Ravenloft Demographics out of whack?

[Kane]

Reading through the core book, I was amazed at how few people live in the various realms. I didn't have a calculator handy, but by my rough figuring, there are less then half a million people total in all the realms. I think that number is way too low to support a high medieval/early renaissance setting. Most realm populations are so small that they would be subsistence farmers at best, unable to support any industry, and definately not able to support opera houses, art galleries, etc. The major cities in Ravenloft nead to have a much larger population to really be considered cities. Even early medieval cities had way more population then the largest cities in Ravenloft. Thoughts?

Kane

[Joël of the FoS]

Good question. This is raised from time to time.

Simple answer - 1: it is a fantasy world, so our world's medieval guidelines do not apply directly.

Over the time, I've even seen analysis on the number of persons needed to support vampires

In our world's medieval times, you had a ratio of urban/rural by 1/8 or 1/10. That rules of thumb wasn't applied in Ravenloft. But our world didn't have werewolves and other threats pushing people toward town and cities.

Simple answer - 2: you are the DM, do what you wish if this really bugs you. Many people (excluding me) increased the size / population of the domains.

Joël

[WolfKook]

Well, I'm with you in that the Realms of Dread need more people... Adn, yes, I'm one of those geeks who have paid some thought to the number of people needed to sustain a vampire (And Jackeline Montarri, and all those men-eating monsters). Zherisia and Port A'Lucine are described as big-time metropolises (sp?), but their populations don't seem to be appropriate for that.

Related to that is the matter of extension. The Realms are too small!!! I've seen some people say that that was meant to create a sense of claustrophobia, but I (for one) think that loneliness is far more effective at creating a sense of dread than claustrophobia.

[Kane]

Joel,

I agree that the books are guidelines trying to get across the spirit/mood of Ravenloft and I'm free to change it to my liking. I've been reading Sebastian's detective short stories (the Vail series) and I like how he treats the setting, with handsome cabs, an opera house, small riverboats, etc. I thinik it makes the setting more interesting. My original question was more to spark debate then get a definative decision.

Kane

[Nathan of the FoS]

I've always thought Ravenloft was listed at about 1/10 its ideal size. I make the Core the size of a small continent (maybe two-thirds of Australia) and bump population figures by 10 to 20 times for all big cities and many small ones. (For example, Lekar is 250,000+, Port-a-Lucine, Martira Bay, and Egertus all top 100,000, as do Paridon and Nosus.)

[Snake]

Though this answer doesn't address the size of the current realms, one option is to create several new domains. I know it can be a tough thing to create domains and plan a game, but I've DMed and played in games where several new domains existed and were created while in the game. This made the core much much bigger and made for a more enjoyable game.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Minor point, but the population figures in D&D products only include adults. While the DMG suggests the presence of an additional 10-40% children, that's a rather low figure for a pre-industrial society: I'd think that doubling the books' population figures would give a better sense of how many people of all ages are present, even without changing anything "official".

Just a small factor, but it's a help, particularly if a lot of the monsters target children as 'easy pickings'.

[cure]

The other fly in the ointment is the population necessary to support characters (PC & NPC) of a certain level.

A high-level campaign cries out for a big core demographically and even geographically.

A low-level campaign with not so high level darklords might be perfectly fine the way things are.

But then there is the matter of level inflation and, I suppose, Darklord development. Lukas' original stats were not overly cramped in a Kartakass of 20 by 30 miles. But then we got greater wolfweres and a whole hierarchy of lupines under him and the domain began to seem impossibly small.

The claustrapobia seems to me to be partly prison - no space for the Darklords to spread their wings - and partly oppression - no wide open spaces to flee to and lose yourself far beyond the interest let alone reach of a given Darklord. The core is meant to be Old Europe, not the New World.

Incidently, notice how constrained the routes of travel are. Try to get most anywhere and Falkovnia and Barovia are probably between where you are and where you want to be. I think the importance of the Musarde in the life of the western core has not been sufficient underlined and I like very much the riverboat angle. But you still have to pass through Falkovnia, demihumans be warned.

[Cole Deschain]

But who wants to travel? THere's no door to barricade out in the wild!

Honestly?

I just ignore published population figures.

And sicne distance used to have NO official rating in the Demiplane, I make the domains as large as I like.

Kartakass thus becomes two small communities in the midst of avast, dark forest,

[LordGodefroi]

I don't have the RL Gazeteers in front of me to compare numbers, but:

In the year 1500, London was one of the largest western cities, if not the largest, in the world. It was a bustling metropolis for its time. . . and its population was only 50,000. And total world population at the time was only 450 million.

