Animals, however, can make use of a lot of biomass that humans would find inedible. From recent studies we know that one hectare of woodland can support approximately 10 red deer. Extrapolated, that's 1000 red deer per square kilometer. We'll assume this is during the summer when food is most plentiful. And, there are a lot more critters living in those woods than just the red deer. Red deer weigh about 300 kilograms. This gives us an herbivore mass of 300,000 kg/square kilometer. We'll double this mass to take into account all the squirrels, birds, rats, gophers, groundhogs, porcupines, box turtles and whatnot wandering those same woods. So, now we know that a square kilometer of woods can support 600 tonnes of critters in the summer time. From the chart, above, we see that the woods can still support this mass in the fall, but that it drops to one sixth of its summer mass in the winter, and climbs back to half its summer mass in spring. From this we can derive the following values:
These values are the tonnes of animal mass supported per square kilometer. Note, based upon the red deer population, above, we can use half the above values to determine the number of domesticated animals that can be grazed per square kilometer. But more on that later. This chart is for a temperate clime. A tropical climate will support twice the critter mass, and a sub-arctic region will support half that listed on the table above. However, this isn't the end of the equation. Only about 30 percent of an animal is edible meat. The tonnes of meat available for our prospective monsters (and hunters) is reflected on the chart below:
Various sources put the ratio of carnivores to herbivores at 1:100. Albeit, this is the ratio of numbers, not mass. However, for our purposes we'll use this number for mass. The total mass, in kilograms, of carnivore per square kilometer is reflected in the chart below:
Not all of these will be our monsters, however. For that, you need to consult the "frequency" statistic of the monster. Very rare would constitute only five percent of the above mass; rare monsters equal about 10 percent of the mass; uncommon is about 20 percent; and common is about 65 percent. So, for example, the referee wants to put a beholder in a wooded area. A beholder masses 1200 kg and is a very rare encounter, which means it represents only five percent of the carnivore population. Because it is the equivalent of 24,000 kg of carnivore (1200/0.05), it would have a territory equal to about 13 square kilometers during the summer and fall, 80 square kilometers in the winter, and about 27 square kilometers in the spring. Use the biggest value to determine the territory as a summer population explosion among beholders would be very unlikely. As another example, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is an uncommon predator in a prairie (field) region. It is therefore the equivalent of 30,000 kg of carnivore. Using the winter value in the chart above, we discover the T. Rex's range is 200 square kilometers (30,000/150). In both cases, the monsters will share its range with other carnivores. And, if the other carnivores are of the same frequency, the monster's range will be increased appropriately. As a final note, the typical monster will typically only be found in Frontier and Wild regions, as civilized regions will not tolerate ravening beasties marauding through the area. However, there will often be "wild" regions within a civilized area that may harbor any manner of critter. "Civilized" Monsters Not all monsters are of the "predator" variety. Some, such as orcs, have tribal societies. While it is possible that such tribes might eke out a living as hunter-gatherers, such a lifestyle will not support the numbers necessary for some of the larger tribes. We know that some such beings practice animal husbandry in the form of rearing guard animals. It doesn't take a great leap to having the tribes also maintaining herds of meat animals. As pointed out above, about half as many domestic animals can graze an area as wild animals. Additionally, only 30 percent of the meat animals is edible. This gives us the following tonnage of domesticated meat per square kilometer:
These values are for the total amount of meat available per square kilometer. However, only a fraction of this will be available for consumption, because a breeding population has to be maintained. Figure about 10 percent of the herd will be available for consumption. The actual meat available, per square kilometer, is as follows:
A "ration" is 100 kilograms per person (monster) per month, or about 1200 kilograms per year. Dividing the above values by 1.2 gives us the number of individuals who can be supporter per square kilometer:
As in the predator examples above, we will use the "Winter" column to determine the maximum population per square kilometer. As nearly all the "civilized" monsters live in wooded or swampy regions we will use those values. Therefore, a small tribe of maybe 100 individuals would have a territory of around 80 square kilometers of woodland, or about 160 square kilometers of swampland. Other Resources |