So, taking that into consideration, a smaller population of RL doesn't seem that off-kilter. . . .

[cure]

Not that nothern Europe was the only game in town, although it has most inspired Ravenloft:

"Cordoba became a capital once more during the Independent Emirate and the Western Umayyad Caliphate, the period of its apogee, with a population ranging between 250,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. At the 10th century, Cordoba was one of the largest cities in the world, as well as a great cultural, political and economic center." Wiki

[Jack of Tears]

Over the time, I've even seen analysis on the number of persons needed to support vampires

Joël

I was one such person and I don't see how the subject isn't important - the population of the setting will directly impact upon the number of vampires and other creatures which prey upon humans. This becomes important when attempting to suspend disbelief and transform the descriptions and numbers from books into a living, breathing world. "It's magic" might be enough of an explination in a such a place as the Forgotten Realms, but Ravenloft should take more responsibility for itself and remain more internally consistant.

Additionally, when one considers the hard numbers and the requirements of such, they are encouraged to think before using Vampires and similar creatures as throw away monsters - recognizing that any such beast is going to impact the area it lives in.

As to the size of the setting, most people tend to increase it significantly - I enlarged it to approximately one half the size of the U.S. Though, once upon a time, I went the other direction and condensced all of Ravenloft down into one city, approximately the size of London, thus relying on the "nowhere to hide" theme more extensively. (and it made for some good games)

[HuManBing]

Part of the mathematics that people like to throw around re: vampires is actually not so applicable to Ravenloft or even DnD.

The most famous mathematical proof of the non existence of vampires is that within a number of years, more than 6 billion people will be turned into vampires, which exceeds the population of the Earth.

This proceeds on assumptions that do not hold true for Ravenloft, most serious among them being that vampires must feed each day, and the feeding itself will turn the victim into a vampire.

In Ravenloft, vampires can go for longer than a day without feeding (although it bothers them to do it) and they are quite able to feed without killing somebody. Even if they do kill somebody, there is no guarantee that it will become a vampire itself that will propagate more vampires. The rules are completely silent as to whether a vampire spawn will create vampires by killing its enemies.


I'm not sure about the whole werewolf/wolfwere relationship with humans though. Do they have to eat human flesh, or is it just that they prefer human flesh (and can eat other flesh)?

Personally I thought it interesting that Drakov stakes people every night for his own dining pleasure. That struck me as being way over the top and further makes him into a caricature of evil rather than a true menacing figure. It also might take a toll on the populace too.

[NeoTiamat]

I'm one of those other people who tends to get crazy about the size of Ravenloft. Well, that and its age, but I won't go there.

Regarding measures, there was a thread not too long ago about wolves in Kartakass where I and some others show themselves as militantly nerdy and actually calculate how many wolves Kartakass can support. [http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... +kartakass]

My numbers were completely un-scientific, since I had to make a large number of assumptions, but I think it came out that at 'Canon size', Kartakass, supposedly utterly crawling with wolves, could support three packs of them at the most.

I think the general consensus that came out of that thread was that either you had to multiply the size of the Core a fair bit (my chosen numbers were all distances by 8.333), or you had to accept that the Dark Powers were constantly upkeeping and rejiggering the domain ecologies and economies to make them work.

[alhoon]

Reading through the core book, I was amazed at how few people live in the various realms. I didn't have a calculator handy, but by my rough figuring, there are less then half a million people total in all the realms. I think that number is way too low to support a high medieval/early renaissance setting. Most realm populations are so small that they would be subsistence farmers at best, unable to support any industry, and definately not able to support opera houses, art galleries, etc. The major cities in Ravenloft nead to have a much larger population to really be considered cities. Even early medieval cities had way more population then the largest cities in Ravenloft. Thoughts?

Kane

IMO the people are few as you pointed, but this is because the Core is very small. About the size of Switzerland. How many people you think were living in Switzerland around 1300-1600?
If you add all the domains BTW you get 485000 people.


On the other hand as many people in this thread, I find the size restrictive and I have expanded the size of the Core. It is still small, just 4 times bigger, but it supports 2 million people now.

BTW: About Vampires: Back in the SotKargatane, we have calculated with Arijani that about 150-200 people were needed to feed a vampire that used shallow feeding and that it could go out and bite whoever he wanted when he wanted. Like the Lord of the village being a known vampire and biting 2 people each night.
Assuming the Vampire didn't had such a blood-tax and would prefer to keep a more low profile (like in Valachan, blaming the weakness to fever or something) he or she would need about 1000 people.